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DECEMBER, 1928 ]
KATHAKA UPANISAD
227
"Obtainment of carnal desire117, the foundation of the living world, the eternity of sacrifice, the other shore of fearlessness
the firm foundation hast thou, O Naciketas, wise in thy firmness let go.118 (11)
"The wise man who, by concentrating all his thought on the Atman, has understood him who is hard to see, who has entered the dark space, the concealed one, living in the depth, the old one to be (the only) god leaves joy and grief behind. (12)
When mortal man has heard and fully understood this, when he has flung away dharma119 and arrived at this atom-like one (viz., Atman) then he rejoices, having obtained a reason for rejoicing. The house to me seems wide-open, O Naciketas !120" (13)
Naciketas: "Whatever thou seest which is neither good nor bad, neither done nor not done, neither past nor to be, that proclaim to me." (14)
Yama: "The word which all the Vedas repeat and which131 all the penances proclaim, to obtain which they lead a student's holy life, that word will I tell thee in brief: Om, thus is it. (15)
"This (eternal) syllable, 132 forsooth, is Brahman, this (eternal) syllable is the very highest, he who has come to know this (eternal) syllable obtains whatever he wishes. (16)
"This is the very best support, this is the very highest support. He who has come to know this support enjoys bliss in the Brahman-world. (17)
"The seer123 is neither born nor does he die; he comes from nowhere, nor did he become anyone else. Unborn, everlasting, eternal is the ancient one. He is not slain if the body be slain.124 (18)
"If the slayer thinks that he slays, and if the slain believes himself to be slain, then both these do not know: he135 neither slays nor is he slain.126 (19)
117 Kern, S.B. 1891, p. 88, reads kâmanydvd ptim.
118 This verse is perhaps the most obscure one of all the dark passages in our text, and all previous translators differ more or less from each other without being able to render satisfactorily the sense of the two lines. Personally I am first of all absolutely unable to translate the words stomamahadurugayam, which must needs be corrupt; already Samkara apparently understood nothing of them. Hillebrandt, l. c. p. 121, is the one who has tried a real translation when he renders it: das durch Stomas mächtige Urugayaliedbut what does that mean? Professor Sieg, l.c. p. 132, has tried a rearrangement of the construction, but without obtaining any intelligible meaning. He is, however, right in translating keratu by Opferwerk; krator ânantyam (cf. Pân. V, 3, 24) means either 'sacrifice lasting for an eternal time,' or rather 'eternal life won by sacrifice.' Bôhtlingk is also right in rejecting the unnecessary drated, which was certainly put in by a commentator who understood nothing of the verse. The only possible clue to an explanation seems to me to be this: in 1, 14 (supra) Yama calls the Nâciketa-fire anantalokáptim atho pratistham. This must be the same in this passage too. What Naciketas has let go is the fire which Yama has taught him, and which here he praises in most exalted language. Naciketes wants something still higher, viz. the knowledge of the fate of the liberated (mukta) after death, the solution of the riddle of the Atman. In his persistence he is wise and firm.
119 With Böhtlingk and Geldner we ought no doubt to read dharmam; but the expression pravrhya dharmam is puzzling and not solved by the translations known to me-flung away' (so also Whitney) is only a weak attempt to render it.
120 The last words are obscure and possibly corrupt; I follow Professor Geldner in reading naciketa!
sammanye.
121 Read tapasi saredși ca yad vadanti with Kern, SB, 1891, p. 86. With this verse cf. Bhagavadgitd, viii, 11, which gives exactly the same ideas in somewhat different words.
122 Note the double sense of aksara. As being the expiration of Brahman, Om, of course, is eternal. 123 Vipascit Atman.
124 Cf. Bhagavadgttd ii, 20; but there the words ndyam bhatud bhavita vd ná bhúyah are no immedi ate paraphrase of the expression ndyam kutaścin na babhuva kascit of our text.
125 Viz., the Atman.
126 Professor Sieg, L.c. p. 132, suggests that this verse is only a misrepresentation of Bhagavadgîtâ ii, 19 Ya enam vetti hantaram yas cainam manyate hatam | ubhau tau na vijánito niyam hanti na hanyate, and that not even Professor Geldner's clever interpretation can save it. This is unintelligible to me. The Gted verse is, of course, younger, and both of them give absolutely the same sense.
