Commentary on the Kathopanishad

by Swami Krishnananda

Discourse 1: Nachiketas Goes to the Lord of Death

The manner of presentation of the Kathopanishad, and also some of its contents, bear some resemblance to the manner of presentation of the Bhagavadgita. The Bhagavadgita commences with a student, the seeker Arjuna, and the Kathopanishad, which is what we are going to study now, starts with a student, Nachiketas by name. Arjuna, as a seeker of higher knowledge, surrendered himself to his Master, Sri Krishna. Here Nachiketas surrenders himself to Yama, the Lord of Death, for the sake of knowledge.

The Bhagavadgita instruction starts with the distinction between sankhya and yoga. The Kathopanishad starts with an instruction on the distinction between the good and the pleasant. Sankhya and yoga are distinguished in the beginning of the Bhagavadgita. Here we have the distinction drawn by the great teacher between the good thing and the pleasant thing.

As the Bhagavadgita proceeds to more and more complicated themes, the Kathopanishad also moves to very interesting subjects. Surprisingly, the analogy of the inverted tree that we have in the Kathopanishad: ūrdhva-mūlo'vāk-śākha (K.U. 2.3.1), we also have in the Bhagavadgita: ūrdhvamūlam adhaḥśākham (B.G. 15.1). That very same word is there in the Kathopanishad as we have in the Bhagavadgita. Which came first, and which came afterwards, we need not discuss here. Perhaps the Upanishads came first, and the Bhagavadgita came afterwards. Questions of life and death, and problems concerning human life, the nature of the immortality of the soul and the hereafter, which is the aim of the soul's ascent finally, are some of the themes which appear to be commonly present in the Kathopanishad and in the Bhagavadgita.

Auṁ saha nāv avatu, saha nau bhunaktu, saha vīryaṁ karavāvahai: tejasvi nāv adhītam astu: mā vidviṣāvahai; auṁ śāntih, śāntih, śāntih. A Shanti Mantra is recited at the beginning of the Upanishad. Every Upanishad has some Shanti Mantra which is recited in the beginning as well as in the end. In this particular context of the Kathopanishad, the Shanti Mantra is what we have recited just now.

Saha nāv avatu: May That protect us both. Here 'both' means the teacher and the disciple. May we, the teacher and the disciple, be blessed and protected by That. Saha nau bhunaktu: May That energise both of us, and on the one side, make us fit for teaching, and on the other side, make us fit for receiving the teaching. Saha vīryaṁ karavāvahai: May we get strengthened by the energy imparted by the teacher. Tejasvi nāv adhītam astu: May our study impart radiance and light to us. Mā vidviṣāvahai: May there be no conflict between us, may there be no difference of opinion between us, may there be nothing between us which will break the harmony between us, may there be always harmony between us. Auṁ śāntih, śāntih, śāntih: May there be peace, may there be peace, may there be peace. “May there be peace” is said three times as an invocation of divine powers for the freedom from three kinds of troubles to which humanity is generally held: troubles that arise from our own selves, known as adhyatmika tapa; troubles from the outside world, known as adhibhautika tapa; troubles coming from above by thunderstorm, heavy rains, and even earthquakes, which are all superphysical occurrences causing pain to mankind, known as adhidaivika tapa. May there be peace in all the three directions. We begin the study of the Kathopanishad after the recitation of the Shanti Mantra.

Uśan ha vai vājaśravasaḥ sarva-vedasaṁ dadau: tasya ha naciketā nāma putra āsa (1.1.1). This is the first mantra of the Kathopanishad. The meaning of this passage is that a sage, a holy man called Vajasravasa, wanting to reach heaven, desiring the joys of the celestial kingdom, performed a sacrifice called Sarvavedas, also known as Vishvajit. The condition of this particular kind of sacrifice, which is performed for the attainment of heaven after death, is that the person aspiring for this joy of the celestial world should offer in charity everything that he has. Whatever one considers as one's belonging should be offered in gift, in charity, so that after this performance of the sacrifice one has nothing to call one's own. One remains stripped of all possessions and the consciousness of having any kind of belonging.

