yáma m. a rein, curb, bridle, [RV. v, 61, 2]
a driver, charioteer, [ib.] [viii, 103, 10]
the act of checking or curbing, suppression, restraint (with vācām, restraint of words, silence), [BhP.]
self-control forbearance, any great moral rule or duty (as opp. to niyama, a minor observance; in [Yājñ. iii, 313] ten Yamas are mentioned, sometimes only five), [Mn.]; [MBh.] &c.
(in Yoga) self-restraint (as the first of the eight Aṅgas or means of attaining mental concentration), [IW. 93]
any rule or observance, [PārGṛ.]
yamá mf(A/ or I/)n. twin-born, twin, forming a pair, [RV.] &c. &c.
yáma m. a twin, one of a pair or couple, a fellow (du. ‘the twins’, N. of the Aśvins and of their twin children by Mādrī, called Nakula and Saha-deva; yamau mithunau, twins of different sex), [ib.]
a symbolical N. for the number ‘two’, [Hcat.]
N. of the god who presides over the Pitṛs (q.v.) and rules the spirits of the dead, [RV.] &c. &c., [IW. 18]; [197], [198] &c.; [RTL. 10]; [16]; [289] &c. (he is regarded as the first of men and born from Vivasvat, ‘the Sun’, and his wife Saraṇyū; while his brother, the seventh Manu, another form of the first man, is the son of Vivasvat and Saṃjñā, the image of Saraṇyū; his twin-sister is Yamī, with whom he resists sexual alliance, but by whom he is mourned after his death, so that the gods, to make her forget her sorrow, create night; in the Veda he is called a king or saṃgamano janānām, ‘the gatherer of men’, and rules over the departed fathers in heaven, the road to which is guarded by two broad-nosed, four-eyed, spotted dogs, the children of Śaramā q.v.; in Post-vedic mythology he is the appointed Judge and ‘Restrainer’ or ‘Punisher’ of the dead, in which capacity he is also called dharmarāja or dharma and corresponds to the Greek Pluto and to Minos; his abode is in some region of the lower world called Yama-pura; thither a soul when it leaves the body, is said to repair, and there, after the recorder, Citra-gupta, has read an account of its actions kept in a book called Agra-saṃdhānā, it receives a just sentence; in [MBh.] Yama is described as dressed in blood-red garments, with a glittering form, a crown on his head, glowing eyes and like Varuṇa, holding a noose, with which he binds the spirit after drawing it from the body, in size about the measure of a man's thumb; he is otherwise represented as grim in aspect, green in colour, clothed in red, riding on a buffalo, and holding a club in one hand and noose in the other; in the later mythology he is always represented as a terrible deity inflicting tortures, called yātanā, on departed spirits ; he is also one of the 8 guardians of the world as regent of the South quarter; he is the regent of the Nakṣatra Apa-bharaṇī or Bharaṇī, the supposed author of [RV. x, 10]; [14], of a hymn to Viṣṇu and of a law-book; yamasyārkaḥ N. of a Sāman, [ĀrṣBr.])
N. of the planet Saturn (regarded as the son of Vivasvat and Chāyā), [Hariv.]; [BhP.]
of one of Skanda's attendants (mentioned together with Ati-yama), [MBh.]
a crow, [L.] (cf. -dūtaka)
a bad horse (whose limbs are either too small or too large), [L.]
yáma n. a pair, brace, couple, [L.]
(in gram.) a twin-letter (the consonant interposed and generally understood, but not written in practice, between a nasal immediately preceded by one of the four other consonants in each class), [Prāt.]; [Pat.] on [Pāṇ. i, 1, 8]
pitch of the voice, tone of utterance, key, [Prāt.]