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Vedic Mythology c9.s4: § 77. Yama

Vedic Mythology c9.s4

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§ 77. Yama

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The chief of the blessed dead is Yama. Reflexion on the future life being remote from the thoughts of the poets of the RV., only three hymns (10, 14. 135. 154) are addressed to Yama. There is besides one other (10, 10) consisting of a dialogue between Yama and his sister Yamī. Yama’s name occurs about 50 times in the RV. but almost exclusively in the first and (far oftener) in the tenth book.

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He revels with the gods (7, 76⁴; 10, 135¹). Individual gods with whom he is referred to, are Varuṇa (10, 14⁷), Bṛhaspati (10, 13⁴. 14³), and especially Agni, who as conductor of the dead would naturally be in close relations with him. Agni is the friend (*kāmya*) of Yama (10, 21⁵) and his priest (10, 52³). A god (10, 51¹) and Yama (who by implication are identical) found the hiding Agni (ib.³). Agni, Yama, Mātariśvan are mentioned together as the names of the one being (1, 164⁴⁶). Yama is also mentioned in enumerations of gods including Agni (10, 64³. 92¹¹).

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Thus it is implied that Yama is a god. He is, however, not expressly called a god, but only a king (9, 113⁸; 10, 14 passim), who rules the dead (*yamárājñaḥ*: 10, 16⁹). Yama and god Varuṇa are the two kings whom the dead man sees on reaching heaven (10, 14⁷). Throughout one of the hymns devoted to his praise (10, 14) he is associated with the departed fathers, particularly with the Aṅgirases (vv.³·⁵). With them he comes to the sacrifice and is exhilerated (vv. ³·⁴. 15⁸). Later texts (TA. 6, 5²; Āp. ŚS. 16, 6) make mention of the steeds of Yama, which are described as golden-eyed and iron-hoofed. He is a gatherer of the people (10, 14¹), gives the dead man a resting place (10, 14⁹; AV. 18, 2³⁷) and prepares an abode for him (10, 18¹³).

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Yama’s dwelling is in the remote recess of the sky (9, 113⁸). Of the three heavens two belong to Savitṛ and one to Yama¹ (1, 35⁶ cp. 10, 123⁶), this being the third and highest (cp. § 73). The VS. (12, 63) speaks of him along with Yāmī as being in the highest heaven. In his abode (*sādana*²) which is the home of the gods (*devamāna*) Yama is surrounded by songs and the sound of the flute (10, 135⁷).

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Soma is pressed for Yama, ghee is offered to him (10, 14¹³. ¹⁴), and he is besought to come to the sacrifice and place himself on the seat (10, 14⁴). He is invoked to lead his worshippers to the gods and to prolong life (10, 14¹⁴).

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His father is Vivasvat (10, 14⁵) with whom Saraṇyū is mentioned as his mother (10, 17¹). He is also several times called by the patronymic Vaivasvata (10, 14¹, &c.). This trait is Indo-Iranian, for in the Avesta Vīvaṅhvant, as the first man who pressed Soma, is said to have received Yima as a son³ in reward. In the AV. (18, 2³² cp. 3⁶¹⁻²) Yama is described as superior to Vivasvat, being himself surpassed by none.

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In their dialogue in the RV. (10, 10⁴) Yama and Yamī call themselves children of Gandharva and the water nymph (*apyā yoṣā*)⁴. Yamī further speaks of Yama (v. ³) as the ‘only mortal’. In another hymn Yama is said to have chosen death and abandoned his body (10, 13⁴)⁵. He passed⁶ to the other world, finding out the path for many, to where the ancient fathers passed away (10, 14¹· ²). He was the first of mortals that died (AV. 18, 3¹³). Here ‘mortals’ can only mean ‘men’, though later even gods are spoken of as mortal⁷. As first and oldest of the dead he would easily be regarded as the chief of the dead that followed him⁸. He is called ‘lord of settlers’ (*viśpati*)⁹, ‘our father’ (10, 135¹). Through Yama men come in later texts to be described as descendants of Vivasvān ādityaḥ¹⁰ (TS. 6, 5, 6² cp. ŚB. 3, 1, 3⁴; RV. 1, 105⁹). Even in the RV. Yama seems to be connected with the sun; for the heavenly courser (the sun) ‘given by Yama’ probably means the solar abode granted by Yama to those who become immortal (1, 163² cp. 83⁵).

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Death is the path of Yama (1, 38⁵) and once (1, 165⁴; cp. MS. 2, 5⁶; AV. 6, 28³¹. 93¹) he appears to be identified with death (*mṛtyu*)¹¹. Yama’s foot-fetter (*paḍbīśa*) is spoken of as parallel to the bond of Varuṇa¹² (10, 97¹⁶). Owing to such traits and also to his messengers, Yama must to a certain extent have been an object of fear in the RV. But in the AV. and the later mythology Yama, being more closely associated with the terrors of death, came to be the god of death (though even in the Epic his sphere is by no means limited to hell)¹³. In the later Saṃhitās Yama is mentioned beside Antaka, the Ender, Mṛtyu, Death (VS. 39, 13), and Nirṛti, Decease (AV. 6, 29³; MS. 2, 5⁶), and Mṛtyu is his messenger (AV. 5, 30¹²; 18, 2²⁷, &c.). In the AV. Death is said to be the lord of men, Yama of the Manes (AV. 5, 24¹³⁻⁴), and Sleep comes from Yama’s realm (19, 56¹ &c.).

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The word *yamá* has also the appellative meaning of ‘twin’¹⁴, in which sense it occurs several times in the RV. (generally in the dual masculine or feminine), while *yáma*, which is found a few times in the RV., means ‘rein’ or guide’. Yamá actually is a twin with Yamī in the RV. (10, 10)¹⁵. The sense of ‘twin’ also seems to belong to Yima in the Avesta (Yasna 30, 3). A sister of Yima is mentioned, not in the Avesta, but in the later literature¹⁶ only, as Yimeh, who with her brother produces the first human couple. At a later period of Indian literature, when Yama had become the god of death who punishes the wicked, the name was understood to be derived from *yam*, ‘to restrain’¹⁷, but this derivation is not in keeping with the ideas of the Vedic age.

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A bird, either the owl (*ulūka*) or the pigeon (*kapota*), is said to be the messenger (10, 165⁴ cp. 123⁶)¹⁸ of Yama apparently identified with death. The messenger of Yama and of death would therefore appear to be the same (AV. 8, 8¹¹). Yama’s regular messengers, however, of whom a fuller account is given (10, 14¹⁰⁻¹²), are two dogs. They are four-eyed, broad-nosed, brindled (*śabala*), brown (*udumbala*), sons of Saramā (*sārameya*). They are guardians that guard the path (10, 14¹¹) or sit on the path (AV. 18, 2¹²). The dead man is exhorted to hasten straight past these two dogs and to join the fathers who rejoice with Yama (10, 14¹⁰); and Yama is besought to deliver him to them and to grant him welfare and freedom from disease. Delighting in lives (*asutṛp*) they watch men and wander about among the peoples as Yama’s messengers. They are entreated to grant continued enjoyment of the light of the sun. Their functions therefore seem to consist in tracking out among men those who are to die, and in keeping guard on the path over those who enter the realm of Yama. In the Avesta a four-eyed yellow-eared dog keeps watch at the head of the Cinvaṭ bridge¹⁹, which leads from this world to the next, and with his barking scares away the fiend from the souls of the holy ones, lest he should drag them to hell²⁰. There does not seem to be sufficient evidence for supposing that the two dogs of Yama were regarded as keeping out the souls of the wicked, though it is quite possible that they were so regarded²¹. If, however. RV. 7, 55²⁻⁵ is rightly interpreted by AUFRECHT²², the object of the dogs was to exclude the wicked. In the AV. the messengers of Yama, sent by him among men, are spoken of both in the plural (AV. 8, 2¹¹. 8¹¹) and the dual (AV. 5, 30⁶). Of the two dogs one is described as *śabala*, ‘brindled’ and the other as *śyāma*, ‘dark’ (AV. 8, 1⁹). The word *śabala* has been identified with Κέρβερος²³, but this equation has been called in question²⁴. BERGAIGNE (1, 93) thinks the two dogs are simply another form of Yama (as fire) and Yamī; and the trait of the later mythology, which represents Yama as coming to fetch the dead himself, is regarded by him as primary (1, 92). BLOOMFIELD²⁵ identifies Yama’s two dogs with sun and moon²⁶.

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² This abode (also AV. 2, 127; 18 2⁵⁶. 3⁷⁰), which seems always to mean the world of Yama or the place of burial TA. 6, 7, 2⁶ cp. RV. 10, 18¹³) is understood by PVS. 1, 242 to refer to a ‘chapel of Yama’. A *harmya* of Yama, spoken of in AV. 18, 4⁵⁵, is understood by EHNI

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The most probable conclusion to be drawn from all the available evidence seems to be, that Yama represents a mythological type found among the most diverse peoples, that of the chief of the souls of the departed. This would naturally follow from his being the mythical first father of mankind and the first of those that died. The myth of the primeval twins that produced the human race, Yama and Yamī = Yima and Yimeh²⁷, seems to be Indo-Iranian. The attempt to clear Yama of the guilt of incest in RV. 10, 10, shows that the belief in that incest already existed²⁸. Yama himself may have been regarded in the Indo-Iranian period as a king of a golden age, since in the Avesta he is the ruler of an earthly²⁹, and in RV. that of a heavenly paradise. That Yama was originally conceived as a man, is the view of ROTH and other scholars³⁰. E. H. MEYER, thinking Yamī to be a later creation like Indrāṇī and others, believes that Yama, the twin, originally represented the soul as the *alter ego*³¹. A number of other scholars believe that Yama originally represented a phenomenon of nature. Some think he was a form of Agni³², the sun³³, the parting day³⁴, or the setting sun and thus god of the dead³⁵. HILLEBRANDT³⁶ thinks Yama is the moon, in which dying is typical, and thus the mortal child of the sun and closely connected with the Manes. He considers him, however, to have been a moon-god in the Indo-Iranian period only, but no longer so in either the Avesta or the Veda, where he is merely king of a terrestrial paradise or of the realm of the Blest.

