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god of the Underworld

In Hind. myth. the god of departed spirits and the appointed judge and punisher of the dead: the embodiment of power without pity, and stern, unbending fate. He is generally represented as crowned and seated on a buffalo, which he guides by the horns. He is four-armed and of austere countenance. In one hand he holds a mace, in another a noose which is used to draw out of the bodies of men the souls which are doomed to appear before his judgment-seat. His garments are of the color of fire, his skin is of a bluish green.

The sun-descended lord of the nether world, of which he is also the judge, having been the first to descend to Hades, and pave a way through the dark into bliss for "the dead who have lived nobly".