Mṛtyu (Sanskrit: मृत्यु, romanized: Mṛtyu, lit. 'Death'), is a Sanskrit word meaning death. Mṛtyu, or Death, is often personified as the deities Mara (मर) and Yama (यम) in Dharmic religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism.
- Mara (Hindu goddess), the goddess of death according to Hindu mythology.
- Mṛtyu-māra as death in Buddhism or Māra, a "demon" of the Buddhist cosmology, the personification of Temptation.
- Yama (Sanskrit: यम) is the god of death and the underworld in Hinduism and Buddhism.
Etymology
The Vedic mṛtyú, along with Avestan mərəθiiu and Old Persian məršiyu comes from the Proto-Indo-Iranian word for death, *mr̥tyú-, which is ultimately derived from the Indo-European root *mer- ("to die") and thus is further related to Ancient Greek μόρος and Latin mors.
Literature
Vedas
Mrtyu is invoked in the hymns of the Rigveda:
Depart, Mṛtyu, by a different path; by that which is your own, and distinct from the path of the gods; I speak to you who have eyes, who have ears; do no harm to our offspring, nor to our male progeny.
— Rigveda, Hymn 10.18.1
Upanishads
The Brhadaranyaka Upanishad (a mystical appendix to the Shatapatha Brahmana and likely the oldest of the Upanishads) has a creation myth where Mṛtyu "Death" takes the shape of a horse, and includes an identification of the Ashvamedha horse sacrifice with the Sun:
Then he became a horse (ashva), because it swelled (ashvat), and was fit for sacrifice (medhya); and this is why the horse-sacrifice is called Ashva-medha Therefore the sacrificers offered up the purified horse belonging to Prajapati, (as dedicated) to all the deities. Verily the shining sun is the Asvamedha, and his body is the year; Agni is the sacrificial fire (arka), and these worlds are his bodies. These two are the sacrificial fire and the Asvamedha-sacrifice, and they are again one deity, viz. Death.
— Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, Hymn 1.2.7
Padma Purana
Mrtyu fights in the war between the devas and the asuras in the legend of Jalandhara.
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata references a legend regarding a dispute between Time, Mrityu, Yama, Ikshvaku, and a Brahmana. Mrityu is female in this legend.
See also
Notes and references
- www.wisdomlib.org (2021-08-27). "Rig Veda 10.18.1 [English translation]". www.wisdomlib.org. Retrieved 2022-11-04.
- implicitly, in eṣa vā aśvamedho ya eṣa tapati "verily, that Ashvamedha is that which gives out heat "
- www.wisdomlib.org (2019-09-26). "War Between Gods and Demons [Chapter 5]". www.wisdomlib.org. Retrieved 2022-11-04.
- www.wisdomlib.org (2021-08-17). "Section CXCIX [Mahabharata, English]". www.wisdomlib.org. Retrieved 2022-11-04.
External links
- SpokenSanskrit dictionary translation of Mrtyu
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