Yamuna (deity)
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The goddess Yamuna ( Sanskrit and Hindi : यमुना) is - next to the goddess Ganga - one of the most frequently portrayed gods in Hinduism . In the Vedas she often appears as Yami , later also as Kalindi ('the dark one'). Ganga and Yamuna are the two most sacred rivers in India and are often understood as a unit; their confluence at Prayagraj is considered one of the holiest places in India.
Similar to the Ganges, a corpse cremation on the Yamuna River and the subsequent sinking of the ashes means liberation from all sins and thus enables the soul to escape from the eternal cycle of rebirths ( samsara ), which is synonymous with its redemption ( moksha ).
myth
Yami and her twin brother Yama , the god of the dead, are the children of the sun god Surya and his wife Saranyu . As Surya's daughter she sometimes appears under the names Suryatanaya , Suryaja or Ravinandini . In contrast to her twin brother, Yami / Yamuna is seen as the goddess of life; sometimes an incestuous relationship between the two siblings is also assumed.
The Puranas report a relationship with God Krishna , whose father Vasudeva carried him shortly after his birth through the ford-releasing Yamuna river to protect him from stalking. As a child and youth, Krishna spent his life among the shepherds near the town of Vrindavan on the Yamuna River, where one day he and Arjuna , the middle of the five Pandava brothers, saw a beautiful girl on the bank. This told Arjuna sent by Krishna that her name is Kalindi and that she is the daughter of Surya and that one day she would have Vishnu as husband. Arjuna reported about it to Krishna, who - as the incarnation of Vishnu - took the beautiful girl as his wife and moved with her to Dwarka . According to the Bhagavata Purana , they had ten sons.
In the Padma Purana , another story is told: Two brothers lived a carefree and irdschen desires life devoted to that eventually led her into poverty and had become robbers, until they were finally killed by wild animals. After Yama's judgment of the dead, the elder was banished to hell ( naraka ), but the younger went to heaven ( svarga ); astonished, he asked why, because after all , both would have led the same life ... His answer was that he had spent two months in an ashram on the banks of the Yamuna - the first month free from all sins and the second guaranteed a place in the Sky…
Representations
Depictions of Ganga and Yamuna have been known since the Gupta period ; they are almost always presented in a common context - albeit spatially separated from one another. They are a popular motif on temple portals, where they are shown as attractive female figures, first at the two ends of the lintels, and later at the base of the side door posts. In this position they have both an auspicious, blessing and sin-cleansing function as well as a disastrous ( apotropaic ) function. They are often accompanied by servants and guards; both should be holding a jug or a vase ( kalasha ) in their hands, but they are often broken off. Yamuna's mount ( vahana ) is usually a turtle ( kurma ).
Pictorial representations of the two goddesses Ganga and Yamuna can sometimes be found at the entrances of Buddhist temples.
literature
- Anneliese and Peter Keilhauer: The Imagery of Hinduism. The Indian world of gods and their symbolism. DuMont, Cologne 1986, pp. 215f, ISBN 3-7701-1347-0 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ David Kinsley: Indian Goddesses. Female deities in Hinduism. Insel, Frankfurt / M. 1990, p. 255, ISBN 3-458-16118-X .