Women in Mahabharata - Mrityu
When Brahma becomes angry and attempts burn all humans to ash, Shiva mollifies him. From Brahma's residual anger, a woman comes to life, who Brahma then names Mrityu and directs her to kill all the older humans.
Mrityu, out of her natural-born mercy, flat-out refuses to comply and sets out to perform a long tapasya, trying to change Brahma's mind. After a long time, she and Brahma come to a compromise. Brahma converts her shed tears into 'diseases' to help her kill the people without too-much cruelty, and also promises to shield her from any ill-will showed from the dead people's family members.
Brahma also directs Mrityu to use the services of Kama, Krodha and Vayu to achieve her purpose. She is also tasked with, in time, killing the Devas, allowing them to incarnate as humans, and promoting humans to the level of new Devas to replace the old guard in a cyclical manner.
This story is primarily purely an explanatory myth, an effort to humanize Death, and present a philosophical exploration of life-after-death.
