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The Upanishads represent a high degree of philosophical thinking in India. Much of what they say is through anecdotes and parables. One of these pertains to Naciketas, the young son of the sage Vajasravasa in the Kathopanisad. One day, as the young man found his father giving away at the end of a sacrifice cows, old and sterile, the filial anxiety, the Upanisad uses the word Sraddha for this, entered into the mind of the young man who thought that one giving away old and useless cows at the close of the sacrifice goes to joyless worlds, ananda lokah. Thinking that his (Naciketas') own gifting away by the father may probably redeem him, he enquired of his father as to whom he would give him. He repeated the question twice and thrice. When he did it for the third time, the father taking the question probably too absurd to be answered shot at him: Unto death I give thee. Since the words had come from a Rsi, a sage, they had to come true. Instantly the young man found himself in the abode of the God of Death. As chance would have it, the god was away on his mission of taking away the life of the people. When he returned after three days, he found the young man waiting for him without food and drink. He felt sorry that a Brahmin of all should have had to suffer like this. As an atonement for this he offered him three boons. Against two of these the young man asked for mundane things. The first of these was the pacification of the father. Naciketas wanted that his father to be kind to him and greet him with his anger gone when he would return to him from the abode of death. The second was about the explanation of the fire which leads to

Concept of Death in the Upanisads 79 heaven, the fire by which those whose world is heaven attain immortality. Both of these the God of Death granted him readily. The third was rather tricky. Through this the young man enquired of the God of Death to explain to him as to what happens to a man after death. He wants him to clear the doubt as to whether a man continues to exist after death or not. The God of Death first tried to sidetrack the question by persuading the young man not to persist in his question: Naciketo maranam ma'nupraksih¹ Don't ask me, Naciketas about death, with an offer of many a material thing but finding him adament proceeds to answer it. It is the body which dies and not the soul, says he. With the verses which the Gita too reproduces he reiterates that the soul cannot be cut, be burnt, be moistened or dried. It is permanent, omnipresent, stationary, unmoving and everpresent. It changes bodies as one changes clothes. It means, therefore, that a person in the form of the soul is still present, though physically he may have ceased to exist. Death according to the Kathopanisad is something which concerns the material body. Not only death, birth, growth and decay also concern that only. Any kind of material body, inanimate or animate, which is subject to birth is also subject to death. Birth is followed by death. This is the inexorable logic of the phenomenal world. Evolution implies change. We are evolving constantly from one state to another. The materialistic thinkers in course of their investigation of the relative and the phenomenal world have not found any thing which is unchangeable and immortal and, therefore, they would not concede any such thing as immortality. They cannot visualize a situation which is unchangeable. Their entire thinking is confined to the conditions of time and space and causation. These are the inexorable limitations and within these limitations nothing can be immortal and unchangeable. What the God of Death points to the young enquirer Naciketas in the Kathopanisad is that there is something beyond the phenomenal world and that something called the Soul or Atman is immutable. It is the background to the ego which is

unchangeable and immortal. It is very difficult to grasp it, says the Upanisad, to appreciate it, it lying hidden in the cavity of the heart. It can be perceived only with a very sharp intellect: esa sarvesu bhutesu gudhotma na prakasate! drsyate tv agryaya buddhya suksmaya suksmadarsibhihir In the midst of all the changes, physical, sensuous, mental or intellectual there is a constant quantity which is one's own being. One passes through various changes like the changes from babyhood to childhood, from childhood to youth, from youth to old age when the young body has gone away and one has a mature body. Every seventh year all the particles of the body change and get renewed but still one is the same person, the identity never changes. The question is: What is the foundaton of this identity? It cannot be matter, for, matter is constantly changing. It cannot be energy, for, energy too is changing. It could only be one's own consciousness. Of course, the states of consciousness change, they are always a state of flux, but the source of consciousness is the same. This source of consciousness is the basic consciousness and is the constant quantity. This constant quantity in Sanskrit is called Atman. It is very difficult to render it in any other language. The word soul for this is not enough. Nor is the word ego. Both these signify the individualized manifestations of the constant quantity. It means that unchangeable something within beings which is the source of intelligence and existence and upon which our relative existence depends. The Atman or the permanent entity is birthless, because one can never think of its birth. One may try to go as far back as possible in one's imagination and try to think of oneself as conscious of non-existence. But one just cannot hope to do so because consciousness or existence are simultaneous, it is just one and the same. As one cannot think of one's beginning or of the time when one did not exist, one cannot think of the time when one shall cease to exist. One is, therefore, deathless. This is the strongest proof of one's immortal nature. One cannot think of one's non-existence. One can think of one's dead body in imagination but one's consciousness is there and,

