ethical bias than Hinduism was more conscious
of the existence of a Tempter, or a power that makes men sin. This power
is personified, but somewhat indistinctly, as Mara, originally and
etymologically a god of death. He is commonly called Mara the Evil
One[733], which corresponds to the Mrityuh papma of the Vedas, but as a
personality he seems to have developed entirely within the Buddhist
circle and to be unknown to general Indian mythology. In the thought of
the Pitakas the connection between death and desire is clear. The great
evils and great characteristics of the world are that everything in it
decays and dies and that existence depends on desire. Therefore the
ruler of the world may be represented as the god of desire and death.
Buddha and his saints struggle with evil and overcome it by overcoming
desire and this triumphant struggle is regarded as a duel with Mara, who
is driven off and defeated[734].

Even in his most mythological aspects, Mara is not a deity of Hell. He
presides over desire and temptation, not over judgment and punishment.
This is the function of Yama, the god of the dead, and one of the
Brahmanic deities who have migrated to the Far East. He has been adopted
by Buddhism, though no explanation is given of his status. But he is
introduced as a vague but effective figure--and yet hardly more than a
metaphor--whenever it is desired to personify the inflexible powers that
summon the living to the other world and there make them undergo, with
awful accuracy, the retribution due for their deeds. In a remarkable
passage[735] called Death's Messengers, it is related that when a sinner
dies he is led before King Yama who asks him if he never saw the three
messengers of the gods sent as warnings to mortals, namely an old man, a
sick man and a corpse. The sinner under judgment admits that he saw but
did not reflect and Yama sentences him to punishment, until suffering
commensurate to his sins has been inflicted.

Buddhism tells of many hells, of which Avici is the most terrible. They
are of course all temporary and therefore purgatories rather than places
of eternal punishment, and the beings who inhabit them have the power of
struggling upwards and acquiring merit[736], but the task is difficult
and one may be born repeatedly in hell. The phraseology of Buddhism
calls existences in heavens and hells new births. To us it seems more
natural to say that certain people are born again as men and that others