Yama is the Hindu god of death, depicted as a blue man riding a buffalo with a club and noose. He rules Naraka, the underworld, and dispenses just punishment to purify the soul. Yama is a necessary figure, ensuring justice and helping the wicked work through their deeds to reside in Heaven.
Yama is the Hindu god of death. He is one of the farthest traveled Hindu deities in the world, and is featured heavily in Japanese mythology, where he is often referred to as Enma Dai-O, and also in Chinese myth, where he is often called Yan.
Yama is usually depicted as a blue man, riding a huge black buffalo and holding a club and noose. Yama is also sometimes said to appear differently to bad people and good people. To the wicked he is said to have enormous limbs, with thin smoking lips, eyes as deep as space, and hair of burning fire. At well, he is said to appear as a beautiful figure, similar in shape to Vishnu, with four arms and joyful eyes. He owns two dogs, each with four eyes. They are said to guide the path to the underworld and are the descendants of the mighty dog who guards Indra’s noble herd of cattle.
Yama and his twin sister Yami were the mortal sons of the sun god Surya. Yama is said to have been the first mortal to die and discover the way to the underworld. Since he was the first to arrive there, he was granted power over the entire kingdom, taking on the mantle of lord of death. In the role of death he is associated with the Destroyer aspect of Shiva.
Yama rules the realm of Naraka, the underworld of Hinduism. As in many Western religions, the underworld is seen as a place of torment, not simply a place where the dead go when they die. Yama dispenses just punishment to the dead, according to what their sins were in life. Naraka’s torments are many, and they are horrific, including burning in an ocean of boiling oil, and being whipped incessantly with a thorny weed.
Unlike many Western concepts of Hell, however, Yama dispenses his justice in an effort to purify the soul. After a specified amount of time undergoing such horrors, the soul is considered purified and can then be sent back to the world for rebirth, or later to Paradise. In this sense, Naraka is more similar to the Christian concept of Purgatory. Though Yama doesn’t rule heaven the way Naraka rules, he sends people there. He has an assistant, Chitragupta, who keeps track of the life of every mortal on earth and all the good and bad deeds they have done. Upon their death, he tells Yama where they belong, in Heaven or one of the Underworld.
In contrast to the Christian concept of Hell, with a ruler who is the embodiment of ultimate evil, Yama is considered a necessary and even good figure. He is the ultimate arbiter of justice in the world, ensuring that the wicked are punished for their deeds, but also helping them work through those evil deeds so they can reside in Heaven.
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