Namaste,
naciketAH asks:
yama, tell us that in which men have this doubt, and which is about the great hereafter.
naciketas does not choose any other boon but that of which the knowledge is hidden.
yamaH replies:
One is more good (sreya), while another is more pleasant (preya). These two having different objects chain a man.
Blessed is he who between them chooses the good alone, but he who chooses what is pleasant loses the true in the end.
The good and the pleasant take hold of man; the wise man extinguishes them.
The wise man prefers the good to the pleasant, but the ignorant man chooses the pleasant for the sake of the body.
naciketaH, thou hast renounced objects of desires and desirable objects of pleasant form, judging them by their real value.
Thou hast not chosen the road of wealth, in which many men perish.
These two, ignorance (avidyA) and knowledge (vidyA), are wide apart and lead to different points or goals.
I believe naciketas to be one who desires for knowledge, for even many desires have not shaken thee.
The ignorant, who live in the midst of darkness but fancy themselves as wise and learned, go round and round, deluded in many crooked ways, as blind people led by the blind.
The way to the hereafter is not apparent to the ignorant man who is foolish, deluded by the illusion of wealth.
‘This is the world,’ he thinks, ‘there is no other’ ~ thus he falls again and again under my sway.
He of whom many are not even able to hear, whom many, even when they hear of him, do not comprehend; wonderful is a man, when found, who is able to teach the self; wonderful is he who comprehends the self when taught by an able teacher.
That self, when taught by a man of inferior intellect is not easy to be known, as it is to be thought of in various ways. But when it is taught by a preceptor who is one with brahman, there is no doubt concerning it, the self being subtler than the subtle, and is not to be gained by arguing.
This knowledge is not to be obtained by argument, but it is easy to understand it, O dearest, when taught by a teacher who beholds no difference; thou hast obtained it now; thou art fixed in truth. May we have, naciketaH, an enquirer like thee!
I know that the treasure is transient, for that eternal is not obtained by things which are not eternal.
Therefore, the naciketas fire has been propitiated by me with the perishable things and I have obtained the eternal.
The end of all desires, the foundation of the world, the endless rewards of sacrifice, the other shore where there is no fear, the praiseworthy, the great, the wide-extended sphere and the abode of the soul ~ all these thou hast seen, and being wise, naciketaH, thou hast with firm resolve rejected all.
The wise sage who, by means of meditation on his self, recognizes the ancient, who is difficult to be seen, unfathomable and concealed, hidden in the cave of the heart, dwelling in the abyss, lodged in intelligence, indeed he renounces joy and sorrow.
Having heard and well grasped this, the mortal, abstracting the virtuous Atman, attaining this subtle self, rejoices, because he has obtained what is cause for rejoicing. I think that the abode of brahman is wide open for naciketas.
naciketa is derived from cit (“to perceive, fix the mind upon, attend to, be attentive, observe, take notice of, aim at, intend, design, be anxious about, care for, resolve, understand, comprehend, or know”), with ciketa as the active singular form of the perfect tense (“I have perceived, resolved, comprehended, known, etc.”). And naciketa is one who has “not perceived, not resolved, or not comprehended”.
naciketa is “innocent, ignorant, or unknowing”.
naciketas was a young brAhmaNa “who did not understand” why his father had sacrificed all of his possessions.
yama himself knows that worldly treasure is transient, for he was the very first mortal, the first one to sacrifice and to die. Therefore, he gave up or sacrificed all mortal things into the incomprehensible fire of unknowing, or into the hearth of naciketas, and thus attained immortality.
yama is praising naciketas as surpassing even himself ~ i.e. naciketas is surpassing yama (as “death”) and is thus approaching eternity.
The text is not explicit as to the speaker, but it seems clear from the context.
Most western authorities assume that jesus is the first and only example of a god being born and suffering death as a man, and so this may be why they assume that it must be the young naciketas who is saying “I know that the treasure is transient” and “I have obtained the eternal”. But it is yama who teaches naciketas the agnicayana (preparation of the sacred hearth) for performing the nAciketa sacrifice, so it cannot be naciketas who claims to have attained eternity by previously making that same sacrifice. And naciketas does not interrupt until the last line of the vallI, when he asks his next question of yama: “That which thou seest as other than virtue or vice, other than cause and effect, other than the past and future, tell me that.”
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