[7][8][9] There is no definite answer among scientists about the time of origin of the word. leaving a bundle of hay in one's bed and going to sleep in another room. Mora or Mara is one of the spirits from ancient Slav mythology. MARA is about sleep paralysis. This page was last edited on 4 October 2020, at 13:48. [17], Mara has been prominently featured in the Megami Tensei video game series as a demon. When she finally uncovers the secret to the patterns of why and when Mara chooses her victims, she reveals a powerful message about dealing with one of the hardest parts of the human condition. Mara stands for those patterns of behavior that long for the security of clinging to something real and permanent rather than facing the question posed by being a transient and contingent creature. [20], The Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp, "The Denkōroku: The Record of the Transmission of the Light", "The Buddha's Encounters with Mara the Tempter: Their Representation in Literature and Art", "The Buddha's encounters with Mara, the Tempter: their representation in Literature and Art", The Buddha's Encounters with Mara the Tempter: Their Representation in Literature and Art, Basic points unifying Theravāda and Mahāyāna, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mara_(demon)&oldid=977088911, Articles containing Sanskrit-language text, Articles containing Japanese-language text, Instances of Lang-ja using second unnamed parameter, Articles containing Chinese-language text, Articles containing Burmese-language text, Articles containing Sinhala-language text, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2018, Pages containing links to subscription-only content, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Ling, Trevor O. Why does Mara mark some of her victims and then eventually kill them and why only at certain times in history? Viewed 847 times 4. A Mare (Old English: mære, Old Dutch: mare, Proto-Slavic *mara; mara in Old High German, Old Norse, and Swedish) is a malicious entity in Germanic and Slavic folklore that rides on people's chests while they sleep, bringing on bad dreams (or "nightmares"). Hi guys! Inspired by the story of Mara’s distraction of the Buddha, "Mara" describes Garratt's experience of intrusive thoughts. According to the philologist Yeleazar Meletinsky, the Proto-Slavonic root "mara" passed into the Germanic language no later than the 1st century BC.[10]. [2] These in turn come from Proto-Germanic *marōn. Bjordvand, Harald and Lindeman, Fredrik Otto (2007). This posture is also referred to as the bhūmisparśa "earth-witness" mudra. German Folklorist Franz Felix Adalbert Kuhn records a Westphalian charm or prayer used to ward off mares, from Wilhelmsburg near Paderborn: Such charms are preceded by the example of the Münchener Nachtsegen of the fourteenth century (See Elf under §Medieval and early modern German texts). In the north-western Russian and South-Russian traditions, the mara means a female character, similar to kikimora. According to other sources, the mara is black, shaggy (olonets, tul. "Mara's army is just as real to us today as it was to the Buddha. (1962). The Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp and the Denkoroku both contain a story of Mara's conversion to Buddhism under the auspices of the monk Upagupta. [13], According to the Vatnsdæla saga, Thorkel Silver (Þorkell Silfri) has a dream about riding a red horse that barely touched ground, which he interpreted as a positive omen, but his wife disagreed, explaining that a mare signified a man's fetch (fylgja), and that the red color boded bloodiness. A very common belief was that one would become a mare if they mispronounced a prayer - e.g. The belief probably originated as an explanation to the Polish plait phenomenon, a hair disease. "[30] In Estonia, the mare-like spirit is called Painaja (presser) or Külmking (cold-shoe). The former source includes a gatha that Mara recited when his suffering was lifted: Adoration to the Master of the three samādhis, [24] People believed that the mare drained people - as well as cattle and horses - of energy and/or blood at night. In 2020, the singer-songwriter Jack Garratt released a song entitled "Mara". [8], The mare is attested as early as in the Norse Ynglinga saga from the 13th century. Mara returned to the human world where he prostrated before the monk and repented. To repel moras, children are advised to look at the window or to turn the pillow and make a sign of cross on it (prekrstiti jastuk); in the early 19th century, Vuk Karadžić mentions that people would repel moras by leaving a broom upside down behind the door, or putting their belt on top of their sheets, or saying an elaborate prayer poem before they go to sleep.[29]. The mare was also believed to "ride" horses, which left them exhausted and covered in sweat by the morning. The affected cannot speak or move for a couple of minutes and it can be very terrifying! It is a common belief that mora enters the room through the keyhole, sits on the chest of the sleepers and tries to strangle them (hence moriti, "to torture", "to bother", "to strangle", "umoriti", "to tire", "to kill", "umor", "tiredness" and "umoran", "tired"). 450-1100)-language text, Articles containing Old Dutch-language text, Articles containing Old Norse-language text, Articles containing Swedish-language text, Articles containing Icelandic-language text, Articles containing Faroese-language text, Articles containing Norwegian-language text, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2012, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2014, Articles lacking reliable references from January 2014, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. To the sage disciple of the ten powers. [28] In Romania they were known as Moroi. Zmoraś Mario instead of Zdrowaś Mario (an inverted version of Hail Mary[23]). The latter is a name for death personified and is sometimes identified with Yama. Scenes with Mara are what you would expect from something nightmarish- she is oddly shaped, has scraggly hair and is mostly in the shadows. Is Mara a real being or something internal, produced by our own minds? She could also entangle the hair of the sleeping man or beast, resulting in "marelocks", called marflätor ("mare-braids") or martovor ("mare-tangles") in Swedish or marefletter and marefloker in Norwegian. ', Learn how and when to remove this template message, Siida – Staalon ja maahisten maa – Kertojien perilliset, "The Viking Age: The Early History, Manners, and Customs of the ancestors of the English-speaking Nations", The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Treatises on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mare_(folklore)&oldid=981798183, Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text, Articles with dead external links from January 2018, Articles with permanently dead external links, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles needing additional references from January 2014, All articles needing additional references, Articles containing Old English (ca.