Cite
MLA
“Yama (Dharmaraja).” Hindu History, 2026, https://www.hinduhistory.in/devata/yama/. Accessed .
APA
Hindu History. (2026). Yama (Dharmaraja). Retrieved , from https://www.hinduhistory.in/devata/yama/
Dark-bodied, riding a buffalo, holding a danda (staff) and the pasha noose with which he draws out the life-breath; his scribe Chitragupta keeps the record beside him. He guards the south on temple walls.
01The path-finder
The Rigveda’s funeral hymn (10.14) honours Yama as the one who went first along the great path and found the way for many, to the place where the fathers have gone. His twin Yami speaks with him in Rigveda 10.10. In the Katha Upanishad the boy Nachiketa, given away to Death by his angry father, waits three days at Yama’s door unfed; Yama grants him three boons, and the third, what lies beyond death, draws out the Upanishad’s teaching of the undying Self.
02Savitri, and the judge
In the Vana Parva of the Mahabharata, Savitri follows Yama as he carries away the soul of her husband Satyavan, and answers him with such wisdom about dharma that he grants boon after boon, until he must give Satyavan back. Married women remember her on Vat Savitri. Yama is also Dharma: Yudhishthira is his son, and at the lake in the forest Yama questions him as a yaksha. The Garuda Purana describes the road the soul travels to his court, where Chitragupta reads out the account of deeds.
03Lamps for Yama
On Dhanteras evening a lamp is set facing south, the Yama-deepa, so that untimely death keeps away from the house. Two days after Diwali, on Yama Dwitiya, sisters feed their brothers as Yamuna fed her brother Yama, who promised that no brother so honoured would meet an untimely end; it is the same day as Bhai Dooj. At Srivanchiyam in Tamil Nadu, Yama has his own shrine in Shiva’s temple, and at Kaleshwaram in Telangana he shares one pitha with Shiva.
In the texts
- Rigveda 10.10 and 10.14
- Katha Upanishad
- Mahabharata, Vana Parva (Savitri; Yaksha Prashna)
- Garuda Purana, Preta Khanda
