Yama, Sāvitri, Bhūdevi and the Possibilities of Collective Death

This paper explores Hindu conceptualizations of death through three stories involving Yama, the God of Death in Hinduism and Bhūdevi, the Earth Goddess. The first story, in the Katha Upanishads, is of Nachiketa, a sixteen year old boy whose dialogue with Yama illustrates the apotheosis of an individual soul’s desire. The second story, in the Mahābhārata, is of princess Sāvitri, her chosen husband, Satyavan, and Sāvitri outwitting Yama on her husband’s survival. The third story centers on the goddess Bhūdevi’s call for help, resulting in the the third avatar of Vishnu, Varāha. These three Hindu stories are analyzed through prisms of mythic transformations of self, desire, and evil and expanded from the lone individual’s dealing with impending death to the imagination of a collective human species dealing with the possibility of death and extinction.