KATHOPANISAD
vii
rhe Taittiriya Sathhita bas both a Brahmapa and an Upani. ad. The Taittiriya Brahmaga (III. 11.8 1-6) contains an ottline of the Naciketa story with which the Kazhopanisad opens and is parallel to the latter which is made more elaborate. Indeed according to Raigaramईntija this aucks of the Taittiriya Brahmata is referred to by the Kathopanishad in I. 17. Sri Krishna Prem considers that we can see the germ of this Upanisad' in Rg Veda X, 135.
No attempt has here beetl nade to deal with the possible relations of this Upanisad to the Bhagavad Gia which con tains much that is parallel to, if not precisely identical with the instruction in almost the very language used here. Not to Buddhism. We have to point out that whatever may be the appropriateness in such parallels we have always to remember that a Vidya is an integral instruction and it may undergo transformation under new conditions dtle to subordination to other Vidys
But one thing is certain that, even as in the Bhagated Gita, the Bhopanizad insists upon the necessity to perform ordained or injuncted karma (for that is dharma) the stg: @१r of each individual, and its performance is capable of leading to the highest abode of inmortal existence, and not merely to the lower heaven. Such karma is incapable of binding the soul to SamsaraThe truth is that disinterested action, or action divinised or offered to the Divineaction that reveals the glorious purpose of service to God, is capable of helping achievement of the immortal status for the soul. The question that arises thereafter is as to the nature of that soil after muzi or Hoks, whether it coutinues to be separate or lost in the One Divine variously described as the Ocean or the Nirvana state of Brahman? It is held by modern scholars that what Buddha meant by Nirvवंuna was a state of positive nature of the supremely Transcendent and not a negative state ft is clear that it is not annihilation as such or Pure Non-being Any attainment of the Buddhistic metaphysical state of anni. tion or loss of elf or non-existence soul of as such has not