This is a very difficult situation to imagine. Many of us may not be able to summon to our own mental imagination how it would look if we were stripped of every idea of possession and belonging. “I have no house, I have no land, I have no money. There is nothing with me that I can call my possession.” That circumstance in life is a very interesting theme for study in spiritual psychology. The spiritual method of approach to life is specifically a way of placing oneself in a condition in which one is not actually now, but in which one can find oneself some day or the other. It requires a power of imagination. One can imagine that one is a king. It is not merely a joke. The mind can enjoy in sheer imagination the powers and glories of an emperor or it can imagine the tragedy and grief of a beggar because, after all, human experience, whatever be its nature, is a mental operation in the end. All our experiences in life are psychological, a kind of position that the mind occupies in the structure of individual existence, by which experiences follow. Usually, the buffeting of the individual by outer circumstances in the world causes experience. Inner conditions of the body may also cause certain experiences, but we can summon an experience even without anything happening outside or inside us.

Actually, the way of meditation, the principal occupation of the yoga student, is nothing but a circumstance that we are creating in our own mind which does not physically exist in the world. In a similar manner is the purpose of this sacrifice called Vishvajit, wherein one frees oneself from every kind of attachment. This was attempted by the great sage Vajasravasa, who had a son called Nachiketas. This is what the first mantra, the first passage, the first sloka, the first verse of the Kathopanishad tells us: uśan ha vai vājaśravasaḥ sarva-vedasaṁ dadau: tasya ha naciketā nāma putra āsa.

Taṁ ha kumāraṁ santaṁ dakṣiṇāsu nīyamānāsu śraddhā-viveśa, so'manyata (1.1.2). The innocent boy, being a very little lad, was observing the sacrifice. Children are very observant and can sometimes notice things much better than older people because of the tremendous concentration that they have and their capacity to focus their minds on only one thing. The boy was observing the great sacrifice being performed by the father and the gifts being given in great abundance to all the people gathered there. Some feeling arose in his mind. There was some kind of inner transformation that took place in the mind of this little boy when he saw his father giving charity—giving, giving, giving, giving everything. What did the boy notice? What was he seeing? He was seeing a very interesting phenomenon.

Pītodakā jagdha-tṛṇā dugdha-dohā nirindriyāḥ anandā nāma te lokās tān sa gacchata tā dadat (1.1.3) is the third mantra. The venerable father, wanting to enjoy the joys of heaven and trying to follow the conditions of the sacrifice meant for that purpose, was giving cattle in charity. Perhaps, as was the case in ancient times, cattle were considered as real wealth, more than gold and silver, which was not respected very much. Generally people did not own coins, currency notes, gold and silver, as much as cattle. Cattle wealth was great wealth. So when cattle were given as gifts in charity, it was tantamount to giving whatever wealth one has. Cattle were being offered as gifts. What kind of cattle?

Here is the peculiarity of the situation which touched the very heart of this little boy. The boy was not foolish; he was intelligent. He had a sense of what was proper and what was not proper. What was he seeing? Cattle were being given in gift. What kind of cattle? Pītodakā: They had drunk water for the last time. They would not drink further. Jagdha-tṛṇā: They had chewed grass for the last time. They would not be able to eat grass further on. Dugdha-dohā: They had been milked for the last time, and further milk would not come from them. Nirindriyāḥ: They were so weak that they were tottering. They could not even walk properly. They were in the lowest ebb of their life principle, weakened by starvation—bony cattle that could not eat grass further, could not yield milk anymore, and could not even drink water. Such cattle were being given as gifts. Very surprising indeed!

What does 'gift' mean? Charity means the giving of that which we love most. It does not mean simply giving something. Our heart has to go a little bit by the process of alienation, and our joy should diminish a little because of a part of our joy going to contribute to the joy of another person. If we do not share a little of our love and joy, and do not contribute thereby to the joy of some other person, any kind of giving in that condition cannot be regarded as a gift. If we have lost nothing by giving, we have given nothing. And if the person receiving actually receives nothing, the gift has not been received. So if cattle which were about to die were offered like dead coins or broken currency notes, Vajasravasa really lost nothing because he had given things which were of no value whatsoever. Because the things that he gave in gift had no value, he had lost nothing, and because of that very reason, the person receiving also received nothing. So it was a big game of pretentious sacrifice.

