Nachiketa and Yama

In the text — not yet checked

Yama as teacher of a boy, and in the epic Yama-Dharma as the god questioning Yudhishthira.

This story is not in the Mahabharata's long tales. It belongs to the Katha Upanishad, one of the old philosophical texts, though it is so well loved that it keeps turning up beside the epic. It is the story of a boy who goes to the house of Death and refuses to leave without an answer.

It begins with a father's sacrifice. Vajashravas is giving away everything he owns as a ritual gift. His young son Nachiketa watches the cattle being led past and sees that they are old, past giving milk, worn out. It troubles him, because a gift like that can bring no joy to anyone. Moved by his sense of what is right, he asks his father: "To whom will you give me?" His father says nothing. The boy asks a second time, then a third. Finally the father, angry, snaps: "To Death I give you!"

The boy takes this seriously. He reflects that people wither like grain and are born again, and he goes to the house of Yama, the lord of death. Yama is not at home. Nachiketa waits at the door for three nights with no welcome, no food, no water. When Yama returns, his attendants have already warned him that a Brahmin guest left unhonoured can take away a householder's hopes and merit and even his family. Embarrassed, Yama offers the boy one wish for each night he waited.

For the first wish, Nachiketa asks that his father's anger be calmed and that his father greet him warmly when he comes home. Yama grants it. For the second, he asks to learn the fire rite that leads to heaven. Yama teaches him how the fire altar is built, names the fire after him, and gives him a many-coloured necklace as a present.

The third wish is the real one. Nachiketa asks: what happens to a person after death? Some say the dead continue to exist, others say they do not. Yama tries to put him off. Even the gods, he says, once doubted this, and it is a subtle matter. He urges the boy to choose something else. Then he starts to bargain: sons and grandsons, herds of cattle, elephants, gold, horses, land, a long life, a kingdom, and beautiful women with their music. Nachiketa turns down every one. Wealth does not last, he says, and no other wish is the equal of this one.

Yama is finally persuaded, and his teaching begins. He says the good and the pleasant are not the same thing. The wise choose the good, and the unwise choose the pleasant. He praises Nachiketa for having looked at all the desirable things and set them aside. He says that people who think they are learned but are really ignorant are like the blind led by the blind. The Self, he explains, is not easily heard of or understood. It cannot be reached by argument alone but must be taught. It is unborn and does not die when the body is killed. It is subtler than the subtle and greater than the great. He names the syllable Om as the goal the Vedas point to.

So the story gives a particular picture of how to seek: be willing to wait at the door, say no to everything you are offered, and ask the one question that matters.

The Mahabharata does mention Nachiketa, but only as a name in a list of sages, so the full tale belongs to the Upanishad.

Who: Nachiketa, Yama, Vajashravas

Bound to

The Yaksha's questions at the lake mirror

Sanatsujātīya mirror

Markandeya, sixteen forever mirror

Shvetaketu and the origin of marriage fidelity mirror

Where this comes from

CE (critical edition) · Wikipedia: Nachiketa Katha Upanishad; MBh Anushasana 106 mention
read for this telling · Katha Upanishad, Part 1, chapters 1-2 (Pritchett's online translation) Katha 1.1-1.2 (boons, temptations, Yama's teaching)

See it on the tree · All stories

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