#anexsymbol

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So Satan will be Varsavarti. Just Varsavarti. And everyone will connect the blue flames to him. The catch is, Satan/Varsavarti/Mara is not the Mara that symbolizes desire. He's not the 'Mara' Suguro referred to when talking about the school festival. Varsavarti was so consumed by worldly attachments that he was seen as the (one of the?) physical representation(s) of Mara, and acted as a vessel for Mara.

Suguro would most likely be aware of that connection. I don't know if any of his ancestors would be.

If this is offensive, could you let me know now? Otherwise, I will assume it is not, and go ahead and write this.

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So apparently it wouldn't matter to a Buddhist even if Mara was mixed with some other high being.There's really no place to shoehorn a 'creator God of all devas' into Buddhism, as far as I can see. I might be wrong? And even if there was, it's all meaningless if they haven't attained enlightenment. Satan represents hedonism, greed, and self satisfaction. Now to decide if Blue Flames = Mara and everyone knows that or not. I'm guessing not. Suguro refers to Mara as a separate being, a spiritual entity instead of a demon he can physically find and kill. Maybe while Satan IS Mara, until Christianity came to Japan, no one knew that, and connected Satan with some other deva they knew very little about, and that was above the five wisdom kings in rank.

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I'm also trying to figure out if Satan would be straight Mara/Namuche/Papiyan/Varsavarti, or mixed with some of the highest ranking devas that ever existed. Since every demon that has ever spoke of him has called him 'divine.' Maybe the Buddhists just assume he's Mara, but the demons speak of some other divine being, who none of them know is actually The Evil One? What created the devas? (Help me ;_;)

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Rin sounds a bit like this guy. (Help I can't Buddhism.)