11).
Yama is regarded as a god, although in the Rig Veda he is called only 'king' (X.14.1, 11); but later he is expressly a god, and this is implied, as Ehni shows, even in the Rig Veda: 'a god found Agni' and 'Yama found Agni' (X.51.1 ff.).

His primitive nature was that of the 'first mortal that died,' in the words of the Atharva Veda.

It is true, indeed, that at a later period even gods are spoken of as originally 'mortal,'[1] but this is a conception alien from the early notions of the Veda, where 'mortal' signifies no more than 'man.' Yama was the first mortal, and he lives in the sky, in the home that "holds heroes," _i.e._, his abode is where dead heroes congregate (I.35.

6; X.64.

3)[2].