The boy was looking at this. What did he feel inside? People who give charities and gifts of this kind go to joyless worlds: anandā nāma te lokās tān sa gacchata tā dadat. The child felt: “My dear father does not know even this much. The joyless, grief-stricken realms will be the result that follows from the gifts pretentiously offered in this manner. I am also a belonging; therefore, I too have to go as a gift. All things that belong to my father should go in charity. As I am his son, I belong to him, and so I must also go, and he must offer me as a gift to somebody.”

Sa hovāca pitaram, tāta kasmai māṁ, dāsyasīti; dvitīyaṁ tṛtīyam; taṁ hovāca: mṛtyave tvā dadāmīti (1.1.4): Nachiketas asked his father, “Dear Father, to whom are you going to offer me?”

The father did not pay any attention to this blabbering of the impertinent child. He thought: “You speak like this before me as if I am going to offer you, my dear son, to somebody else?” and he spoke not a word in reply.

A second time the child asked, “Father, to whom are you going to give me?”

The second time also the father did not give a reply. He was annoyed.

A third time this boy persisted in asking the same question: “To whom are you going to offer me as a gift?”

The father got irritated. “To hell you go. To death I offer thee.”

Sometimes, in uncontrollable irascibility, people utter words, to their own repentance afterwards. You might have seen a father or mother condemning their children in words which are abominable, they themselves not knowing the meaning at all. Anyway, this word came from the mouth of the father in haste and anger, though he would not have uttered such words in saner moments.

Bahūnām emi prathamaḥ, bahūnām madhyamaḥ; kiṁ svid yamasya kartavyam yan mayādya kariṣyati (1.1.5): This was a very terrible thing for the boy to hear. “You ask me to go to death? It is to death that you are going to offer me as a gift? After all, what is the wrong that I have committed that I should be consumed by the jaws of death? Maybe among people I am not the best, maybe I am at least middling in quality, but am I the worst that I should go to death? What is the Lord of Death about to do with me? Should I die for no fault of mine? Anyway, these words have come from the mouth of my dear father. He wants me to go to death. Father, stick to your words. Do not withdraw these words.”

This is what Rama might have told Dasaratha because Dasaratha might have felt really sorry for having given the promise to Kaikeyi: “I shall offer you boons, whatever be the boons that you ask.” But when the time came for it and he had to offer the boons, to the chagrin of all people, to his own sorrow and to his demise, he would have very much liked to withdraw the promise, indications to which he gave in his anguish-ridden words to Kaikeyi. But Rama said, “Stick to your word, and I shall fulfil the promise that you have given to Mother Kaikeyi.”

Anupaśya yathā pūrve pratipaśya tathāpare, sasyam iva martyaḥ pacyate sasyam ivajāyate punaḥ (1.1.6): So does the boy Nachiketas speak here. “Father, stick to your word. Do not withdraw the idea that was behind the words that you spoke. I shall go to death. Remember how ancient people stuck to their truth; pratipaśya tathāpare: how people who came afterwards also stuck to truth. Once you utter a word, it has to be stuck to forever. Do not withdraw that word. So please remember how ancient people behaved, and how people who follow the ancient ones also behave. After all, what is there in dying? There is nothing surprising in it, and nothing to fear. Like corn, human beings shrivel, and like corn, human beings rise up into action. When the harvest dries up and is cut, the corn falls on the field. Likewise, decrepit old age catches hold of every human being and compels the body to shrivel to death. As corn is cooked, human beings are also cooked by the power of death. Sasyam iva martyaḥ pacyate sasyam ivajāyate punaḥ: Even if dried-up grain falls on the ground dead, as it were, it is not really dead. It has to rise again into action when it germinates. So is the case with people. People die only to be reborn. After all, what is there if I go to death? I shall lose nothing. I shall be born once again, perhaps as a better man. Therefore, Father, stick to your word, knowing that truth has to be followed, and also knowing that death is not to be feared because death necessarily leads to rebirth, possibly in a better state of affairs.” Either Nachiketas actually spoke these words or he mentally thought them, as the case may be.

