The Upanishads · उपनिषद्

A boy sent to the god of death refuses every gift until he is told what happens after we die. A father tells his son, "You are That." The Upanishads ask the deepest questions humans have ever asked — and answer in stories.

Upaniṣad is read as "sitting down near" — the student sitting close to the teacher to receive what cannot be shouted across a room. There are more than 200 texts with the name; tradition counts 108, and about 10–13 are the principal Upanishads on which Adi Shankaracharya and later teachers wrote commentaries: Isha, Kena, Katha, Prashna, Mundaka, Mandukya, Taittiriya, Aitareya, Chandogya and Brihadaranyaka, with the Shvetashvatara, Kaushitaki and Maitri often added. They come at the end of the Vedas — hence Vedānta, "the end of the Veda".

In the Katha Upanishad, a boy named Nachiketa watches his father give away old, useless cows in a sacrifice meant to win heaven. "To whom will you give me?" he asks, again and again, until his father, angry, says: "To Death!" Nachiketa goes to the house of Yama and waits three days at the door. Yama, returning, offers three boons. The third boon Nachiketa asks is the question every human carries: when a person dies, some say he exists, some say he does not — which is true? Yama tries to refuse…

• What Yama finally taught
• The four great sayings (Mahavakyas)
• Two birds on one tree
• How they are read
• For life today

Read every chapter with Wisdom Library membership →

• Katha Upanishad
• Chandogya Upanishad — chapter 6
• Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
• Mundaka Upanishad — 3.1.1
• Shankara bhashya on the principal Upanishads