Yamaraja
Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia is now 14 years old
Our Encyclopedia recently received a wonderful opportunity for a major renewal on its 14th birthday . After many years of growing our Encyclopedia had become bit slow and sometimes even decided not to answer when people knocked on the door.
A very big thank you and blessings to Dmytro Rudiy (rudiy.nl) for his great work in upgrading the server, website and all of the infrastructure and helping make TBE fast and reliable again for everyone!
We kindly ask our readers to help us cover the cost of this important upgrade and also help with the ongoing costs of keeping the Encyclopedia alive and freely available.
or card
Every little donation helps and every one is deeply appreciated. 🙏🙏🙏
OM AH HUM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUM 🙏🙏🙏
May blessings shower down on all of yous 🙏🙏🙏
Yamaraja, the Vedic lord of death.
The ruler of the great hell is called Yama or Yamaraja.
But there is not only one Yamaraja for one Mahaniraya; there are actually four Yamaraja who are in charge of the four gates.
Thus for eight great hells there are altogether thirty-two Yamaraja.
Apart from these Yamaraja there are a number of hell-guardians called Niraya-pala.
The duty of the Yamaraja is to consider the case of each hell creature and give orders for punishment;
the Niraya-pala’s duty is to inflict the penalties typical of each hell on the hell-creatures.
Yamaraja and Niraya-pala are actually not hell beings but belong to the heaven of Catummaharajika.
They are described as Vemanikapeta, the beings that sometimes enjoy the fruitions of their meritorious kamma in heaven and sometimes suffer the results of their evil deeds in hell.
By particular kinds of karma they are sent to perform their duties in this realm of misery by inflicting penalties on the hell creatures.