itive "first of mortals." While, however,
Mitra, Dyaus, and other older nature-gods, pass into a state of
negative or almost forgotten activity, Yama, even in the later epic
period, still remains a potent sovereign--the king of the dead.

In the Avesta Yima is the son of the 'wide-gleaming' Vivanghvant, the
sun, and here it is the sun that first prepares the _soma (haoma)_ for
man. And so, too, in the Rig Veda it is Yama the son of Vivasvant (X.
58. 1; 60. 10) who first "extends the web" of (_soma_) sacrifice (VII.
33. 9, 12). The Vedic poet, not influenced by later methods of
interpretation, saw in Yama neither sun nor moon, nor any other
natural phenomenon, for thus he sings, differentiating Yama from them
all: "I praise with a song Agni, P[=u]shan, Sun and Moon, Yama in
heaven, Trita, Wind, Dawn, the Ray of Light, the Twin Horsemen" (X.
64. 3); and again: "Deserving of laudation are Heaven and Earth, the
four-limbed Agni, Yama, Aditi," etc. (X. 92. 11).

Yama is regarded as a god, although in the Rig Veda he is called only
'king' (X. 14. 1, 11); but later he is expressly a god, and this is
implied, as Ehni shows, even in the Rig Veda: 'a god found Agni' and
'Yama found Agni' (X. 51. 1 ff.). His primitive nature was that of the
'first mortal that died,' in the words of the Atharva Veda. It is
true, indeed, that at a later period even gods are spoken of as
originally 'mortal,'[1] but this is a conception alien from the early
notions of the Veda, where 'mortal' signifies no more than 'man.' Yama
was the first mortal, and he lives in the sky, in the home that "holds
heroes," _i.e._, his abode is where dead heroes congregate (I. 35. 6;
X. 64. 3)[2]. The fathers that died of old are cared for by him as he
sits drinking with the gods beneath a fair tree (X. 135. 1-7). The
fire that devours the corpse is invoked to depart thither (X. 16. 9).
This place is not very definitely located, but since, according to one
prevalent view, the saints guard the sun, and since Yama's abode in
the sky is comparable with the sun in one or two passages, it is
probable that the general idea was that the departed entered the sun
and there Yama received him (I. 105. 9, 'my home is there where are
the sun's rays'; X. 154. 4-5, 'the dead shall go, O Yama, to the
fathers, the seers that guard the sun'). 'Yama's abode' is the same
with 'sky' (X. 123. 6); and when it is said, 'may the fathers hold up
the pillar (in the grave), and may Yama build a s