That was not the earth splitting open, Samiddhi. That was Mara…

When Māra repeatedly pesters the monk Samiddhi when he is on retreat, the Buddha encourages him to press on in his practice.

But even though the Buddha dropped such an obvious hint, such a clear sign, Ānanda didn’t beg the Buddha, ‘Sir, may the Blessed One please remain for the eon!’

How is Māra defined?

Those who see it like this see rightly.

Take a golden mountain,
made entirely of gold, and double it—
it’s still not enough for one!

The Buddha wonders whether it is possible to rule justly, without violence. Māra appears and encourages the Buddha to try it.

Then Mara the Evil One, in the presence of the Blessed One, recited these verses of disappointment…

He laments his failure with the similes of a crab whose limbs are smashed and a crow who tried to eat a stone.

Though many creatures crawl about,
Many terrors, flies, serpents,
The great sage gone to his empty hut
Stirs not a hair because of them.

Māra manifests as a huge serpent, but the Buddha remains unshaken.

The nights and days do not afflict me,
I see for myself no decline in the world.

The Buddha rests after being struck by stone splinters, and though Māra criticizes him for being lazy, the Buddha rests easy.

As a result of his theft of soma, Vedic Namuci is said to be “wicked”…

A possible Vedic origin for the Buddhist “devil.”

Mara the Evil One manifested himself in the form of an ox and approached those almsbowls.

Which is more valuable? An almsbowl, or a teaching from the Buddha?

Māra was largely a way to differentiate Buddhism from Hindu competitors by drawing on a number of Hindu stories and then subverting and redeploying their symbolism.

One to whom it might occur,
‘I’m a woman’ or ‘I’m a man’
Or ‘I’m anything at all’–
Is fit for Māra to address.

For Bhante Sujato’s reply to their debate, see his essay On deeds of war.

To approach what, for the want of a better term, we call the mythic portions of the Nikāyas with the attitude that such categories as “mythic symbol” and “literally true” are absolutely opposed is to adopt an attitude that is out of time and place. It seems to me that in some measure we must allow both a literal and a psychological interpretation. Both are there in the texts.

Note that I (~KhBh) have removed pages 206–210 from the linked PDF as they contain a lengthy and irrelevant digression into Mahāyāna doctrine. If you’re interested, you can find the full article here.

If a bhikkhu seeks delight in [the senses], welcomes them, and remains holding to them, he is called a bhikkhu who has swallowed Mara’s hook. He has met with calamity and disaster, and the Evil One can do with him as he wishes.

Sense pleasures are like a baited hook.