Concept of Death in the Upanisads 81 therefore, one is not dead. One can think of one's dead body but one cannot think of the destruction of one's self-consciousness. Consciousness is the constant quantity which is the essence of one's being. It is deathless,, as explained by the Upanishads. As has been said earlier, the constant quantity is very difficult to grasp. The Upanisad very rightly says that not many are able to hear of it; of whom not many, even when they hear of it, can comprehend it; wonderful is a man, when found, who is able to teach it; wonderful is he who comprehends it, when taught by an able teacher: sravanayapi bahubhir yo na labhyah srnvanto 'pi bahavo yam na vidyuhi ascaryo vakta kusalo sya labdha ascaryo jnata kusalanusistahi³ The Gita also echoes the same idea when it says: ascaryavat pasyati kascid enam ascaryavad vadati tathaiva canyahi ascaryavac cainam anyah srnoti srutva'py enam veda na caiva kascit "Rarely one beholds the Atman as a wonder, rarer still is one who speaks and hears it as a wonder and scarcely is one who understands it even on hearing it." The difficulty of grasping Atman or the constant quantity becomes apparent when we notice there is no tangible object or abstract idea to compare it with. That is why the Upanisads refer to it as, not this, not this. It may well be pointed out here that not to talk of an entity like the Atman, even to give an exact description of gross physical objects is difficult, the objects like a man or an animal. The same can be said of the experience. If one has to describe the taste of a mango, one may find no words for that. Can one say mango tastes like peach, is sweeter than apple, not sour like peach, is no bitter. Will that describe the taste of a mango? Finally one may have to end up by saying that mango tastes like mango. Similar is the difficulty in describing the nature

of Atman. Rarely does one understand and become capable of experiencing the unique entity and when one does experience it, it just mystifies one. It is so easy and so simple. It is just as easy as eating a mango to know its taste but before eating, one must have to get the mango; in the case of Atman the spiritual preparations are required to experience it. The realized being after struggling hard knows, as said above, it to be so simple. He can see Atman everywhere. But he cannot describe it. The Atman is he himself, tat tvam asi, tat tvam asi, as says the Upanisad, that are thou, that are thou. If in spite of it somebody can describe it, he must be a wonderful teacher indeed: ascaryo vakta.6 'So, is the listener or the seeker after it: kusalo'sya labdha. " What a wonderful combination it is: The teacher of immortality and the student of immortality! How is the teacher to teach the pupil? He cannot describe it, as said above, it is beyond all determinants. He has only to prepare the pupil gradually mentally, morally and spiritually to have a feel of it, to realize it. 8 By argument one cannot explain what exists after death: naisa tarkena matir apaneya. No argument will be convincing. There cannot be any scientific proof that Atman exists after death, it is ever-present in the sense that it cannot be verified, observed and demonstrated by sense perceptions; for the obvious reason that the immortal element in us is beyond the reach of the senses. The senses work in and through that immortal part, but the senses in their turn can never reveal it. It is, as says the Upanisad, minuter than the minute and grosser than the gross: anor aniyan mahato mahiyan.' It is said to be seated in the heart of every being: atmasya jantor nihito guhayam . 10 For a fuller appreciation of the concept of death in the Upanisads one may have to turn to the doctrine of the transmigration of the soul. Interestingly, in no other Vedic text than the Upanishads can the doctrine of soul's transmigration be traced, though the Upanisads themselves ascribe it to the Rgveda. The Brhadaranyakopanisad speaks of Vamadeva, the poet of the Rgveda, recognizing himself as Brahman and as a proof of

