Customer Reviews

The Katha Upanishad (Sacred Wisdom)

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I was visiting a used bookstore with a friend when this book caught my attention. I immediately purchased it and read it. Its a small book - 61 pages total, interlaced with beautiful Indian miniature paintings. The author clarifies all uncertain/difficult translations in the introduction - for example "buddhi" is translated throughout as intellect.

In the past, I have read translations of old Indian text in which some authors give a detailed account of their own interpretations on the subject. I usually don't like this "lecturing" and find it more appealing if the text is just translated so that the reader is open to his/her own interprtations.

Finally, the story of young Nachiketas may or may not be true. But we all can associate with it on some level or the other. Here are a few passages from the book:

"Like pure water being poured into pure water,
Who sees only the One
Becomes the One"

"There, in that Self,
The sun cannot shine,
Nor the moon or stars.
The light of lightning cannot reach it,
Much less a conflagration on Earth.
Yet by Its presence all these are lit
And light shines forth."

This book is all I expected it to be, and more.

If you had three wishes, as did Nachiketas, what would you wish for? The story start when the father offers the son, Nachiketas as a sacrifice (reminscent of Abraham and Isaac). As a compensation of being made to wait for Yama, the God of Death, Nachiketas is granted 3 wishes.

This most popular of the Upanished's, is one of the Veda's surviving perhaps 3000 years. This is the gospel of "yajnas" (sacrifices), and the sacrificer offers obligations in the fire. Nachiketas wishes for understanding of the fire ritual. The book unfolds, as Yama, satisfying his third wish for special knowledge of death, lays out the paths of life "You can walk the way outward that leads to pleasure or the way inward that leads to grace." There is the common Indian image of the chariot, with the self-seating in the back "Think of the reins the driver is holding as the mind". Swami Ambikanananda states "This is not a translation for scholars", but provides a poetic translation for those seeking, for example:
" Remember always ~
Not with my speech,
Not with my eyes,
Nor even with my mind
Will that Self be reached.
It will declare itself to me
Only in my stillness."

The 15 Indian miniatures illustrations are only tangentially related to the story, but are striking. For example there is a drawing of a sacred fire ritual prominent in the story, but there is also a drawing of Krishna, not at all in the story.