The Day Death Came to Dinner

Yama, the lord of the dead, had a sister, and she was a river. Her name was Yamuna.

Every day Yamuna went to her brother with the same request.

"Brother, come to my house and eat. Bring your attendants. Come today."

And every day Yama gave the same kind of answer.

"I will come. Today, or tomorrow. Or the day after."

He was not being unkind. The Purana says it in one dry line: people whose minds are full of their duties have no free time. And nobody had more duties than Yama. Somebody was always dying.

Yamuna did not give up. She kept asking. At last, on the second day of the bright half of the month of Karttika, she would not take a vague answer.

"Today," she said. "Not tomorrow. Come today."

And Yama went.

Before he left his kingdom he did something he had never done. He set free everyone who was held in his hells. If the king was taking a day off, so would they. Then he set out for his sister's house, and his attendants went with him.

Yamuna was ready for him. She had been ready for a long time.

She welcomed her brother at the door. She rubbed his body with oil and with sweet-smelling pastes, as you would for a guest who has travelled far, and saw that he was properly bathed. She brought him new clothes, garlands and ornaments, and she touched sandal paste to his skin. She seated him on a couch.

Then she cooked. She made sweet rice dishes of many kinds in vessels of gold, and she cooked them with a glad heart. She set the food before him and served him with her own hands.

Yama ate everything.

When he had finished, he gave his sister presents of his own, clothes and jewels. He was very pleased, and he said what a pleased god says.

"Sister, choose a wish."

Yamuna could have asked for anything. This is what she asked.

"Come to my house to eat every year on this day. Let everyone who is in your hells go free today. And those who eat today from the hands of their sisters, let them be happy."

"I choose only this," she said.

Yama gave her all of it, and he added to it.

"Whoever bathes in the Yamuna on this day, and eats in his sister's house, and honours her with gifts, will never see the door of my house."

Meanwhile, the Purana says, there was a holiday in the kingdom of the dead. Those who had been let out of the hells were fed. They stayed where they liked and did as they pleased, and they held a great festival of their own.

So the day is called Yama Dwitiya, Yama's second. The rule that comes with it is simple. On this day a wise man does not eat at home. He goes to his sister's house, greets her, and eats what she has cooked. If she is older he bows to her, and he does not come with empty hands. A man with no sister, the text adds, should go to a cousin or an aunt.

In Nepal the day is called Bhai Tika, and the story told there is not about a dinner. In this telling the sister is called Yamuna too, but her brother is not Yama. He is a man, and Yama has come to take him.

Yamuna's brother lay gravely ill. She was sitting beside him when Yama, the god of death, came in to carry off his soul.

She did not scream, and she did not try to bar the door. She spoke to him politely.

"Lord, I am in the middle of worshipping my brother. Wait until I have finished."

It was a fair thing to ask, and Yama agreed to wait.

Yamuna began her worship. It was a long one. She made it longer. She brought in more and more, and before it was over Yama found that he was being honoured in it as well. He could hardly walk out on a ceremony held partly for him.

Then she made her last request.

"Do not take my brother until three things have happened. Wait until the mark I have put on his forehead has faded. Wait until the oil I have sprinkled around him has dried. And wait until the garland I have put around his neck has wilted."

Yama agreed. Then he looked at the garland. She had made it of makhamali, the small purple globe flower that keeps its colour long after other flowers have dried up and fallen.

That is why, on the fifth day of Tihar, a sister in Nepal walks around her seated brother several times, pouring a ring of oil and holy water on the floor about him. She hangs a makhamali garland around his neck. She puts a tall mark of seven colours on his forehead, and he puts one on hers. Then he bows and touches her feet with his forehead, and she feeds him.