Yama यम | The Southern Court in Gold and Jewels | Museum Poster

In the old Tanjore manner, child, we frame the holy ones in jewels — rubies for courage, emeralds for the green of growing things, gold for the sun that watches all. Here is Yama as the painters of the south remembered him: dark as monsoon cloud, beard like rain-water, the twin maces of dharma steady in his hands. Mahisha rests below, his horns wrapped in gold. Chitragupta sits beside him, palm-leaf and quill ready. This is the southern court. Every road leads to it in the end. The kind ones arrive unafraid.