Siddhartha's battle with Mara

Siddhartha's battle with Mara

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This is a painted mural that can be found in Thailand about Siddhartha's battle with Mara. The story goes that while Siddhartha or Buddha Gautama was meditating trying to reach enlightenment, he was assaulted under the bodhi tree by the demon named Mara, who is often said to be the tempter. Mara used violence, sensory pleasure, and mockery to try to prevent Siddhartha from attaining enlightenment because he was afraid that Siddhartha would. Mara tempted Siddhartha with his daughters but Siddhartha was not moved. So Mara stood up with an army against him and Siddhartha touched the ground and it shook. Mara was defeated by Siddhartha and after the battle, it rained down lotus flowers. In the Buddhist religion, Mara is considered the one who distracts people from practicing Buddhist dharma. Mara is considered the negative quality's found in human's egos and psyche. The mural depicts Siddhartha in the top left corner meditating in the position that he was in when he touched the ground and defeated Mara. Below Siddhartha is one of Mara's daughters, and the rest of the mural is filled with the army that Mara raised against Siddhartha taking up the middle and right side of the painting. This mural is fulled with many details and interesting pieces that a viewer can continue to pick out. The picture of the mural was found on Wikimedia Commons and all rights go to the user Hdamm.

Jess Davis

Hdamm. AngThongWThaSuthawat-0609e. N.p.: Wikimedia Commons, 21 Sept. 2008. JPG.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AngThongWThaSuthawat-0609e.jpg

Buddhism: REL 222, Arts of Asia: ART 276

Dec. 9th-Dec.10th, 2015

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Paint

English

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