There is in the tenth maṇḍala of the Rig Veda a cycle of hymns that I consider among the most beautiful and most strange in the entire collection. These are the hymns to Yama — king of the dead, the first of human beings to have crossed the frontier. But what the Rig Veda says of Yama is very different from what later traditions made of him.
Son of Vivasvant: the one who dared to leave
Yama is the son of Vivasvant, the solar deity. His name comes from the root yam — to master, to hold together, to unify. He is the twin brother of Yamī, and hymn 10.10 is a dialogue between the two — Yamī who desires her brother, Yama who refuses, invoking cosmic law: “What we have not done before, should we do it now? In speaking truth, must we speak lies?”
This mythic dialogue stages the birth of death as a necessary separation — the choice not to remain in the circle of eternal return. Yama chooses separation, and in doing so, invents the path.
Hymn 10.14: the one who watched over the paths
Hymn 10.14 (To Yama, ṛṣi: yama vaivasvata) says what is essential:
“To the one who departed along the great slopes, having watched over the many paths, the son of Vivasvant, the unifier of peoples, King Yama has been honoured with an offering. Yama found, for us, the first way to go there: that pasture will not be taken from us. Our ancient fathers have gone far, there. Those who are born have followed the paths leading to the Heavens.”
Yama is not a judge, not a wrathful god. He is the first dead — the first being who had the courage to cross, to “watch over the many paths” beyond life, and to find the road for others. He opened the way, and since then all the dead travel his road.
This figure of the first ferryman brings to mind Pūṣan, the god of earthly paths whom I discussed in [my article on Pūṣan on rigveda.blog: Pūṣan opens the roads for the living, Yama opens them for the dead. In hymn 10.17 the two meet: “May Pūṣan lead you out from here, he the wise one whose herd is intact, the herdsman of the living. He will give you to the Fathers, the desirable ones.” The god of pathways is also the ferryman of souls.
King of the ancestors
The realm of Yama is not hell. It is a pasture — a place of rest and abundance where the dead are reunited with their ancestors and drink soma. Hymn 10.14 describes Yama seated with the Pitṛ — the fathers, the ancestors — surrounded by the Aṅgiras and Bṛhaspati:
“On this spread grass, Yama, come sit with the Aṅgiras, with the Fathers who are worthy of soma.”
Hymn 10.15 (To the Fathers) develops this vision with a rare emotion:
“May those below rise up, may those far away rise up to offer soma. The fathers are worthy of soma. They are those who have crossed life without trouble, who know the truth. May these fathers protect us in our offerings.”
The dead are not severed from the living. They continue to protect, to participate in the sacrifice. The bond between generations does not break at death.
Funeral hymn 10.18: drive away death, protect the living
Hymn 10.18 is a funeral rite text of extraordinary power. It begins with a command to death itself:
“Go away, O Death, by the other path, the one that does not lead to the gods. I say to the one who sees and hears: do not harm my descendants, nor my heroes.”
And then, to those who remain: “I have placed this enclosure for the living. May no one enter it later, for whatever reason. May they live again for a hundred full autumns.”
Death has had its share; the living must live. This is the same logic as Yama’s: he opened the road for the dead so that the living could live their full “hundred autumns.”
Yama and the Seven Rivers civilisation
This vision of continuity between living and dead brings me back to the Seven Rivers civilisation. Excavations at Mohenjo-daro and Harappā revealed the dead buried with their personal belongings, integrated into the community even after life — as if the Vedic Pitṛ had their counterpart in the funerary practices of the Sapta Sindhu. The engraved seals of that civilisation, with their still-undeciphered signs, are perhaps themselves messages sent across time — a writing that waits for its own Yama to open the way. I explore that mysterious writing in my article on the Indus script on saptasindhuveda.com, and the seals themselves in my article on the engraved bestiary on saptasindhuveda.com.
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