DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.638#0097
4o INDIAN MYTH AND LEGEND
Punjab, he explored the hidden regions and discovered the
road which became known as " the path of the fathers ".
To Yama, mighty king, be gifts and homage paid.
He was the first of men that died, the first to brave
Death's rapid rushing stream, the first to point the road
To heaven, and welcome others to that bright abode.
Sir M. Monier Williams' translation.1
Professor Macdonell gives a new rendering of a Vedic
hymn2 in which Yama is referred to as follows:
Him who along the mighty heights departed,
Him who searched and spied the path for many,
Son of Vivasvat, gatherer of the people,
Yama the king, with sacrifices worship.
Rigveda, x, 14. 1.
Yama and his sister Yami, the first human pair, are
identical with the Persian Yima and Yimeh of Avestan
literature; they are the primeval " twins ", the children of
Vivasvat, or Vivasvant, in the Rigveda and of Vivahvant
in the Avesta. Tama signifies twin, and Dr. Rendel Harris,
in his researches on the Greek Dioscuri cult, shows that
among early peoples the belief obtained widely that one
of each pair of twins was believed to be a child of the
sky. "This conjecture is borne out by the name of
Yama's father (Vivasvant), which may well be a cult-
epithet of the bright sky, 'shining abroad' (from the root
vas, 'to shine')". . . In the Avesta 'Yima, the bright'
is referred to: he is the Jamshid of Fitzgerald's Omar.3
Yima, the Iranian ruler of Paradise, is also identical
with Mitra (Mithra), whose cult "obtained from 200-
400 a.d. a world-wide diffusion in the Roman Empire,
1 From Indian Wisdom.
3 A History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 117.
' Early Religious Poetry of Persia, Professor J. H. Mouiton, p. 42.
Punjab, he explored the hidden regions and discovered the
road which became known as " the path of the fathers ".
To Yama, mighty king, be gifts and homage paid.
He was the first of men that died, the first to brave
Death's rapid rushing stream, the first to point the road
To heaven, and welcome others to that bright abode.
Sir M. Monier Williams' translation.1
Professor Macdonell gives a new rendering of a Vedic
hymn2 in which Yama is referred to as follows:
Him who along the mighty heights departed,
Him who searched and spied the path for many,
Son of Vivasvat, gatherer of the people,
Yama the king, with sacrifices worship.
Rigveda, x, 14. 1.
Yama and his sister Yami, the first human pair, are
identical with the Persian Yima and Yimeh of Avestan
literature; they are the primeval " twins ", the children of
Vivasvat, or Vivasvant, in the Rigveda and of Vivahvant
in the Avesta. Tama signifies twin, and Dr. Rendel Harris,
in his researches on the Greek Dioscuri cult, shows that
among early peoples the belief obtained widely that one
of each pair of twins was believed to be a child of the
sky. "This conjecture is borne out by the name of
Yama's father (Vivasvant), which may well be a cult-
epithet of the bright sky, 'shining abroad' (from the root
vas, 'to shine')". . . In the Avesta 'Yima, the bright'
is referred to: he is the Jamshid of Fitzgerald's Omar.3
Yima, the Iranian ruler of Paradise, is also identical
with Mitra (Mithra), whose cult "obtained from 200-
400 a.d. a world-wide diffusion in the Roman Empire,
1 From Indian Wisdom.
3 A History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 117.
' Early Religious Poetry of Persia, Professor J. H. Mouiton, p. 42.