therefore choose now three boons. Hail to thee! and welfare to me!"
10. Nakiketas said: "O Death, as the first of the three boons I choose that Gautama, my father, be pacified, kind, and free from anger towards me; and that he may know me and greet me, when I shall have been dismissed by thee."
11. Yama said: "Through my favour Auddâlaki Âruni, thy father, will know thee, and be again towards thee as he was before. He shall sleep peacefully through the night, and free from anger, after having seen thee freed from the mouth of death."
12. Nakiketas said: "In the heaven-world there is no fear; thou art not there, O Death, and no one is afraid on account of old age. Leaving behind both hunger and thirst, and out of the reach of sorrow, all rejoice in the world of heaven.
13. Thou knowest, O Death, the fire-sacrificef which leads us to heaven; tell it to me, for I am full of faith. Those who live in the heaven-world reach immortality,- this I ask as my second boon."
14. Yama said: "I tell it thee, learn it from me, and when thou understandest that fire-sacrifice which leads to heaven, know, O Nakiketas, that it is the attainment of the endless worlds, and their firm support, hidden in darkness[1]."
15. Yama then told him that fire-sacrifice, the beginning of all the worlds[2], and what bricks are
- ↑ The commentator translates: "I tell it thee, attend to me who knows the heavenly fire." Here the nom. sing. of the participle would be very irregular, as we can hardly refer it to bravîmi. Then "Know this fire as a means of obtaining the heavenly world, know that fire as the rest or support of the world, when it assumes the form of Virâg, and as hidden in the heart of men."
- ↑ Sankara: the first embodied, in the shape of Virâg.
