Mara has been prominently featured in the "Megami Tensei" video game series as a demon. Within the series, Mara is portrayed as a large, phallic creature, often shown riding a golden chariot. His phallic body and innuendo-laden speech are based on a pun surrounding the word "mara", a Japonic word for "penis" that is attested as early as 938 CE in the "Wamyō Ruijushō", a Japanese dictionary of Chinese characters. According to the Sanseido dictionary, the word was originally used as a euphemism for "penis" among Buddhist monks, which references sensual lust as an obstacle to enlightenment.