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The river in Yama's abode is called Pushpodaka, and what each drinks out of it is according to what he deserves to drink, cool water or filth (ib. 46, 58).[75] In the various descriptions it is not strange to find discordant views even in portions belonging approximately to the same period. Thus in contradistinction to the prevailing view one reads of Indra himself that he is Yamasya net[=a] Namucecca hant[=a]'Yama's leader, Namuci's slayer' (iii. 25. 10.), i.e., those that die in battle go to Yama.
On the other hand, in the later speculative portions, Yama is not death. "Yama is not death, as some think; he is one that gives bliss to the good, and woe to the bad."[76] Death and life are foolishness and lack of folly, respectively (literally, 'non-folly is nonmortality'), while folly and mortality are counter opposites. In pantheistic teaching there is, of course, no real death, only change. But death is a female power, personified, and sharply distinguished from Yama. Death as a means of change thus remains, while Yama is relegated to the guardianship of hell. The difference in regard to the latter subject, between earlier and later views, has been noted above. One comparatively early passage attempts to arrange the incongruous beliefs in regard to sams[=a]ra (rebirth) and hell on a sort of sliding scale, thus: "One that does good gets in the next life a good birth; one that does ill gets an ill birth"; more particularly: "By good acts one attains to the state of gods; by 'mixed' acts, to the state of man; by acts due to confusion of mind, to the state of animals and plants (viyon[=ills.Ju); by sinful acts one goes to hell" (adhog[=a]mi, iii. 209. 29-32).[77] Virtue must have been, as the epic often declares it to be, a 'subtile matter,' for often a tale is told to illustrate the fact that one goes to hell for doing what he thinks (mistakenly) to be right. Thus K[=a]uçika is sent to hell for speaking the truth, whereas he ought to have lied to save life (viii. 69.53), for he was "ignorant of virtue's subtilty."[78] A passage (i. 74.27 ff.) that is reflected in Manu (viii. 85-86) says that Yama V[ra]ivasvata takes away the sin of him with whom is satisfied "the one that witnesses the act, that stands in the heart, that knows the ground"; but Yama tortures him with whom this one (personified conscience) is dissatisfied. For "truth is equal to a thousand horse-sacrifices; truth is highest brahma" (ib. 103, 106).
