YIMA.
The Persian god of death is scarcely changed from the Hindū Yama, who is “the king of death and the judge of the dead.” Among the Hindūs, however, he appears as the first of men who died, while among the Persians he has many ancestors. He offered sacrifices upon the summit of “the beautiful mountain,” and prayed the gods to grant him power and dominion. Thus he became a king over men and even over the Devas. As the regions of Pluto were guarded by the three-headed dog Cerberus, and the path of Yama was watched by two terrible dogs of the “four-eyed tawny breed of Sarama,” so also the souls of good men are defended from the howling and pursuing demons, by the dogs that guard