The Dialogue of Yama and Yamī
Rigveda X.10 is a sūkta (hymn of praise) from Maṇḍala 10 of the Rigveda, one of the 1,028 hymns organized within the ten books of the oldest Veda. The Rigveda was composed approximately 1700–1100 BCE in Vedic Sanskrit and preserved through oral transmission across millennia.
This is a Good Works Translation produced for the Good Works Library from the Sanskrit of the Śākala recension. The hymn is a dialogue between the twins Yama and Yamī, the first mortal pair: Yamī urges Yama to unite with her so their line may continue, and Yama refuses on the ground that such union between siblings is wrong.
1. Even a friend I would turn back by friendship, though he has gone far across the flood. Let the ordainer take up the father's grandson, thinking further upon this earth.
2. Your friend does not want this kind of friendship — that one of shared descent should become one of different kind. The heroic sons of the great asura, the sustainers of heaven, look out widely.
3. The immortals themselves desire this: the giving-up of even one single mortal. Let your mind be set on my mind — let a husband as lover enter your body.
4. What we have not done before — why should we, speaking what is true, now speak what is false? The gandharva is in the waters, and the woman is of the waters — that is our kinship, our closest bond, ours together.
5. Already in the womb the begetter made us a married pair — the god Tvaṣṭṛ, all-shaping Savitṛ. No one transgresses his ordinances; earth and heaven know this of us.
6. Who knows of that first day? Who has seen it? Who can declare it here? Vast is the realm of Mitra and Varuṇa. What then, driven by longing, can I say to men in their proper order?
7. Desire for Yama has come upon me, Yamī, to lie together in the one womb. Like a wife to her husband, let me give my body — let us turn together like the two wheels of a chariot.
8. They do not stand still, they do not blink, these spies of the gods who move about here. Go quickly, driven by desire, with another than me — turn with him like the two wheels of a chariot.
9. Let him favor her with nights and with days; let the eye of the sun blink again and again. Heaven and earth are a paired, kindred couple — let Yamī bear the non-kinship of Yama.
10. Those later generations will surely come when kin will do what is not fit for kin. Stretch out your arm as a pillow for a bull of a man; seek another husband than me, fortunate one.
11. What good is a brother when one is left without protection? What good is a sister when ruin draws near? Overcome by desire, I say this again and again: join your body to my body.
12. I will not join my body to your body. They call him wicked who goes to his own sister. Arrange your pleasures with another than me — your brother does not want this, fortunate one.
13. Alas, alas — Yama, we have found neither your mind nor your heart! Another woman will surely embrace you, as a girth embraces a yoked horse, as a creeper embraces a tree.
14. You yourself, Yamī, will well embrace another, and another will embrace you, as a creeper embraces a tree. Seek his mind, or let him seek yours — and so make between you a happy union.
Translator's note: the Sanskrit marks no speakers by name beyond the vocatives within the verses themselves; by long convention the hymn is read as alternating speech, Yamī urging union and Yama declining, running through to the close. Verse 1 is difficult and its subject (an unnamed "friend," the "father's grandson") is rendered conservatively; scholars differ on whether it belongs to Yamī's opening appeal or functions as a narrator's frame.
Colophon
Rigveda X.10 is drawn from the Śākala recension of the Rigveda, composed approximately 1700–1100 BCE. This is a Good Works Translation rendered verse by verse from the Sanskrit text printed below. Prepared for the Good Work Library by the Tianmu Anglican Church with AI-assisted translation.
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Source Text: ṛgveda X.10
Sanskrit source text from the Aufrecht edition (1877) via GRETIL (Van Nooten & Holland input). Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.
o cit sakhāyaṁ sakhyā vavṛtyāṁ tiraḥ purū cid arṇavaṁ jaganvān |
pitur napātam ā dadhīta vedhā adhi kṣami prataraṁ dīdhyānaḥ || 1 ||
na te sakhā sakhyaṁ vaṣṭy etat salakṣmā yad viṣurūpā bhavāti |
mahas putrāso asurasya vīrā divo dhartāra urviyā pari khyan || 2 ||
uśanti ghā te amṛtāsa etad ekasya cit tyajasam martyasya |
ni te mano manasi dhāyy asme janyuḥ patis tanva1m ā viviśyāḥ || 3 ||
na yat purā cakṛmā kad dha nūnam ṛtā vadanto anṛtaṁ rapema |
gandharvo apsv apyā ca yoṣā sā no nābhiḥ paramaṁ jāmi tan nau || 4 ||
garbhe nu nau janitā dampatī kar devas tvaṣṭā savitā viśvarūpaḥ |
nakir asya pra minanti vratāni veda nāv asya pṛthivī uta dyauḥ || 5 ||
ko asya veda prathamasyāhnaḥ ka īṁ dadarśa ka iha pra vocat |
bṛhan mitrasya varuṇasya dhāma kad u brava āhano vīcyā nṝn || 6 ||
yamasya mā yamya1ṁ kāma āgan samāne yonau sahaśeyyāya |
jāyeva patye tanvaṁ riricyāṁ vi cid vṛheva rathyeva cakrā || 7 ||
na tiṣṭhanti na ni miṣanty ete devānāṁ spaśa iha ye caranti |
anyena mad āhano yāhi tūyaṁ tena vi vṛha rathyeva cakrā || 8 ||
rātrībhir asmā ahabhir daśasyet sūryasya cakṣur muhur un mimīyāt |
divā pṛthivyā mithunā sabandhū yamīr yamasya bibhṛyād ajāmi || 9 ||
ā ghā tā gacchān uttarā yugāni yatra jāmayaḥ kṛṇavann ajāmi |
upa barbṛhi vṛṣabhāya bāhum anyam icchasva subhage patim mat || 10 ||
kim bhrātāsad yad anātham bhavāti kim u svasā yan nirṛtir nigacchāt |
kāmamūtā bahv e3tad rapāmi tanvā me tanva1ṁ sam pipṛgdhi || 11 ||
na vā u te tanvā tanva1ṁ sam papṛcyām pāpam āhur yaḥ svasāraṁ nigacchāt |
anyena mat pramudaḥ kalpayasva na te bhrātā subhage vaṣṭy etat || 12 ||
bato batāsi yama naiva te mano hṛdayaṁ cāvidāma |
anyā kila tvāṁ kakṣyeva yuktam pari ṣvajāte libujeva vṛkṣam || 13 ||
anyam ū ṣu tvaṁ yamy anya u tvām pari ṣvajāte libujeva vṛkṣam |
tasya vā tvam mana icchā sa vā tavādhā kṛṇuṣva saṁvidaṁ subhadrām || 14 ||
Source Colophon
Sanskrit text of the Rigveda, Śākala recension. The standard scholarly edition is the Bombay Oriental (Vishva Bandhu, 5 vols., 1963–66). IAST transliteration available from GRETIL (Göttingen Register of Electronic Texts in Indian Languages) and Vedaweb (University of Cologne). Both sources are open access. IAST transliteration from the Aufrecht edition (1877) via GRETIL (Van Nooten & Holland input, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).