This sutta serves as a showcase for Moggallāna, who is able to swiftly best Māra and recount a detailed story of past lives.

Māra is sometimes called Namuci, and in fact seems to descend from the Vedic adversary of that name. Vedic Namuci “the wicked” (pāpmā vai namuciḥ, Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 12.7.3, Maitrāyaṇī Saṁhitā 4.4.4) was a wily trickster (māyin, Rig Veda 1.53.7c) who was nonetheless outsmarted by Indra (Rig Veda 5.30.6c), and possessed ineffectual armies reliant on women (Rig Veda 5.30.9a). Buddhist Māra “the wicked” (māro pāpimā) was a wily trickster (passim) who was nonetheless outsmarted by the Buddha and his followers (passim); he possessed ineffectual armies (DN 20:21.3, AN 4.13:2.3, Snp 3.2), and sent his daughters to do his dirty work (SN 4.25). The decapitated head of Namuci introduced death (mṛtyu) in the form of blood to the deathless (amṛta) soma (Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 12.7.3.4, Maitrāyaṇī Saṁhitā 4.4.4), establishing his Pali names Maccurāja, “King of Death” and Māra, “Death”. He appears in a similar guise in Jainism too (Ācaraṅga 1.3.1.3).

T 66 has 猶若食豆, MA 131 猶如食豆, both of which confirm the sense “full of beans”. T 67 on the other hand has 飢人而負重擔, “like a hungry man bearing a heavy load.”

Dūsī the “corrupter” and Kāḷī the “dark lady”, an early mention of a goddess of that name. | This story is also told at Thag 20.1:48.1.

Kakusandha is also mentioned at SN 12.7:1.1, SN 15.20:2.8, DN 14:1.4.4, DN 32:3.8, and Thag 7.5:4.4.

At AN 3.20:2.1, vidhura is the cleverness of a shopkeeper in trade, illustrating the “indefatigable” mendicant in striving.

Sañjīva means “survivor”.

The idiom āgatiṁ vā gatiṁ vā, literally “comings and goings”, refers to the “course of rebirth”.

Māra urges and encourages, but does not control their behavior, so they are still responsible for their deeds.

The phrase “meditate and concentrate and contemplate and ruminate” (jhāyanti pajjhāyanti nijjhāyanti apajjhāyanti) uses a series of verbs from the same root as jhāna with different prefixes to satirical effect. See also AN 6.46:2.2, AN 11.9:2.10, and MN 108:26.4.

These meditations counteract the tendency to anger.

Māra did not want to genuinely respect the mendicants, but to corrupt them with adulation.

These meditations counteract attachment.

Yeva (“still”) has an adversative sense here (see AN 3.82:1.4).

Nāgāpalokitaṁ, the “elephant look”, was famously employed by the Buddha as he made his final departure from Vesālī (DN 16:4.1.2). There is a similar Sanskrit term siṁhāvalokana, the “lion look”, said to be the slow glance back that a lion makes as he leaves his kill.

The Pali sahāpalokanāya makes it clear that Māra fell to hell while the Buddha was looking, not because he looked. | More details on hell are provided in MN 129 and MN 130.

The hell “Related to the Six Fields of Contact” and its corresponding heaven are further discussed at SN 35.135. | The sense of paccattavedaniya (“Uniquely Painful”) is clarified in the verses (MN 50:24.6).

I think vuṭṭhānimaṁ (“this is emergence”) simply means the feeling that is experienced on “emergence” from the Great Hell to the annex. The commentary, however, says it means the “feeling that emerges as a result of kamma”.

SN 51.14.

MN 37:11.4.

In MN 37, Moggallāna calls him Kosiya, but Vāsava is also frequently used as vocative for Sakka.

Moggallāna asked Sakka if he remembered the teaching on this topic that he had received from the Buddha (MN 37:8.1). | The compound taṇhākkhayavimuttiyo is translated as a feminine plural by Norman in Elders’ Verses, but MN 37:2.2 refers to “the mendicant who is freed” in singular. Resolve to taṇhākkhayavimutti yo; vimutti agrees with yo as the nominative singular of the masculine agent noun in -in, which occurs in the same phrase at AN 4.38:6.2 and Iti 55:4.2.

This retells the events of SN 6.5, but there there is no mention of the Hall of Justice.

SN 6.5.

The commentary to Thag 20.1:69.1 says that this verse was added at the Council.