Naciketas

Summary

Naciketas is a boy in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad whose father gave him to death; he waited three nights at the door of Yama, king of the dead, and then received three boons from him, the third being to know what becomes of a man after death.

His father Vājaśravasa had vowed to give all he owned at a sacrifice for heaven, and he was giving the priests cows that had drunk their last water and eaten their last hay, with no milk and no calves. The boy saw that such a gift brings no blessing, and since his father had vowed all he owned, and he was part of it, he asked him: father, to whom will you give me? He asked a second and a third time, and the father answered in anger: I give you to Death. So the boy went to Yama's house, found him away, and waited three nights without food. When Yama returned he said: you have stayed in my house as a guest three nights without eating; choose three boons. First he asked that his father be reconciled and know him when he returned, and it was granted. Second he asked for the fire sacrifice that leads to heaven, where there is no fear, hunger or old age; Yama taught him how to build it, named it after him, "the Nāciketa fire", and gave him a chain.

Third he said: there is this doubt about a man when he is dead; some say he is, others that he is not; teach me this. Yama said: on this even the gods have doubted of old; it is subtle; choose another boon. He offered sons and grandsons living a hundred years, cattle, elephants, gold and horses, wide lands to rule, life as long as he wished, and women on chariots with music. The boy said: these last till tomorrow and wear out the senses, and all of life is short; keep your horses, dance and song; no man is made happy by wealth once he has seen you. Yama said: the good is one thing, the pleasant another, and you have weighed every pleasure and let it go; then he taught him the knowledge of the self that is neither born nor dies. The Upaniṣad ends saying that Naciketas received this knowledge from Death and became free from passion and from death.

The idea the story turns on is that a question is worth more than anything offered in its place. The boy begins with a question to his father, "to whom will you give me?", and is sent to death; then he becomes a hungry guest to whom the master of the house owes a debt, which the master pays with boons; then he refuses wealth and long life because they end, and asks for the answer about which the gods had doubted.

We read the name in the Arabic tongue like this, a reading proposed on the method, since the project's Hindu essay reads Yama's name but not his. Monier-Williams divides Naciketas as na-ciketas, from the verb cit, to perceive, observe, know; the same verb gives vicikitsā, doubt or question, the word with which the boy asks his third boon. Without the ending -as, the name keeps n, k and t in order, which is Arabic nakata. In Lane nakata al-arḍa bi-qaḍīb is he struck the ground with a stick so as to mark it, the action of one reflecting and anxious, and a nukta is a question educed by reflection that makes an impression on the heart. That is what the boy does: he stops at the question on which the gods doubted and will not leave it until it is laid open. The Sanskrit t answers Arabic t, and the palatal c answers k, since the same verb appears with k in cikitsā.

Linguistic Root

Monier-Williams records the name in the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa and the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, and nāciketa as an epithet of fire. The Kaṭha Upaniṣad does not explain the name, but it puts "doubt", from the same verb, at the centre of the story: the boy says "there is that doubt", and Yama answers "on this even the gods have doubted".

The Arabic reading nakata counts the three letters in order: n as n, the palatal c as k, t as t. The limit that keeps it open: the n of the Sanskrit name is a negative particle, na, "not", and the reading makes it a root letter, crossing the line Sanskrit grammar draws between particle and verb, and it leaves the reduplicating syllable ci unread. The Hindu essay reads Yama's name as al-yamm, the sea whose bottom is never reached, and in this story the boy asks the lord of that depth to show him what lies at the bottom.

Key Mythic Narratives

The guest left unfed

Before Yama returns, one of his household says: when a Brahmin enters a house as a guest, fire enters with him; quench it with water; and a Brahmin who stays unfed in a heedless man's house destroys his hopes, his goods, his sons and his cattle. So the boy's three nights without food are not patience alone but a debt on the master of the house, which is why Yama grants a boon for each night.

The chariot and the horses

In the third section Yama teaches the boy that the self is the rider, the body the chariot, the intellect the charioteer, the mind the reins and the senses the horses, with the objects of sense as their roads; whoever does not hold the reins firmly is carried off by his senses as by vicious horses.

Symbolic Reading

The story holds the law of hospitality that governs the whole sacrifice: the father gives the priests what is useless and loses the blessing of the sacrifice; the boy stays in the house of death unfed and is owed three boons by death. The corrupt gift opens the story, the gift that is owed stands in its middle, and the gift that is refused, wealth and long life, closes it.

The story also pictures a knowledge that cannot be bought: Yama offers the boy everything kings possess, and gives him the secret only after he has refused it all.

Cross-Cultural Parallels

In the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh the hero sets out after the death of his companion Enkidu to seek the life that does not die; he crosses the waters of death to Utnapishtim, survivor of the flood, who tells him the gods gave immortality to him alone and shows him a plant that restores youth, which the snake takes. Naciketas goes to death itself, does not ask for long life but refuses it, and asks to know.

In the story of Adapa the sage is offered the bread of life and the water of life in Anu's heaven and refuses them, because Enki had told him not to eat the bread of death or drink its water, and so he misses immortality. Naciketas is offered life as long as he wishes and refuses it knowing what he refuses. Both are the story of a man at a god's door who is offered what men desire and turns it down.

His stay unfed in Yama's house turns round the law of food in the descent to the underworld: whoever eats the food of that house stays there; he does not eat, and leaves with three boons. His second boon is a fire that leads to heaven, where there is no hunger or old age, a form of the food of immortality.