Mara

The Mara was an entity which tempted and bullied beings into allowing it to possess them. In physical form, it manifested as a giant snake or as a snake-shaped mark on the arm.

Early history
The Mara was an entity created from the evil in the minds of the people of the planet Manussa in the Scrampus system. It and given independent life via the Great Crystal, which the Manussans created in a zero gravity environment. The Mara then founded the Sumaran Empire. (DW: Snakedance) It existed in the minds of its victims and can transfer itself in the form of a tattoo-like mark, to those who yielded to it. It was so evil that it cannot bear the sight of its own reflection. In the Dark Places of the Inside, it manifested as Dukkha, Anatta, and Annica. (DW: Kinda)

On Manussa, the Mara was defeated and driven out by an ancestor of the future Federator and cast into the "dark places of the inside". (DW: Snakedance)

Later history
It was on the planet Deva Loka that the the Doctor, Tegan and Adric encountered the Mara. (Nyssa, meanwhile, rested in the TARDIS.) Tegan fell asleep listening to wind chimes and mentally entered the Dark Places of the Inside, where the Mara tormented her until she agreed to let Mara take over her body. The Mara possessed, Aris, one of the peaceful Kinda tribe. Kinda tradition did not allow men (other than "idiots") to speak. Aris called himself "Aris, He Who Has Voice" and began to rally them against Human colonists led by Hindle. The Doctor was able to prevent the humans detonating a bomb and managed to trap the Mara in a circle of mirrors and face itself, therefore, driving it back into the Dark Places of the Inside. (DW: Kinda) Tegan remained very shaken by the experience, as she confided to Nyssa afterward. (DW: The Visitation) Unknown to all, the Mara still had influence over Tegan. (DW: Snakedance)

Late, the Mara guided Tegan to take the Doctor's TARDIS to Manussa, the birthplace of the Mara, where a ceremony was to be held to mark the 500th anniversary of its banishment. The Mara used Tegan, the showman Dugdale, and the son of the Federator, Lon, to obtain the Great Crystal to restore itself to physical itself. The Doctor was guided by an old mystic named Dojjen who showed him how to find the "still point". When the Mara tried to make its return at the ceremony, the Doctor concentrated his thoughts with a small replica of the Great Crystal, and by finding the still point was able to repel the Mara. Then by grabbing the Great Crystal, the Doctor broke the Mara's hold over its controlled Manussans, and destroyed its new snake body. This time, the Mara had apparently been completely destroyed for good. (DW: Snakedance)

Minor references

 * Jack Harkness mentioned an alternate name for fairies: Mara. (TW: Small Worlds)
 * Whether this indicates a connection remains unknown.


 * The tenth incarnation of the Doctor mentions the Mara to his fifth incarnation when they met. (DW: Time Crash)

Mythology
Writer Christopher Bailey derived a demon from Buddhist mythology which, as in Doctor Who, symbolizes temptation. In Kinda, Dukkha, Panna, Karuna, Anatta and Annica's names and functions all derive from Buddhism as well.

The "Mara" mentioned in the Torchwood episode Small Worlds (quite possibly a deliberate reference to the Doctor Who Mara) come from Northern European mythology. The word "nightmare" comes from folklore about these Mara.

Other origins
The creation of the Mara as described in Snakedance has similarities to the origins of the Monster from the Id from the 1956 film Forbidden Planet. (Forbidden Planet also influenced the Doctor Who story Planet of Evil.)

Production
According to interviews with Bailey in Doctor Who: The Unfolding Text, the Mara in Kinda used temptation to behave in culturally disapproved-of ways. In Tegan's case, sensuality (or even sexuality), in Aris's case, aggression, which the Kinda regarded as abhorrent, especially when enacted by a male. Bailey did not welcome the addition of not-so-subtle indications of possession by the Mara, indicated by special effects, feeling instead that the acting of Janet Fielding, who played Tegan, and others, put the point across more than adequately. He particularly disliked the imagery of glowing red eyes which, he said, seemed to hark back to the Christian notion of the Devil.

Though the Mara stories have a great deal of respect among fans, Mara's appearance as a very unrealistic giant snake (especially in Kinda) has often been cited as an example of Doctor Who's budget letting it down.