> [[norelius]]. "The Vedic goddess of death". > **Abstract** > This article investigates the Vedic concept of *nírṛti*-, “dissolution, ruin.” While commonly the name of a goddess of death, it has been stressed that the concept is sometimes only vaguely personified, or not at all. The present study argues that while the occurrences where *nírṛti*- can be demonstrated to designate something else than a goddess are very few, there are some undeniable instances. The word may denote a state of being, as evinced by the adjective *nírṛta*“decayed, decrepit”; in these cases it may refer to corporeal decay, but also to a dismal, inferior form of afterlife. The view of some scholars that *nírṛti*- represents the absence of an afterlife, a complete annihilation of personality, is rejected; the word rather refers to a continued existence in a gloomy underworld. In a few places *nírṛti*- even denotes the underworld of the dead. Also examined is the old Indo-Iranian motif of the noose of death, which in India is frequently connected with Nirṛti. The question is raised whether ancient Indian mantic literature and Iranian eschatological texts allow us to posit an Indo-Iranian female psychopomp, wielding a noose.