The Kaṭha Upanishad, a boy, Death and the first definition of yoga

The story

A brahmin called Vājaśravasa performs a sacrifice in which he must give away everything he owns. His son Naciketas, still a boy, watches the gifts go by: old cows that have drunk their last water, eaten their last grass and given their last milk (1.3). Troubled, he asks his father: "To whom will you give me?" He asks a second and a third time. Exasperated, the father answers: "To Death I give you" (1.4).

Naciketas goes to the house of Yama, the lord of death, who is away. The boy waits three nights without food. When Yama returns, he apologises for leaving a brahmin guest unfed and grants three wishes, one for each night (1.9):

1. That his father be at peace and welcome him back (1.10).
2. The knowledge of the fire ritual that leads to heaven, which Yama names after him (1.13-19).
3. The answer to a question: when a man dies, some say he still exists, others say he does not. Which is true? (1.20)

Yama tries to buy his way out of the third wish: sons and grandsons living a hundred years, cattle, gold, horses, land, women with chariots and music (1.23-25). Naciketas refuses: "all these wear out the senses… keep your horses, keep your songs and dances" (1.26). That refusal is the qualification. Yama begins to teach.

Numbering: which edition?

The Kaṭha has two chapters (adhyāya) of three sections (vallī) each. Editions number its verses in two ways:

We follow the first system, the one of the Sanskrit text on GRETIL.

The good and the pleasant (2.1-2)

Yama's first lesson is a choice every practitioner meets daily: the good (śreyas) and the pleasant (preyas) both bind a person; the wise choose the good, the fool the pleasant, "for the sake of getting and keeping" (2.2).

श्रेयश्च प्रेयश्च मनुष्यमेतस्तौ संपरीत्य विविनक्ति धीरः । श्रेयो हि धीरोऽभि प्रेयसो वृणीते प्रेयो मन्दो योगक्षेमाद्वृणीते ॥

śreyaś ca preyaś ca manuṣyam etas tau saṃparītya vivinakti dhīraḥ | śreyo hi dhīro 'bhi preyaso vṛṇīte preyo mando yogakṣemād vṛṇīte ||

The good and the pleasant both come to a person. The wise one examines them and tells them apart; the wise choose the good over the pleasant, the fool chooses the pleasant for the sake of getting and keeping.

Then come Om, the syllable "that all the Vedas proclaim" (2.15-17), and a verse whose whole second half the Bhagavad Gita repeats word for word in its own verse 2.20:

न जायते म्रियते वा विपश्चिन्नायं कुतश्चिन्न बभूव कश्चित् । अजो नित्यः शाश्वतोऽयं पुराणो न हन्यते हन्यमाने शरीरे ॥

na jāyate mriyate vā vipaścin nāyaṃ kutaścin na babhūva kaścit | ajo nityaḥ śāśvato 'yaṃ purāṇo na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre ||

The wise one is not born and does not die; it came from nowhere and became no one. Unborn, constant, eternal, ancient, it is not killed when the body is killed.

The chariot (3.3-9)

The most famous image of the Upanishad, and perhaps of the whole of yoga:

आत्मानं रथिनं विद्धि शरीरं रथमेव तु । बुद्धिं तु सारथिं विद्धि मनः प्रग्रहमेव च ॥

ātmānaṃ rathinaṃ viddhi śarīraṃ ratham eva tu | buddhiṃ tu sārathiṃ viddhi manaḥ pragraham eva ca ||

Know the self as the rider in the chariot and the body as the chariot. Know the intellect as the charioteer and the mind as the reins.

इन्द्रियाणि हयानाहुर्विषयांस्तेषु गोचरान् । आत्मेन्द्रियमनोयुक्तं भोक्तेत्याहुर्मनीषिणः ॥

indriyāṇi hayān āhur viṣayāṃs teṣu gocarān | ātmendriyamanoyuktaṃ bhoktety āhur manīṣiṇaḥ ||

The senses, they say, are the horses, and their objects the paths they roam. The self yoked to the senses and the mind, the wise call the one who experiences.

A driver without understanding, with reins always slack, has senses "like the vicious horses of a charioteer"; one with understanding, the mind always held, has them "like good horses" (3.5-6). Such a person "reaches the end of the road, the highest place of Viṣṇu" (3.9). Notice the verb: the mind is yukta, yoked, from the same root as yoga. The next verses (3.10-13) give the order of what lies beyond: the objects, the mind, the intellect, the great self, the unmanifest, the person; and teach to draw speech into mind, mind into intellect, intellect into the great self, and that into the peaceful self.

The first definition of yoga (6.10-11)

In the last section, Yama finally names the discipline he has been describing:

यदा पञ्चावतिष्ठन्ते ज्ञानानि मनसा सह । बुद्धिश्च न विचेष्टति तामाहुः परमां गतिम् ॥

yadā pañcāvatiṣṭhante jñānāni manasā saha | buddhiś ca na viceṣṭati tām āhuḥ paramāṃ gatim ||

When the five organs of knowing stand still together with the mind, and the intellect does not stir, that, they say, is the highest state.

तां योगमिति मन्यन्ते स्थिरामिन्द्रियधारणाम् । अप्रमत्तस्तदा भवति योगो हि प्रभवाप्ययौ ॥

tāṃ yogam iti manyante sthirām indriyadhāraṇām | apramattas tadā bhavati yogo hi prabhavāpyayau ||

That steady holding of the senses is what they consider yoga. Then one becomes vigilant, for yoga is both arising and passing away.

The last words, prabhavāpyayau, are read in two ways: yoga "comes and goes" and so demands constant vigilance (Müller's reading), or yoga is the origin and the dissolution, where things arise and return. Either way, this is the core of what Patañjali will call pratyāhāra and dhāraṇā, several centuries later, and what the Yoga Sutras define as the stilling of the mind. The Upanishad ends by saying that Naciketas, having received "this knowledge and the whole rule of yoga" (yogavidhiṃ ca kṛtsnam) from Death, became free of passion and death (6.18).

Practise with the chariot

1. Sit in a steady posture and close your eyes.
2. Feel the chariot: the weight of the body, the points that touch the ground.
3. Watch the horses: notice where hearing, touch and the other senses pull, without following them.
4. Hold the reins: each time a thought runs after a sense, bring it gently back, as Gita 6.26 also advises.
5. Be the rider: for the last minutes, rest as the one who is aware of chariot, horses, reins and driver.

Five to ten minutes is enough to begin. The verses of the chariot and the definition of yoga are worth learning by heart: read them aloud, slowly, before you sit.

Our book The Upanishads for Yogis devotes a chapter to the Kaṭha, with these passages and more in Devanāgarī, transliteration and our own translation, and a practice at the end. The wider family of texts is on the Upanishads.

Questions people ask

Sources

1. Kaṭha Upaniṣad, Sanskrit text based on Olivelle, The Early Upaniṣads (1998), entered by the Vienna University Student Team (GRETIL) checked October 17, 2026
2. F. Max Müller, The Upanishads, Part II, Sacred Books of the East 15 (Oxford, 1884): Katha-upanishad, Internet Archive checked October 17, 2026
3. Robert Ernest Hume, The Thirteen Principal Upanishads (1921), Internet Archive checked October 17, 2026
4. Katha Upanishad, Wikipedia (dating, structure in two chapters and six sections) checked October 17, 2026
5. Bhagavadgītā, critical edition text, verse 2.20 (GRETIL) checked October 17, 2026

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