the sun-abode to them that become immortal.  In the same hymn the sun is identified with Yama as he is with Trita (i. 163. 3).  This particular identification is due, however, rather to the developed pantheistic idea which obtains in the later hymns.  A parallel is found in the next hymn:  “They speak of Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni ... that which is one, the priests speak of in many ways, and call him Agni, Yama, Fire” (or Wind, i. 164. 46).

Despite the fact that one Vedic poet speaks of Yama’s name as ’easy to understand’ (x. 12. 6), no little ingenuity has been spent on it, as well as on the primitive conception underlying his personality.  Etymologically, his name means Twin, and this is probably the real meaning, for his twin sister Yami is also a Vedic personage.  The later age, regarding Yama as a restrainer and punisher of the wicked, derived the name from yam the restrainer or punisher, but such an idea is quite out of place in the province of Vedic thought.  The Iranian Yima also has a sister of like name, although she does not appear till late in the literature.

That Yama’s father is the sun, Vivasvant (Savitar, ‘the artificer,’ Tvashtar, x. 10. 4-5),[5] is clearly enough stated in the Rik; and that he was the first mortal, in the Atharvan.  Men come from Yama, and Yama comes from the sun as ‘creator,’ just as men elsewhere come from Adam and Adam comes from the Creator.  But instead of an Hebraic Adam and Eve there are in India a Yama and Yam[=i], brother and sister (wife), who, in the one hymn in which the latter is introduced (loc. cit.), indulge in a moral conversation on the propriety of wedlock between brother and sister.  This hymn is evidently a protest against a union that was unobjectionable to an older generation.  In the Yajur Veda Yami is wife and sister both.  But sometimes, in the varying fancies of the Vedic poets, the artificer Tvashtar is differentiated from Vivasvant, the sun; as he is in another passage, where Tvashtar gives to Vivasvant his daughter, and she is the mother of Yama[6].

That men are the children of Yama is seen in X. 13. 4, where it is said, ’Yama averted death for the gods; he did not avert death for (his) posterity.’  In the Brahmanic tradition men derive from the sun (T[=a]itt.  S. VI. 5. 6. 2[7]) So, in the Iranian belief, Yima is looked upon, according to some scholars, as the first man.  The funeral hymn to Yama is as follows: 

Him who once went over the great mountains[8] and spied out a path for many, the son of Vivasvant, who collects men, King Yama, revere ye with oblations.  Yama the first found us a way ...  There where our old fathers are departed....  Yama is magnified with the Angirasas....  Sit here, O Yama, with the Angirasas and with the fathers....  Rejoice, O king, in this oblation.  Come, O Yama, with the venerable Angirasas.  I call thy father, Vivasvant, sit down at this sacrifice.

And then, turning to the departed soul: