Guest guest Posted August 12, 2003 Report Share Posted August 12, 2003 Namaste. It was about twenty years back that I first read Kathopanishad. It was an interpretation by Sw. Chinmayandaji. If I can rely on my old age memory, the story there was of Nachiketas going to Yama, the Lord of Death, in search of Truth. He knocks on the doors of Hell and, in the absence of Yama, is made to wait for a long time by Yama's men. When Yama arrives, he realizes the discourteous folly commited by his men, receives the Brahmin boy with respect, apologises and asks him what he wants. The rest of the upanishad is the conversation between Yama and the boy. The story at the Ananda Wood link at Dennisji's site narrates Nachiketas as going to a cave and receiving the message from the cave- dweller. The translation, running into more than 200 pages in PDF format, also appears to be longer than the one which I read before. As I don't have the old text with me to compare, can someone please enlighten me if there are two versions of the same upanishad and if there are any important differences between them? I don't have any problem with the message of the upanishad in either version. Both Sw. Chinmayaji and Ananda Wood are extremely lucid in their interpretations. Pranams. Madathil Nair Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 12, 2003 Report Share Posted August 12, 2003 advaitin, "Madathil Rajendran Nair" <madathilnair> wrote: > if there are two versions of the same upanishad and if > there are any important differences between them? Namaste, I have not seen two different versions of Kathopanishad, but I have come across two numbering systems for the text (same content). The Upanishad with Shankara Bhashya runs to 109 pages in the Complete Works. Sw. Gambhirananda's translation of the upanishad and bhashya runs to 125 pages. Regards, Sunder Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 12, 2003 Report Share Posted August 12, 2003 praNAm prabhuji Hare Krishna As we all know, this upanishad belongs to krishna yajurvEda. But usually Sri shankara in his shruti bhAShya mentions which part of the vEda it is, but surprisingly in this commentary he has not addressed this issue. The story of nachikEta we can find in a slightly different form in mahAbhAratha also, I guess it is in anuShAsana parva (sunder prabhuji kindly help) & in taiterIya brahmaNa. But in mahAbhAraTha story, the main theme concentrated was on eulogy of *gOdAna* & its meritorious returns. Atma jnAna hardly found any place in this story. vEdic scholars call this by another name kAtakOpaniShad since this belongs to kAtaka ShAkhA brahmaNa third ashtaka of taitirIya brahmaNa ( though it contains 12 prashnas it is called ashtaka.. from 10th prashna it is kAtaka brahmaNa. Hence the name kAtaka shruti). Interestingly we can find about nAchikEtAgni in taiterIyAraNyaka aruNa praShna also like * yOgnim nAchikEtaM chinute ya vu chainamEvaM vEda*. As we know nAchikEtAgni is one of the boon granted by yAma to nachikEta. Hari Hari Hari Bol!!! bhaskar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 13, 2003 Report Share Posted August 13, 2003 advaitin, bhaskar.yr@i... wrote: > > praNAm prabhuji > Hare Krishna > > As we all know, this upanishad belongs to krishna yajurvEda. But usually > Sri shankara in his shruti bhAShya mentions which part of the vEda it is, > but surprisingly in this commentary he has not addressed this issue. The > story of nachikEta we can find in a slightly different form in mahAbhAratha > also, I guess it is in anuShAsana parva & in > taiterIya brahmaNa. But in mahAbhAraTha story, the main theme > concentrated was on eulogy of *gOdAna* & its meritorious returns. Atma > jnAna hardly found any place in this story. vEdic scholars call this by > another name kAtakOpaniShad since this belongs to kAtaka ShAkhA brahmaNa > third ashtaka of taitirIya brahmaNa Namaste Bhaskarji, Your reference to Anushasana Parva of Mahabharata is quite accurate. Actually, this Parva is practically named dAnadharma parva (147 of 148 chapters), and Nachiketa story is in Chapter 71: http://sanskrit.gde.to/mirrors/mahabharata/txt/13.txt (anushAsana parvaNi dAnadharmaparvaNi yamavAkyam nAma adhyAyaH |) The story is told by Bhishma to Yudhisthira (and is a variation from that in Kathakopanishad). All dharma has Atmajnana only as its goal, so I think the eulogy of godAna is in that context only. Shankara Bhashya has Kathakopanishad as its title, and I do not see any special reason to account for the absence of the reference to the source. There are others also which do not have any specific references. Shankara gives extensive cross-references in all the Upanishads to emphasise many similarities in conclusions. Regards, Sunder Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 14, 2003 Report Share Posted August 14, 2003 praNAm prabhuji Hare Krishna Thanks a lot prabhuji for your kind helping hands. As regards to shankara's commentary, it is bhagavadpAda's unique style to give *graNTha saMbaNdha* before starting commentary on upaniSads, this style we can find in gItA bhAShya also in the form of shlOka saMbaNdha. But in kaTha bhAshya, shankara is silent on this. coz. of this it is not clear what shankara thinks about the SaKha of this upanishad. Hari Hari Hari Bol!!! bhaskar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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