Mrtyu

Mṛtyu (), 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 () is the god of death and the underworld in Hinduism and Buddhism.
• Yama in Hinduism.
• Yama in 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:

Upanishads

The Brhadaranyaka Upanishad (a mystical appendix to the Shatapatha Brahmana and likely the oldest of the Upanishads) has a creation myth where ' "Death" takes the shape of a horse, and includes an identification of the Ashvamedha horse sacrifice with the Sun: