अनन्तश्चास्मि नागानां वरुणो यादसामहम् ।पितॄणामर्यमा चास्मि यमः संयमतामहम्॥
anantaś cāsmi nāgānāṃ varuṇo yādasām ahampitṝīṇām aryamā cāsmi yamaḥ sanyamatām aham
Word by word
The verse says
Among the great serpents I am Ananta. Among water creatures, Varuṇa. Among the ancestors I am Aryaman — and among those who keep order, I am Yama.
In plain words
The last name on this list is the one people flinch at.
Yama is the keeper of what is due, the one who settles accounts at the end.
He is named here under saṃyamatām — among those who regulate. Not as a terror. As an administrator.
Where you've felt this · in community
The man who checks tickets on a train is nobody's enemy. Everybody with a ticket is glad he comes through. The whole arrangement depends on it. Only the person without one sees a threat walking down the carriage, and even then, the man is not angry.
Going deeper
Putting the lord of endings in a list of regulators rather than a list of terrors is a deliberate piece of framing.
The category matters. Saṃyamatām means those who hold things within bounds — rule-keepers, those who see that limits are observed. By naming Yama there, the verse presents the fact of a limit as part of the order of things rather than as a punishment attached to it.
That fits what Chapter 8 did with the same subject, where the end was described as continuity rather than examination.
What it offers is a less frightened relationship with the idea of a limit. Something that keeps order is not something that has it in for you. Most of the dread people carry about endings is dread of being judged, and the verse quietly declines to frame it that way.