There is a linguistic gap between the verse that I read just now and the verse that follows, either due to a lacuna in the redaction of the text, or the original text propounded by the ancient Master has been kept as a guarded secret in certain ways so that everything is not told, while something necessary is told. Secrets of spiritual life are, no doubt, taught by Gurus, but they do not teach every blessed thing. Something they withhold because students are not always ready to receive everything that the Guru knows. In a similar manner, perhaps some little thing between the two verses is kept secret. What seems to be there as the point that is to be read between the two lines is that the soul of Nachiketas leaves the body.

In another edition of this Upanishad that occurs in the Taittiriya Brahmana, the same story is told in a different way. A voice from the sky speaks.

Nachiketas went to the abode of the Lord of Death, and passed three nights in the absence of Yama. He went there when Yama was not at home, and stood outside, starving.

After three days, when the lord of the house came,
he asked, “You have been here for three nights. What did you eat?”

“On the first day, your cattle,” so goes the reply.

“What did you eat on the second day?”

“Your progeny.”

“What did you eat on the third day?”

“All your good works.”

The word used in the Sanskrit language for an uninvited guest is atithi. Atithi is one who comes uninvited. The uninvited comers are sometimes considered as God coming because anything that happens without our knowledge and without our interference should be considered as the work of God, especially if the atithi is a knower of Brahman, a Brahmana. In Nachiketas' case he was such. He was a Brahmin boy, and very self-controlled and, therefore, very powerful. If such a person arrives at the gates of the house of a person and is not properly received, he shall destroy all the good works of the lord of that house. Like a fire does the atithi come. As a burning flame does the atithi enter
the house.

Vaiśvānaraḥ praviśaty atithir brāhmaṇo gṛhān: tasyaitāṁ śāntiṁ kurvanti, hara vaivasvatodakam (1.1.7): Commentators say that this verse, this particular half passage, is actually the words spoken by the queen of Yama. The queen speaks, say the commentators of this passage, to pacify this new guest. “He is burning like a flame because of no attention being paid to him. May he be satisfied. Bring water immediately. Wash his feet, make him seated, and offer him gifts so that his anger may subside and you will have peace. For three days this boy has been standing here without anyone's knowledge. He will destroy all your good deeds and all your belongings. All your future will be in ruins if you do not treat him properly. Bring water.”

Āśā-pratīkṣe saṁgataṁ sūnṛtāṁ ceṣṭāpūrte putra-paśūṁś ca sarvān, etad vṛṅkte puruṣasyālpamedhaso yasyānaśnan vasati brāhmaṇo gṛhe (1.1.8): When a person come in that way is not properly received, what happens? All the hopes of the lord of the house are destroyed then and there. All his expectations get burnt to ashes. All the good things that he has done immediately die. All his friends depart. All the results that followed from his sacrifices, i.e., philanthropic deeds such as charities of different types that he has done to people and the results of Vedic sacrifices, they also immediately perish. His children die, and his cattle perish when he disregards an atithi who comes. If the lord of the house, not knowing the value of receiving guests, atithis, ignores their presence, he loses everything that he has got and himself gets ruined. This is what happens when a starving man stands in front of him.

Yama is suddenly aware of all this because of the instruction that is imparted to him by his own queen: “Great danger is ahead for you if you do not satisfy
this lad.”

Tisro rātrīr yād avatsīr gṛhe me'naśnan brahman atitthir namasyaḥ. namaste'stu, brahman; svasti me'stu; tasmāt prati trīn varān vṛṇīṣva (1.1.9). “My dear boy,” says Yama, “you have stood at my house for three nights without taking anything from me, without taking food and drinking water. You are a respectable holy man. Holy respectable Brahmacharin, I have made a great mistake in not being present when you came, and I made you starve. You did not drink even water. Namaskar. Prostration to you. I salute you and prostrate myself before you, great Brahmin, the glory of tapas. May peace be unto me. Do not curse me. As a recompense for the trouble that I have given to you, please ask for three boons. I shall immediately, instantaneously, grant you these three boons.”

This is an introduction to the Kathopanishad.