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I ADHYAYA, I VALLÎ, 29.
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as long as thou rulest? Only that boon (which I have chosen) is to be chosen by me.'
28. What mortal, slowly decaying here below, and knowing, after having approached them, the freedom from decay enjoyed by the immortals, would delight in a long life, after he has pondered on the pleasures which arise from beauty and love 1?'
29. 'No, that on which there is this doubt, O Death, tell us what there is in that great Hereafter. Nakiketas does not choose another boon but that which enters into the hidden world.'
1 A very obscure verse. Sankara gives a various reading kva tadâsthah for kvadhahsthah, in the sense of 'given to these pleasures,' which looks like an emendation. I have changed agîryatâm into agâryatâm, and take it for an acc. sing., instead of a gen. plur., which could hardly be governed by upetya.
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