What is "mara"

Mara \Ma"ra\, n. (Zo["o]l.) The Patagonian cavy, a hare-like rodent ( Dolichotis patagonum or Dolichotis Patagonicus) of the pampas of Argentina.

Mara \Ma"ra\, n. [Icel. mara nightmare, an ogress. See Nightmare.] (Norse Myth.) A female demon who torments people in sleep by crouching on their chests or stomachs, or by causing terrifying visions.

Mara \Ma"ra\, n. [Skr. m[=a]ra.] (Hind. Myth.) The principal or ruling evil spirit.
--E. Arnold.

Etymology 1 n. (context folklore English) A nightmare; a spectre or wraith-like creature in Germanic and particularly Scandinavian folklore; a female demon who torments people in sleep by crouching on their chests or stomachs, or by causing terrifying visions. Etymology 2

n. (context Buddhism English) A malicious or evil spirit. Etymology 3

n. Any caviid rodent of genus ''Dolichotis'', common in the Patagonian steppes of Argentina.

Mara may refer to:

Māra is the highest-ranking goddess in Latvian mythology, Mother Earth, a feminine counterpart to Dievs ( God). She may be thought as the alternate side of Dievs (like in Yin and Yang). Other Latvian goddesses, sometimes all of them, are considered her assistants, or alternate aspects. Māra may have been also the same goddess as Lopu māte, Piena Māte (Mother of the Milk), Veļu Māte (mother of the souls/spirits), Zemes Māte (Mother of the Earth), and many other "mothers", like of Wood, Water, Sea, Wind. Māra is also depicted in Latvian mythology as the goddess of good fortune.

She is the patroness of all feminine duties (children, cattle), patroness of all the economic activities ("God made the table, Māra made the bread"), even money and markets. Being the alternate side of Dievs, she takes a person's body after their death while Dievs is taking the soul. She is the goddess of land, which is called Māras zeme (Māra's land).

In western Latvia, and to a lesser degree in the rest of Latvia, she was strongly associated with Laima, and may have been considered the same deity.

The festival Māras was held in her honor every August 15. This is probably a result of Christian influence and identification of Māra with Mary, whose main festival ( the Assumption) has fallen on the same date since early times. Opinions are divided over whether Māra is a pre-Christian deity, or originated as a reflection of the Christian Mary created by semi-Christian Livonian peasants.

Alternative names: Māre, Mārīte ( diminutive), Mārša, Māršava (Western Latvia).

Mara ( Sanskrit: māra; ; Tibetan Wylie: bdud; ; ; ; ), in Buddhism, is the demon that tempted Gautama Buddha by trying to seduce him with the vision of beautiful women who, in various legends, are often said to be Mara's daughters. In Buddhist cosmology, Mara personifies unwholesome impulses, unskillfulness, the "death" of the spiritual life. She is a tempter, distracting humans from practising the spiritual life by making mundane things alluring, or the negative seem positive.

The maras (Dolichotis) are a genus of the cavy family. They are the sole representatives of the subfamily Dolichotinae. These large relatives of guinea pigs are common in the Patagonian steppes of Argentina, but also live in Paraguay and elsewhere in South America. Maras are the fourth-largest rodent in the world, after capybaras, beavers, and porcupines, reaching about in height.

Two species of maras are recognised, the Patagonian mara (Dolichotis patagonum), and the Chacoan mara (Dolichotis salinicola).

Dolichotis means ‘long-earred’ (from ‘long’ + ‘ear’) in Ancient Greek.

A mara (or marabunta) is a form of gang originating in the United States and which spread to Central American countries such as El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

Mara is a Sanskrit word meaning "death" or any personification thereof.

In Hinduism, generally, the word "Mara" would be used in the same way that Western popular culture sometimes depicts a grim reaper. This is meant not to represent a literal character that would receive worship or appear in scripture, but rather an active force which acts on people's lives.

Mara is a Romanian supermarket chain operating 2 supermarkets in Focşani.

Mara is the ninth album by Scottish Celtic rock group Runrig, released in 1995. The title means 'of the sea' in Scots Gaelic. It is the last album featuring Donnie Munro on vocals and the fifth and final album released on Chrysalis records.

The MARA is a portable one-shot 78 mm unguided anti-tank weapon, designed and manufactured in Argentina by Fabricaciones Militares (DGFM). The solid rocket propulsion unit was developed by CITEFA.

Māra is a Latvian feminine given name. The associated name day is March 25.

The Mara is a fictional monster in the long-running British science fiction television series, Doctor Who. It is a being of pure hatred, anger and greed, and requires the fear of its victims to survive. It exists in the minds of its victims and can transmit itself telepathically, although it can also physically manifest as a giant snake. It is so evil that it cannot bear the sight of its own reflection. In the Dark Places of the Inside, it manifests as phantoms such as Dukkha (played by Jeff Stewart), Anatta (played by Anna Wing), and Annica (played by Roger Milner).

The Mara was created on the planet Manussa in the Scrampus system, turning the Manussan empire into the Sumaran empire. Eventually the Mara was defeated and driven out by a Manussan (the ancestor of the future Manussan Federator) and cast into the "dark places beyond". However, it survived.

