YANA, the Hindu god, who, at the epic and Purfin'ic period of Hinduism (see Isola, see. religion), is the sovereign of the manes, and the judge of the dead, is, in the hymns of the Ingveda, a son of Vivas'wat and Saran' ya, and a twin-brother of Yami, whose desire to become his wife he resists. His father is sometimes also called the Gandharva and he is further represented there as possessing two four-eyed dogs, which guard the road to his abode (see J. Muir, "Yams and the Doctrine of a Future Life, according to the R'ig-. Yajur-, and Atharva-vedas," in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, New Series, 1865, vol. i. p. 287, ff.). The idea represented by these mysterious deities has seen differently understood. Prof. Roth takes Vivas'wat for the light of heaven, Saran'yfi for the dark storming cloud, and Yama and Yamt as representing the first Inman pair—the originators of the race, or the Vedic Adam and Eve produced by the anion of the damp vapor of the cloud and the heavenly light. The Vedic hymns, how tver, do not afford the slightest ground for such a fantastical interpretation of these. names; and as regards that of Yama and Yamt, they discountenance it even distinctly by describing Yams as resisting the sexual alliance with his sister. Prof. Max Muller understands Vivas'wat to represent the sky • Saranlyi, the dawn; Varna, the day; and Paini, the night (Lectures on the Science of Language, 2d Series, Lond. 1864, p. 509, ff.). But this interpretation, too, is open to the strongest doubts, inasmuch as there is no valid ground for identifying the luminous deity Vivas'wat with the sky, or Saran' yii (from saran'a, going, moving) with the dawn. It seems more probable that the phenomena. symbolized by this myth are not of a luminous, but of an aerial character; the kindred myth of a luminous character being that of the As' wins, who are likewise the twin prog eny of Vivas'wat and Saran'yfl, or rather of Vivas'wat and " a form similar to that of Saran'yil," and who represent the transition from darkness to light, and the inseparable duality produced by tile intermingling of both (see J. Muir, "Contributions to a Knowledge• of the Vedic Theogony and Mythology, No. 2," in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. ii. 1866). For as Vivas'wat, "the expanding," probably implies the firmament " expanding" to the sight through the approaching light, Gandharva, as usual, the solar fire, and Saran! yii, the dark and cool "air" (the moving element), Yama and Yana seem to represent the current of air produced by the effect of the solar heat emanating from the firmament on the cool air of the night, when the antagonism between the warm and cold air of which this current consists would be Yama repelling the union with his sister Yaml, though, at the same time, they are "husband and wife ,while yet in the womb" (of the night-air). And since this phenomenon extends over the whole atmosphere; the two four-eyed watch-dogs of Yams are probably the eight or twice-four regions of the compass, either each couple of them taken together with their intermediate regions— whence both dogs are called spotted—or the four regions and the intermediate four taken separately—whence one dog is also called dark. and the other spotted. Yama being pro
duced by the solar heat, it becomes then intelligible why it is said of Agni, the (solar) fire, that lie is born as Yama, and Yama being a phenomenon of the air, why he is also identified with Vfiyu, the wind, and why the intermediate space between heaven and earth is assigned to him as his domicile. It is probably a later conceptiOn of the Vedic period which describes this abode as having been made for him by the spirits or manes, and Yama as having been the first who found his way to it; and a still later one, which represents him as the first of mortals who went to that world, for in passages where these ideas are expressed, there is an association between the moving air and departed life which is foreign to the oldest notions of the Vedas. It led to the position which subse quently Yama assumed as a luminous king who dwells together with the manes, and as the lord of death—death, then becoming his messenger. Yet in the R'igveda, he has not yet the office of judge of the dead which is assigned to him in the later mythology of the epic poems and Purfin'as, and probably already in some of the Upanishads. At the epic and Purfin'ic period, Yama entirely loses his cosmical character, though he. is still called the son of Vivas'wat. He then marries 13 daughters of the patriarch Daksha, is installed as the king of the manes, becomes the regent of the south, and resides in Yatnapura, a town of theinfernal regions, where lie sits in judgment over the souls of the departed which are brought before him. They are generally fetched by his messengers, who draw them with nooses out of the bodies which they animated; but in the case of very pious persons lie assumes himself the function of separating the soul from the body. After the soul has been brought before him he orders his recorder, Chitraguptei or Chandragupta, to read to him an account of all the good and bad actions it had done during its life, and which are kept registered in a book called Agrasandhani ; and according to their merit or demerit, it is sent to heaven or the infernal regions. The precise knowledge which the Purfin'as pretend to possess of all these proceedings also extends to the desbription they give of this recorder, and to their enumeration of the assessors who co-operate with Yama at his court.—Yama's sister is Yamtmei (q.v.). Among his other names, Ilharma, (" justice"), Dharmardja(" king of justice"), Antata (" the ender"), Hama (" time"), and Sraddhadeva ("the god of the S'raddlia," q.v.), are of usual occurrence.—When represented lie is of grim aspect; his color is green, his garments red, and he rides on a buffalo with a crown on his head, in one hand holding a club, and in another the noose.