THE YAMA AND ITS CONCEPTS

According to early Vedic teaching Yama was a god who lived above in the sky, he was known as the first human being who died. All dead people go to Yama and live with him. This belief was changed due to the rational reasoning. Āryans thought that it was unjust to permit all human beings those who have done good and bad to live together with Yama without a time limited. As a result of further questioning Āryans accepted that all dead people go to Yama and Yama inquires about their previous characters and allows those who have done good to remain in the heaven and sends others to the hell which is situated under the earth. Āryans believed that dead could not live forever in the hell or in the heaven on what they have done in the previous lives because merits and demerits were collected by every individual was limited. With a limited merits or demerits, one cannot live in the heaven or in the hell forever. It is not clear for what would happen to them at the end of merits and demerits earned by the individual. It was unjust to live forever in that heaven or in the hell for limited quality merits or demerits. So
can a person live in the heaven or the hell forever on what he had done in the world? Āryans found that it is not just for anyone of them to live in the heaven or hell forever. As a result of this dialogue Āryans decided that no one could live even in the hell or heaven for unlimited time but to continue one’s live in the heaven, he has to receive merits from his relations those who live this world. Those kinfolks who live in this world can transfer merits to their dead ones. By gaining merits from those relatives, dead one can extend the live in the heaven. On the other hand, those who are in the hell can go to a better place. As a result of that, the transference of that merits became popular among Āryans. This is the beginning of karma mārga. It is accepted that human activities have some values that could bring the result to the doers and dead ones. Good activities are named as puñña and the bad activities are named as pāpa. Every one in the Āryans society wanted to transfer the merits to their loved ones who were died. At the beginning this was done by the individual himself, later this practice became an essential in the householders’ lives. As a result of that there appeared a special group of people those who are well-versed in religious rites and rituals. They are known as Brāhmaṇa. Karma Mārga thrived (develop) with power of Brāhmaṇa in this period.