Concept of Death in the Upanisads 83 his knowledge of Brahman alleged his acquaintance with his former births as Manu and Surya. In the Rgveda itself it was this much that the good people after death continue their existence with gods under the control of Yama. Immortal life with gods is presented in so many hymns of the Rgveda, especially the older ones, as a peculiar gift of the grace of the gods. Of the fate of the wicked obscure indications are contained in the Rgveda. They are predestined for that abysmal place, are hurled by Indra and Soma to the pit or bottomless darkness. Coming to the Brahmana period in the process of tracing the historical development of the doctrine of transmigration, the idea of recompense is found formulated in contrast to the Vedic conception of an indiscriminate and indefinite felicity of the pious. Being the texts on rituals, the Brahmanas offer for their accomplishment reward and punishment for their non-commission or ommission, besides assigning different degrees of compensation to the departed ones proportionate to their knowledge and actions. A further development of this is the concept in meeting with the same type of actions in the other world as one has been performing in this world. The Satapatha Brahmana 12 very tellingly expresses the idea in the words: "Whatever food a man eats in this world, by the same is he eaten again in the other. " The doctrine of transmigration or the journey of the soul after leaving the body is described in two texts with verbal similarity in two of the Upanisads, the Chandogya 13 and the Brhadaranyaka 14 and is called by Indian authorities as the Pancagnividya, the doctrine of five fires which is a combination of the different parts, the doctrine of the five fires and the doctrine of the two ways. The Upanishadic text teaches double retribution, one by reward and punishment for good and bad actions in this world and the other by reward and punishment in the other. Carefully looked, at it merely is a development of the Vedic thought where the future recompense is hinted at, the good dwell after death with the gods, etc. What is added in the Upanisads is the coming back of the people, in the form of their soul assuming another body on the earth and reaping the reward of their actions,

good or bad, in the previous birth, the cycle continuing till true knowledge or enlightenment in the form of realization of one's ownself dawns and one is released from the bondage of birth and death and gets liberated, mukta. The Upanisads do recognize that in between the present existence and the future one, the present birth and rebirth, there are different worlds, the Lokas, to which one moves, the worlds of gods, the manes, the Gandharvas, the worlds which are brilliantly lit and the worlds which are dark and dismal, the worlds full of bliss and the worlds without it. The narrative of Naciketas with which the present discussion started also makes a reference to it. It is said there that one gifting cows that are sterile and worn out goes to worlds called anandas, the worlds where there is no bliss: ananda nama te lokas tan sa gacchati ta dadat.15 The station in the Lokas or worlds on death is determined by the proportion of the good or bad actions of a person in this world and his knowledge. The Brhadaranyaka Upanisad explains it through one of the most celebrated of the philosophic seers Yajnavalkya in one of its most brilliant passages: "After the departure of the soul from the body the knowledge and the works of a person take him by the hand and his former experience, purvaprajna. As a caterpillar, after it has reached the tip of a leaf, makes a beginning upon another and draws itself over towards it, so also the soul, after it has shaken off the body and freed itself from ignorance, fashions for itself newer, fairer form, whether it be of the fathers or the Gandharvas, or the gods or Prajapati or Brahman or other living beings... in proportion as a man consists of this or that, just as he acts, just as he behaves, so will he be born. He who does good, will be born good, he who does evil will be born evil. Therefore, in truth it is said: "Man is altogether and throughout composed of desire (Kama), in proportion to his desire so is his discretion so he performs acts (Karmans); in proportion to his acts so does it result to him."16 Of the different worlds the soul moves the world of the gods referred to as Devayana and the world of the fathers referred to as Pitryana are the most important. The pious and the good, it is

Concept of Death in the Upanisads 85 said, go to the Devayana, the path of the gods. A detailed description of this is found in the Chandogyopanisad which says: " On the burning of the corpse the soul enters into the flame, thence to the day, thence into the bright half of the month, thence into the bright half of the year (the summer season), thence into the year, thence into the sun, thence into the moon, thence into the lightning and so finally into Brahman which is said to be the light of lights, jyotisam jyotih." In the world of fathers, called the Pitryana, the path of the fathers, the manes, to which repair the impious and the wicked, the soul enters the smoke, not the flame, the night, not the day, the dark half of the moon, not the bright, the months of winter, not the summer, the akasa, the sky, not the sun and finally into the moon to remain there as long as a remnant of good works yet exists. According to the Kausitaki Upanishad all those who depart from this world go without exception to the moon. 18 There their knowledge is put to test, and according to the result they either go to the Devayana, the path of the gods which leads to Brahman without return or (the name Pitryana is not used there) they enter upon a new birth, "whether as a worm or a fly or a fish or a bird or a lion or a boar or a serpent or a tiger or a man or as something else." The above kind of enumeration is found in the Chandogyopanisad 19 also. The Kathopanisad 20 does not go in for the enumeration but expresses the idea in a nut-shell. Some souls, it says, enter the womb to have a body, others to the immovable objects, maybe the plants or the inert world of stones and slabs according to their work and knowledge. The Upanishad also teaches the transitoriness of the good works. So long as the good works last is one to be in the Devayana. With their exhaustion one is to return to the earth: ksine punye martyalokam visanti.21 The Upanisadic seers were not satisfied with the discovery so diligently made by them of the movement of the soul from one body to the other as per the actions and as per the knowledge. Their effort was to discover a way by which this movement could be stopped. No birth, no death, which is what immortality is. The secret of this they found in the discovery of their own self. The

