The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (2714 page)

 
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(Heb., ‘compilation’). Title of several Jewish midrashic anthologies. The best-known Yalkut are the
Yalkut Shimoni
(13th cent.) which covers the whole Bible, the
Yalkut ha-Makhiri
(14th cent.), and the
Yalkut Reuveni
(17th cent.) which has been arranged to correspond to the weekly readings of the
Torah
Scroll
.

 
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(Skt., ‘restraint’).
1
The god of death in Hinduism and Buddhism, also called
Dharma
R
ja, possibly connected with the Iranian
Yima
. In the
g Veda
he appears in books 1 and 10 presiding over the ancestors or ‘fathers’ (
pit
) in the third (highest) heaven of the sky (
svarga
) realm (above atmosphere,
bhuvah
, and earth,
bh
r
). In the
Ka
ha
Upani
ad
, Yama bestows highest knowledge. Post-Vedic mythology in contrast portrays Yama as a judge and punisher of the dead in a lower world where the soul (
tman,
j
va
,
puru
a
) goes after death and receives its sentence. The
Mah
bh
rata
depicts Yama as clothed in red with glaring eyes, holding a noose with which to bind the souls of the dead. This image is embellished in later mythology where he is a terrible deity inflicting torture upon souls. Yama is associated with the south, the realm of the dead.
In Buddhism, Yama is the Lord of the Underworld. In some respects, he is replaced by
M
ra
. The canonical account of Yama is contained mainly in the two almost identical
Devad
ta Suttas
in
Majjhima Nik
ya