by the dragon Dahâka.[1] The end of Yima recalls Adam as the first of men and lord of the Garden of Eden till he was expelled, owing to the wiles of the serpent, and became subject to death. What may be the exact relationship between the two stories is a question which does not concern the present subject; but they prove beyond a doubt that Hebrew and Persian ideas must have, some time or other, come in contact with one another. All this, however, leaves us in considerable uncertainty as to the relative positions of Pûshan and Yama; but the former as the world's herdsman who never loses a beast[2] may be compared with Yspyᵭaden's shepherd (p. 488), and perhaps with the Norse god Heimdal, while Yama is left us to compare with Cronus and the Dagda. At any rate, Yama's being considered the first man to have died cannot be reckoned as radically distinguishing him from the other dark gods. For the model on which they were, one and all, fashioned in the first instance by fear and fancy was probably that of the dead ancestor, as the nature of the sacrifices with which different nations have been wont to propitiate them would seem to indicate.
Having touched on Yama, there are reasons, as will appear later, why I should say a little more about him, so I begin with the habit which Sanskrit mythology has of associating,[3] not to say confounding, Yama and
- ↑ Justi's Handbuch der Zendsprache, s. v. Yima.
- ↑ See the Rig-Veda, x. 17, 3, where Ludwig has Vich, though Grassmann preferred ein Reich: the original is anashṭapaçur, which R. & Roth render—der von seiner Heerde nichts verliert.
- ↑ See Max Müller's Lectures8, ij. 561, where he quotes the Rig-Veda, x. 14, 7.