self called Purusa or Brahman needs to be realized and one's identity merged with it to attain immortality. The Kathopanisad tries to explain it by different similes. Just as the one fire, after it has entered the world, though one, takes different forms, according to whatever it enters, so the eternal Atman. As the one Air, after it has entered the world, though one takes different forms, according to whatever it enters, so the eternal Atman of all living beings, though one, assumes forms according to whatever it enters and is outside all forms. The Upanisadic idea can be understood better by referring to a very mundane phenomenon. The electric current that passes through a fan, a bulb, a refrigerator, a heater and so on is the same, although because of difference in instruments through which it passes it manifests itself differently as air, light, cold, heat, etc. The Atmatattva similarly remains the same, in spite of the different make-up of the different minds that it comes to function through. Thus it is that you are not me, nor am I you because my mind is constituted differently from yours. Yet our Atman is the same. It may not be out of point to mention here that the soul which is said to transmigrate is not the all-pervading soul, Paramatman but the individual one, the Jivatman. The Upanisads use the word Atman for both leading to the confusion as to how the soul, the Ultimate Reality, the constant quantity, the Universal Consciousness, be subject to desires and the fruit of good or bad actions to receive which it has to take on a body. The other entity also called Atman in the Upanishads is analogous to what is called Lingasarira or Suksmasarira in later Vedanta, the Subtle Body, the cumulative feelings and impressions, the Samskaras, which are not destroyed by death. These desires, impressions and feelings that persist, that take on a body as per their nature. They are the sign and accompaniment of individuality and do not perish till the individualized soul, the Jivatman is finally merged in the Universal Soul, the Paramatman. Till the time the veneer of Samskaras continues, continues the cycle of birth and death. It ceases only with the dawn of true enlightenment which is the realization of an individual's identity with the universal. The

Concept of Death in the Upanisads 87 Samskaras which are personal to an individual do not exist then. So do not actions which again are personal. The being is then delivered in the sense that there are no good or bad acts which have to bind him to have realization of their good or bad fruit. With the bondage gone, the being, the Jiva, is emancipated. In the Brhadaranyakopanisad the sage Yajnavalkya in answer to a searching query of his intelligent wife who wanted to know the secret of immortality points out: After death there is no consciousness, na pretya samjnasti, 22 for a person who has realized Brahman, he becomes Brahman himself. The imperishable, the indestructible, the avinasin, the anucchittidharman, Atman has after death no conciousness of matter. The Upanisadic literature furnishes many clues as an answer to the query of the young lad Naciketas which could be the query of any intelligent person, the query that has been with mankind since times immemorial as to what happens to a being after death, whether there is continuity for him or cessation. The Upanisads are firm in their answer. Who are ignorant of their true nature, they have to be born and reborn and reborn and have to assume forms as per their actions, good or bad.23 They may tarry for a while in the different worlds, the worlds for the good and the worlds for the bad, the Devayana and the Pitryana, but they have to come back to the earth to reap the fruit, proportionate to the quality of their actions, which may also determine their forms and the way of their life, pleasant or unpleasant, happy or unhappy. The soul of such persons carries with it what has come to be known in later Vedanta as Lingasarira or Suksmasarira, the subtle body, the cumulative feelings and impressions before entering upon another body which is not destroyed by death. Since it is the sign and accompaniment of individuality, it can never perish till the individualized soul is finally merged in the universal. REFERENCES 1. Kathopanisad, 1.1.25 2. ibid., 2.3.12

. ibid., 1.2.7. 4. Bhagavadgita, 2.29. 5. Chandogyopanisad, 6.8.7 6. Kathopanisad, 1.2.7. 7. ibid. 8. Kathopanisad, 1.2.9. 9. ibid., 1.2.20. 10. ibid. 11. Brhadaranyakopanisad, 1.4.10. 12. Satapatha Brahmana, 12.9.1.1 13. Chandogyopanisad, 5.3.10 14. Brhadaranyakopanisad, 6.2 15. Kathopanisad, 1.1.3. 16. ibid., 4.4. 2-6. 17. Chandogyopanisad, 4.15.5 18. Kausitaki Upanisad, 1.3. 19. Chandogyopanisad, 6.9.3.; 6.10.2. 20. Kathopanisad, 2.2.7. 21. Bhagavadgita, 9.21. 22. Brhadaranyakopanisad, 2.4.12. 23. ibid., 4.4.6.