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Kausitaki Upanisad
Chapter One
1. OM. Citra Gangyayani, about to offer a sacrifice, chose Aruni as priest. Aruni sent his son, Svetaketu, telling him to perform the sacrifice.
When he had arrived, Gangyayani asked him, ‘Son of Gautama, is there a closed place in the world in which you will set me? Or is there some other path there, by which you will set me in a world.
He said, ‘I do not know this: come, I must ask my teacher.’ He approached his father and asked him, ‘He asked me such-and-such: how should I reply?’
He said, ‘I do not know this either. Let us study at his house and take what others give us. Come, we both will go.’ With fuel in hand he went up to Citra Gangyayani saying, ‘I must come to you as a student.’
Gangyayani said, ‘You are worthy of the sacred knowledge (Brahman), Gautama, for you have not fallen into conceit. Come, I will explain it to you.’
2. He said, ‘All those who depart from this world go to the moon. In the former half of the month it waxes by their breaths, and with its latter half it causes them to be born again. This, the moon, is the door to the heaven world: the one who answers it, it sends onward, but the one who does not answer becomes rain here, and it rains him down. He is reborn here in one place after another as a worm, a person, or something else, according to his actions, according to this knowledge.
‘When he gets there, the moon asks him, Who are you?
‘He should answer it,
From the shining, O seasons, the seed was brought, From the fifteen fold begotten, from the ancestors’ realm.
You caused me to Arise in a male as agent:
Through a man as agent, sprinkle me in a mother.
As such I was born, being reborn as the twelfth or thirteenth succeeding month a twelve- or thirteenfold father. I know that: I know the reverse of that. Seasons, you have brought me to immortality. By that truth, by that asceticism, I am a season: I am of the seasons. Who am I? I am you. It sends him onward.
3. ‘Entering the path that leads to the gods, he comes to Agni’s world; to Vayu’s world; to Varuna’s world to Indra’s world; to Prajapati’s world; to Brahma’s world. This world has the lake, Watchmen, the public square, Salajya; the dwelling, Aparajita; the two door-guardians, Indra and Prajapati; the palace, Vibhu; the throne, Vicaksana; the couch, Amitaujas; the beloved, Manasi, and her pair, Caksusi, who take flowers and weave the two worlds; the apsarases, the Ambas and the Ambayavis; the rivers, Ambaya. The one who knows this arrives there. Brahms says, Run to him! By my glory he has reached the river Vijara, and he will not grow old.
4. ‘Five hundred apsarases approach him, a hundred with fruit in their hands, a hundred with unguents in their hands, a hundred with garlands in their hands, a hundred with garments in their hands, a hundred with perfumed powders in their hands. They adorn him with the adornment of Brahma. Once adorned with the adornment of Brahms, the knower of Brahman approaches Brahman. He comes to the lake, Ara, and crosses it by mind. When they get there, those who know only what is in front of them sink. He comes to the watchmen, the Muhurtas, and they run away from him. He comes to the river, Vijara, and crosses it, too, by mind.
‘Then he shakes off his good deeds and bad deeds. His dear relations get his good deeds and those who are not dear his bad deeds. Then just as one driving a chariot looks down on the two chariot wheels, he looks down on day and night, good deeds and bad deeds, all dualities. Free from good deeds, free from baddeeds, the knower of Brahman approaches Brahman.
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