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Mrtyu
Mṛtyu (from Vedic Sanskrit: मृत्यु IAST: ; Latin cognate mortis), is a Sanskrit word meaning Death. Mṛtyu or Death is often personified as the demigods Mara and Yama 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.
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Yama is the lord of death in Hinduism and Buddhism.
- Yama in Hinduism.
- Yama in Buddhism.
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:
Then he became a horse (ashva), because it swelled (ashvat), and was fit for sacrifice (medhya); and this is why the horse-sacrifice is called Ashva-medha [...] Therefore the sacrificers offered up the purified horse belonging to Prajapati, (as dedicated) to all the deities. Verily the shining sun [ye tapati] is the Asvamedha, and his body is the year; Agni is the sacrificial fire (arka), and these worlds are his bodies. These two are the sacrificial fire and the Asvamedha-sacrifice, and they are again one deity, viz. Death. (BrUp 1.2.7. trans. Müller)