24 Facts About Katha Upanishad

Katha Upanishad is one of the mukhya Upanishads, embedded in the last eight short sections of the school of the Krishna Yajurveda.

The Katha Upanishad is the legendary story of a little boy, Nachiketa – the son of Sage Vajasravasa, who meets Yama .

Chronology of Katha Upanishad is unclear and contested, but belongs to the later verse Upanishads, dated to the 5th to first centuries BCE.

Kathaka Upanishad is an important ancient Sanskrit corpus of the Vedanta sub-schools, and an influential Sruti to the diverse schools of Hinduism.

The detailed teachings of Katha Upanishad have been variously interpreted, as Dvaita and as Advaita .

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Katha Upanishad was translated into Persian in 17th century, copies of which were then translated into Latin and distributed in Europe.

Paul Deussen notes that the Katha Upanishad uses words that symbolically embed and creatively have multiple meanings.

For example, a closely pronounced word Katha Upanishad literally means "story, legend, conversation, speech, tale".

Paul Deussen too considers Katha Upanishad to be a post-prose, yet earlier stage Upanishad composed about the time Kena and Isha Upanishads were, because of the poetic, mathematical metric structure of its hymns.

Katha Upanishad has two chapters, each with three sections, thus a total of six sections.

The second chapter opens with the fourth section of the Katha Upanishad and has 15 verses, while the fifth valli has 15 verses.

Katha Upanishad opens with the story of Vajasravasa, called Aruni Auddalaki Gautama, who gives away all his worldly possessions.

Katha Upanishad's second wish, Nachiketa prefaces his request with the statement that heaven is a place where there is no fear, no anxiety, no old age, no hunger, no thirst, no sorrow.

Katha Upanishad asserts that man must not fear anyone or anything as the true essence of man is neither born nor dies; he is eternal, he is Brahman.

In final verses of the second Valli, the Katha Upanishad asserts that Atman-knowledge, or Self-realization, is not attained by instruction, not arguments nor reasoning from scriptures.

Katha Upanishad asserts that one who does not use his powers of reasoning, whose senses are unruly and mind unbridled, his life drifts in chaos and confusion, his existence entangled in samsara.

Madhvacharya, the Dvaita Vedanta scholar interprets this term differently, and bases his theistic interpretation of Katha Upanishad by stating that the term refers to the deity Vishnu.

Beyond the Atman, states Katha Upanishad, is the Avyaktam, and Purusha is beyond the Avyaktam, and beyond the Purusha, there is nothing - for it is the goal, for it is the highest road.

Atman, asserts Katha Upanishad, is the subject of Self-knowledge, the bearer of spiritual reality, that which is all-pervading, inside every being, which unifies all human beings as well as all creatures, the concealed, eternal, immortal, pure bliss.

Parts of the ideas in these first two similes of Katha Upanishad are of far more ancient origins, and found for example in Book 6, Chapter 47 of Rig veda.

Individual is perennially happy, asserts Katha Upanishad, who realizes the Atman is within him, that he himself is the Master, that the inner Self of all beings and his own Self are "one form manifold", and none other.

The first five verses of the last section of the Katha Upanishad assert that those who do not know or do not understand Atman return to the world of creation, and those who do are free, liberated.

The state of perfection, according to the last section of the Katha Upanishad, explains Paul Deussen, consists "not in the attainment of a future or yonder world, but it is already just now and here for one who is Self-realized, who knows his Self as Brahman ".

Verse in the Upanishad inspired the title and the epigraph of W Somerset Maugham's 1944 novel The Razor's Edge, later adapted, twice, into films of the same title .