Lexicon of Rig Veda

Lexicon

of Rig Veda

“Controller” – Yama, the god of immortality and the guardian of the law of the highest Truth of the Existence, satya, is in the highest Heaven, i.e. in the highest manifested world sat-cit-tapas, the world of eternal existence and infinite consciousness. Sri Aurobindo wrote on Yama: “In the later ideas Yama is the god of Death and has his own special world; but in the Rig Veda he seems to have been originally a form of the Sun,– even as late as the Isha Upanishad we find the name used as an appellation of the Sun,– and then one of the twin children of the wide-shining Lord of Truth. He is the guardian of the dharma, the law of the Truth, satyadharma, which is a condition of immortality, and therefore himself the guardian of immortality”. CWSA.– Vol. 15.– 1998, p.221.)

The late idea about Yama as about the god of the world of Death was probably born because of incorrect interpretation of the Rik: “do hurry up by the good path beyond two Sarameyas, two speckled four-eyed dogs, then do come to the fathers, who are perfect in knowledge, who intoxicated with the Yama together.” (10.14.10) and because of equally incorrect interpretation of several others Riks of the tenth mandala (10.14.12, 10.58.1, etc.). However, due to rik 1.35.6, we can unambiguously define Yama as the god of immortality and the guardian of the law of the highest Truth of being, satya, eternal existence and infinite consciousness: “Three heavens (i.e. three worlds of Heave, the highest sat-chit-tapas, the middle mayas; the lowest svar) are of Savitri, two of them are standing nearby (it is sat-chit-tapas and mayas, which together are Sachchidananda of Vedanta), one (the highest, sat-chit-tapas) is in the world of Yama, harbouring heroes (virāṣāṭ, i.e. the home of all divine forces, tapas). (1.35.6)