DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.638#0099
YAM A, THE KING OF THE DEAD 41
and came nearer to monotheism than the cult of any
other god in paganism ".*
Professor Moulton wonders if the Yama myth " owed
anything to Babylon?" It is possible that the wor-
shippers of Agni represented early Iranian beliefs, and
that the worshippers of Mitra, Varuna, and the twins
(Yama and Yima and the twin Aswins) were influenced
by Babylonian mythology as a result of contact, and that
these opposing sects were rivals in India in early Vedic
times.
In one of the hymns2 Yami is the wooer of her
brother Yama. She declares that they were at the be-
ginning intended by the gods to be husband and wife,
but Yama replies:
"Who has sure knowledge of that earliest day? Who has
seen it with his eyes and can tell of it? Lofty is the law of
Mitra and Varuna; how canst thou dare to speak as a temptress?"
Arnold's translation.
In the Vedic K land of the fathers ", the shining Para-
dise, the two kings Varuna and Yama sit below a tree.
Yama, a form of Mitra, plays on a flute and drinks Soma
with the Celestials, because Soma gives immortality. He
gathers his people to him as a shepherd gathers his flock:
indeed he is called the " Noble Shepherd ". He gives to
the faithful the draught of Soma; apparently unbelievers
were destroyed or committed to a hell called Put. Yama's
messengers were the pigeon and the owl; he had also two
brindled watch-dogs, each with four eyes. The dead who
faithfully fulfilled religious ordinances were addressed:
Fear not to pass the guards—
The four-eyed brindled dogs—that watch for the departed.
1A History of Sanskrit Literature, Professor Macdonell, p. 68.
* Rigveda, x, 10.
and came nearer to monotheism than the cult of any
other god in paganism ".*
Professor Moulton wonders if the Yama myth " owed
anything to Babylon?" It is possible that the wor-
shippers of Agni represented early Iranian beliefs, and
that the worshippers of Mitra, Varuna, and the twins
(Yama and Yima and the twin Aswins) were influenced
by Babylonian mythology as a result of contact, and that
these opposing sects were rivals in India in early Vedic
times.
In one of the hymns2 Yami is the wooer of her
brother Yama. She declares that they were at the be-
ginning intended by the gods to be husband and wife,
but Yama replies:
"Who has sure knowledge of that earliest day? Who has
seen it with his eyes and can tell of it? Lofty is the law of
Mitra and Varuna; how canst thou dare to speak as a temptress?"
Arnold's translation.
In the Vedic K land of the fathers ", the shining Para-
dise, the two kings Varuna and Yama sit below a tree.
Yama, a form of Mitra, plays on a flute and drinks Soma
with the Celestials, because Soma gives immortality. He
gathers his people to him as a shepherd gathers his flock:
indeed he is called the " Noble Shepherd ". He gives to
the faithful the draught of Soma; apparently unbelievers
were destroyed or committed to a hell called Put. Yama's
messengers were the pigeon and the owl; he had also two
brindled watch-dogs, each with four eyes. The dead who
faithfully fulfilled religious ordinances were addressed:
Fear not to pass the guards—
The four-eyed brindled dogs—that watch for the departed.
1A History of Sanskrit Literature, Professor Macdonell, p. 68.
* Rigveda, x, 10.