the worship of Civa.[1273] To him is assigned as
wife the frightful figure called Durga or Kali (and known by other
names), a blood-loving monster with an unspeakably licentious cult.
Other Cakti deities are more humane, and there is reason to suppose that
the ground of the devotion shown to Kali, especially by women, is in
many cases simply reverence for the female principle in life, or more
particularly for motherhood.[1274]

+735+. The original character of the Hindu lord of the Otherworld, Yama,
is obscured by the variety of the descriptions of him in the documents.
In the Rig-Veda he appears both as god and (as it seems) as man. He is
the son of the solar deity Vivashant (Vivashat); he is named in
enumerations of gods, and Agni is his friend and his priest; he receives
worship, and is besought to come to the sacrifice.[1275] On the other
hand, he is never called "god," but only "king";[1276] he is spoken of
as the "only mortal," and is said to have chosen death; he is associated
in heaven with the "fathers."[1277] The modern interpretations of his
origin have followed these two sets of data. By some writers he has been
identified with the sun (particularly the setting sun), and with the
moon.[1278] But these identifications are set aside for the Veda by the
fact that in lists of gods he is distinguished from sun and moon.[1279]
By others he is regarded as the mythical first man, the first ancestor,
with residence in the sky, deified as original ancestors sometimes were,
and, as the first to die and enter the world beyond, made the king of
that world.

Though Yama is not the sun in the Veda, it is possible that he was so
regarded in the period preceding the Vedic theological construction, and
in support of this view it may be said that the sun setting, descending
into the depths, is a natural symbol of the close of man's life,[1280]
and rising, represents the man's life in the beyond--thus the sun would
be identified with man, and not unnaturally with the first man, the
first to die. In support of the other view may be cited the great role
ascribed by many peoples to the first man: in savage lore he is often
the creator or arranger of the world,[1281] and he is sometimes, like
Yama, the son of the sun.[1282] Such an one, entering the other world,
might become its lord, and in process of time be divinized and made the
son of the creator sun.[1283] The Hindu figure is often compared to the
Avestan first man, Yima; bu