Commentary on the Kathopanishad: 1.2 Swami Krishnananda

 

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Tuesday 29, September 2026, 05:40.
Books
Vedanta & Upanishads
Commentary on the Kathopanishad: 
Swami Krishnananda
Discourse 1: Nachiketas Goes to the Lord of Death -2.

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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.

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Continues

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