The Devil's Conversion
A Buddhist story on the nature of evil and the role of change in everything
Some years after Mara failed to stop Siddhartha from becoming the Buddha, a monk named Upagupta began teaching the way to liberate oneself from suffering. He was such a good teacher and convinced so many people to let go of their material obsessions that it shook the devil’s house to the very foundation. Political leaders only have as much power as people are willing to grant them. The prince of the earth was no different. With droves of people no longer enthralled to money, sex, and power, the devil’s dominion was emptying out.
The stage was set for another world-shattering confrontation, only this time the Mara would not bring his armies of soldiers and seducers. Instead, he would attack the faith and defame Buddha’s teachings. Finally, Mara would appear to this Upagupta while he was in Samadhi, that state between worlds reachable through deep meditation, and he would break the man by making him break his own laws…
Like the Buddha, Upagupta was a historical person who came so close to living an ideal that it can be difficult to distinguish what actually happened from the myths that surround his life.
What is probably true was the fact that he was a spiritual teacher to King Ashoka, monarch of a vast Indian empire who came about as close to being a real-life world Chakravarti as the world ever got. One of the earliest appearances of the story of Upagupta’s confrontation with Mara can be found in the Ashokavadana, a history of King Ashoka’s reign similar in style to the Greek histories of Herodotus. It contains both facts and legends and leaves it up to the reader to decide how much they want to believe actually happened.
Ashoka starts his reign as a tyrant. Having deceived and murdered his own step-brother to acquire the throne, Ashoka has 500 ministers executed for not being loyal enough, and a further 500 courtesans from his harem murdered over a perceived slight. Then he built “Ashoka’s Hell”, a gorgeous palace with flowers and fruit trees that drew visitors in only to reveal a massive torture chamber hidden below. Once visitors became aware of the building’s horrors, it was too late. Ashoka ordered that none who entered “The Beautiful Jail” would leave alive.
Starting to see a pattern?
The ruler of a vast empire who would become Upagupta’s disciple is the devil’s spitting image, right down to the seductive palace filled with endless torments. How could this master of deception, builder of an ancient Indian Hotel California, and real-life prince of the earth not be a stand-in for the devil himself?
Then something strange happens. A Buddhist monk is taken into the bowels of the torture palace and is not only completely unaffected by the methods and instruments devised by Ashoka’s best sadists, he becomes enlightened as he’s being tortured.
Incredulous to the idea that the miracle of bliss could possibly emerge from torment like a lotus from the muck, the king descends into his hell. There, Ashoka meets the enlightened monk who so impresses him with his equanimity that he converts on the spot, vowing to build 84,000 meditation halls and use his power to protect the safety of all beings. In the years that followed, the men and women who once called their king “Ashoka the Fierce” would replace the sobriquet with a new one: “Ashoka the Righteous”.
What does all this have to do with Mara vs Upagupta? Well, Upagupta only became King Ashoka’s teacher after he had already converted to Buddhism. Because Upagupta would become a major figure in Buddhist history, legends spread of his great deeds. From Gilgamesh to Wyatt Earp, the deeds of mythical heroes are often the amalgamation of several remarkable people’s lives combined and given epic proportion.
It’s possible that the tale of King Ashoka’s conversion became mythologized as the legend of Mara’s conversion, with Upagupta’s role as the converter giving him the qualifications to Ashoka’s spiritual teacher.
Upagupta’s showdown with the devil is rife with mythic symbolism. When unpacked, it offers a guide for how to deal with our own demons of desire as well as a means of turning the terrifying reality of impermanence into a force for personal transformation.
Embrace the change next week.
We each have to descend into that palace—and that place is in us