Devalok
Origin · 2 tellings · Pan-India

Yami's grief and the making of night

Who is in it

  • Yami the mourning twin sister
  • Yama her brother, who has died

Texts: Rigveda

The story, beat by beat

  1. Yama dies.
  2. The gods try to make Yami forget him.
  3. Each time she answers that he died only today.
  4. There is only day and no night.
  5. The gods decide to create night.
  6. Night is made and a morrow arises.
  7. Yami forgets him.

grief time night twins

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Scholarly

Maitrayani Samhita 1.5.12

Pan-India All traditions

Yama has died. The gods try to persuade Yami to forget him, and whenever they ask she says he died only today. They see that she will never forget this way and resolve to create night, for then there was only day. Night is created, a morrow arises, and she forgets him.

Maitrayani Samhita 1.5.12, the origin of night, as translated in S. K. De, Ancient Indian Erotics and Erotic Literature (1959), excerpt page; Yamuna in Hinduism (Wikipedia)

Primary text (translation)

Rigveda 10.10 (repeated at Atharvaveda 18.1)

Pan-India All traditions

A dialogue while Yama lives. Yami asks her twin to be her husband so that the one mortal may leave offspring, saying the gods wish it and Tvashtri made them a pair in the womb. Yama refuses: the law of Mitra and Varuna is great, the gods' watchers never close their eyes, and it is called wrong. She calls him a weakling; he tells her to find another husband and wishes her a good marriage.

What is different here:

A different episode: an argument about marriage, not mourning; Yama is alive and has the last word. Told on the site with restraint.

Hymns of the Rigveda, tr. R. T. H. Griffith (1896), hymns read for the Vedic layer § 10.10; Hymns of the Atharva-Veda, tr. R. T. H. Griffith (1895) § 18.1.1-16

Sources: Maitrayani Samhita 1.5.12, the origin of night, as translated in S. K. De, Ancient Indian Erotics and Erotic Literature (1959), excerpt page; Yamuna in Hinduism (Wikipedia); Hymns of the Rigveda, tr. R. T. H. Griffith (1896), hymns read for the Vedic layer; Hymns of the Atharva-Veda, tr. R. T. H. Griffith (1895)

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