yama | m. Name of the god who presides over the pitṛ-s (q.v) and rules the spirits of the dead etc. (he is regarded as the first of men and born from vivasvat-,"the Sun" , and his wife saraṇyū-;while his brother, the seventh manu-, another form of the first man, is the son of vivasvat- and saṃjñā-, the image of saraṇyū-;his twin-sister is yamī-, with whom he resists sexual alliance, but by whom he is mourned after his death, so that the gods, to make her forget her sorrow, create night;in the veda- he is called a king or saṃgamano janānām-,"the gatherer of men", and rules over the departed fathers in heaven, the road to which is guarded by two broad-nosed, four-eyed, spotted dogs, the children of śaramā- q.v;in Post-vedic mythology he is the appointed Judge and"Restrainer"or"Punisher"of the dead, in which capacity he is also called dharmarāja-or dharma-and corresponds to the Greek Pluto and to Minos;his abode is in some region of the lower world called yama-pura-;thither a soul when it leaves the body, is said to repair, and there, after the recorder, citra-gupta-, has read an account of its actions kept in a book called agra-saṃdhānā-, it receives a just sentence;in yama- is described as dressed in blood-red garments, with a glittering form, a crown on his head, glowing eyes and like varuṇa-, holding a noose, with which he binds the spirit after drawing it from the body, in size about the measure of a man's thumb;he is otherwise represented as grim in aspect, green in colour, clothed in red, riding on a buffalo, and holding a club in one hind and noose in the other;in the later mythology he is always represented as a terrible deity inflicting tortures, called yātanā-,on departed spirits;he is also one of the 8 guardians of the world as regent of the South quarter;he is the regent of the nakṣatra- apa-bharaṇī- or bharaṇī-, the supposed author of ,of a hymn to viṣṇu- and of a law-book; yamasyārkaḥ-Name of a sāman- ) |