In Kinda, the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric encountered the Mara on the planet Deva Loka. When Tegan fell asleep near the wind chimes on Deva Loka, she became possessed by the Mara. It soon left her and possessed a native Kinda named Aris, who began to stir up the normally peaceful Kinda against an expedition of human colonists who were also present on Deva Loka. The Doctor was able to prevent the humans detonating a bomb which would have destroyed their dome and killed many Kinda, and managed to trap the Mara in a circle of mirrors. As the Mara could not bear to see its own reflection, it was driven out to the Dark Places of the Inside.

In Snakedance, Tegan became possessed by the Mara once again. She then navigated the TARDIS to Manussa, where a ceremony was to be held to mark the 500th anniversary of the banishment of the Mara. Using Tegan and a young Manussan named Lon, the Mara tried to obtain the "great crystal" with which it hoped to restore its corporeal existence. The Doctor was guided by Dojjen, an old mystic who showed him how to find the "still point". When the Mara tried to make its return at the ceremony, the Doctor concentrated his thought 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 victims, and destroyed its new snake body. This time, the Mara had apparently been permanently destroyed.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the Mara has retreated deeper into Tegan's mind. The Mara is revisited in the 2010 audio story The Cradle of the Snake, when it erupts in Tegan yet again. The Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Turlough search for a cure on Manussa, but hundreds of years in its past, when it was still an industrialized civilization. The Mara moves beyond Tegan and finally manages to possess both Nyssa and the Doctor, before finally being destroyed through an array of cameras and televisions.

In the Torchwood episode " Small Worlds", Jack speculates that "fairies" may be "part Mara". However, his noting of "Mara" as the origin of the word "nightmare" and their ability to steal the breath from their victims suggests that he is referring to the Mara of Germanic/Scandinavian mythology rather than the Manussan Mara. Christopher Bailey, writer of Snakedance and Kinda, was a practising Buddhist and named Doctor Who's Mara after the Buddhist demon Mara. The two names share a common Proto-Indo-European root.

The Mara was mentioned by the Tenth Doctor in the 2007 Children in Need special " Time Crash".

The Mara is an Italian stream (or torrente) of Insubria, which runs through the Italian Province of Como and the Swiss Canton Ticino. It rises on the slopes of Monte Sighignola and enters Lake Lugano at Maroggia.

Despite the small size of its drainage basin the river is able to provide a source of hydro-electricity through a power station belonging to the Aziende industriali di Lugano.

The Mara’s water level is liable to rapid and unpredictable augmentation following sudden storms.

Category:Rivers of Ticino Category:Rivers of Lombardy Category:Rivers of the Province of Como Category:International rivers of Europe Category:Tributaries of Lake Lugano Category:Rivers of Switzerland

Mara (also known as Mura) refers to a tribe in Arunachal Pradesh. The Mara are ethnically Tagin although they claim to be a separate group, just like the Nga to the north, but they acknowledge a common ancestry. Like the Nga, the Mara also engage in barter trade with the Tibetans in the north prior to the closure of the Indo-Tibetan border in view of the 1962 Sino-Indian War. They traded ornaments, Tibetan dao from the Tibetans in the north and Mithun, tribal masks, animal hides and dyes of plants from the Nishi and Sulung on the south.

The Mara inhabit in Limeking in Upper Subansiri, just south of Taksing which is inhabited by the Nga. The Mara believed that they were descended from two brothers, Kangra and Mara, who came from Nyime ( Tibet) and settled in the region. Like other Tagins, the Mara subscribe to the Donyi Polo faith but have come under considerable Tibetan Buddhist influence as a result of centuries of interactions with the Tibetans in the north.

Mara can be either a surname or a female first name. As a surname, it may be:

• Irish: a shortened form of O’Mara;
• Hungarian: from a pet form of the personal names Márkus (Hungarian form of Marcus or Mark) or Márton (Hungarian form of Martin), or from a short form of the old ecclesiastical name Marcel;
• Czech (Mára): from a pet form of the personal name Marek or Martin.

Mara as a female first name is pronounced MAHR-ah most of the time, but can be pronounced as rhyming with Sarah in Jewish-American and Southern United States culture. It is of Hebrew origin, and the meaning of Mara is "bitter", which carries the implication "strength". Biblical: Naomi, mother-in-law of Ruth, claimed the name Mara as an expression of grief after the deaths of her husband and sons. It also means "Lady" in Aramaic, because Mar means "Lord", and is a title of bishops in the Syriac Christian church. It is also the name of a bitter lake in the Bible, and a title of the Kabbalistic sephira Binah. Marah, an alternate spelling, means joy in Arabic and can be a unisex name. (Ar:مرح)

May also be used as a Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Greek or Eastern European variant of Mary, Marianna, Maria, Marzanna and as a short form of Tamara. It is a variant of Maura, an Anglicization of the Irish name Máire, the Irish name of Mary, or the Scottish name Moira. It can also be a feminine version of Mauro, meaning a dark-skinned person. In Hindu, and Southeast Asian Buddhist cultures, it is etymologically related to the Sanskrit terms Mala (rosary), Mallika (jasmine) or Mayura (peacock) and is a unisex name or a surname, etymologically unrelated to anything demonic in Sino-Tibetan and modern Indic languages because the letters R and L are sometimes conflated (cf. in Japanese). It is a popular name in Latin America and the United States, for it has been in the top 1000 in the United States since 1950.