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¹ By LRV. 4, 134 regarded as a hell.

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to mean ‘tomb’ (cp, SVL. 138). — ^3 Cp. Roth, ZDMG. 2, 218. — ^4 MM., with Sāyaṇa, regards these two as identical with Vivasvat and Saraṇyū. — ^5 The interpretation is doubtful, cp. SVL. 146. — ^6 Cp. Roth, Nir. Erl. 138; SVL. 113. — ^7 HRI. 128. — ^8 KHF. 21; SVL. 137. — ^9 *Viśpati* is often said of Agni, once or twice of Indra and Varuṇa. — ^1^0 Cp. Roth, IS. 14, 393. — ^1^1 But the passage may mean ‘Yama (and) Death’. — ^1^2 Cp. Bloomfield, AJP. 11, 354—5. — ^1^3 SVL. 155. — ^1^4 Op. cit. 142, note 1. — ^1^5 Yama and Yamī mentioned together as in heaven: TS. 4, 2, 53; VS. 12, 63; ŚB. 7, 2, 1^1^0; TA. 6, 4^2. — ^1^6 Spiegel, Eranische Altertumskunde 1, 527. — ^1^7 This is also the explanation of Grassmann, KZ. 11, 13; Leumann, KZ. 32, 301. — ^1^8 SVL. 130, note 3. — ^1^9 There is no reason to assume such a bridge in RV. 9, 41^2 (cp. SVL. 110) nor a river (Weber, Indische Skizzen 10) in RV. 10, 63^1^0 (cp. SVL. 111). — ^2^0 SBE. 4^2, lxxiv. — ^2^1 AIL. 419; SVL. 127. 152; ORV. 538. — ^2^2 IS. 4, 341 ff.; cp. AIL. 421; KRV. note 274. — ^2^3 Benfey, Vedica und Verwandtes 149—64; Kuhn, KZ. 2, 314; Weber, IS. 2, 298; MM., Chips 4^2, 250; LSL. (1891), 2, 595; Selected Essays (1881), 1, 494; KRV. note 274 a; van den Gheyn, Cerbère, Brussels 1883. — ^2^4 Cp. Rohde, Psyche 1, 280, note 1. — ^2^5 JAOS. 1893, p. 163—72. — ^2^6 Kāṭh. 37, 14 (MS. p. 101, note 2), Kauṣīt. Br. 11, 9 (= day and night); ŚB. 11, 1, 5^1 (moon a heavenly dog); on the dogs of Yama cp. also Rājendralāla Mitra, PRASB. May 1881, pp. 94. 96; Indo-Aryans, Calcutta 1881, 2, 156—65; Sp.AP. 239—40; HVM. 1, 225. 510—1; Casartelli, Dog of Death, BOR. 4, 269 f. — ^2^7 Sp.AP. 246. — ^2^8 Roth, JAOS. 3, 335; Darmesteter, Ormazd et Ahriman 106. — ^2^9 Roth, ZDMG. 4, 420; on traces of Yima having been the first man in the Avesta, cp. SVL. 148 n. 1. — ^3^0 Roth, ZDMG. 4, 425 ff.; IS. 14, 392; Scherman, Festschrift für K. Hofman, Erlangen 1890, p. 573 ff.; Hopkins, PAOS. May 1881. — ^3^1 Indogermanische Mythen 1, 229. 232. — ^3^2 KHF. 208; BRV. 1, 89; cp. Weber, Rājasūya 15, n. 1; YN. 12, 10 (Yama = lightning Agni, Yamī = voice of thunder); SVL. 132, n. 2. — ^3^3 BRI. 22—3; Ehni, Die urspr. Gotth. d. ved. Yama, p. 26 &c. — ^3^4 WVB. 1894, p. 1 (Yamī = night). — ^3^5 MM., LSL. 2, 634—7; India 224; AR. 297—8; Bergaigne, Manuel Védique 283 (sun that has set). — ^3^6 HVM. 1, 394 ff.; IF. 1, 7; also HVBP. 43.

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On this chapter cp. also Roth, ZDMG. 4, 417—33; JAOS. 342—5; Whitney, JAOS. 3, 327—8; 13, ciii—viii; OLS. 1, 46—63; Westergaard, IS. 3, 402—40; OST. 5, 284—335; Donner, Piṇḍapitṛyajña, 10—14. 28; AIL. 408—22; BRV. 1, 85—94; 2, 96; KRV. 69—71; Sp. AP. 243—56; Lanman, Sanskrit Reader 377—85; SVL. 122—61; HVM. 1, 489—513; ZDMG. 48, 421; Ehni, Der vedische Mythus des Yama, Strassburg 1890; Die ursprüngliche Gottheit des vedischen Yama, Leipzig 1896; Hopkins, PAOS. 1891, xciv—v; HRI. 128—50. 204—7; MM., PSr. 177—207; ORV. 524—43; SBE. 46, 29; Jackson, JAOS. 17, 185.

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