A History of Sanskrit Literature c8.10

c8.10

Though death is the path of Yama, and he must consequently have been regarded with a certain amount of fear, he is not yet in the *Rigveda*, as in the *Atharvaveda* and the later mythology, a god of death. The owl and pigeon are occasionally mentioned as emissaries of Yama, but his regular messengers are two dogs which guard the path trodden by the dead proceeding to the other world.