KathaUpanishad

" The boy earnestly wishes to make himself an offering and thus purify his father's
sacrifice. He does not discard the old tradition but attempts to quicken it. There can be
no quickening of the spirit until the body die."
Cp. St Paul 'Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die.'
mṛtyave: unto Death Mṛtyu or Yama is the lord of death. When Vājaśravasa gives away
all his goods, Naciketas feels that this involves the giving away of the son also and so
wishes to know about himself. When the father replies that he will give him to Yama, it
may mean that, as a true saṁnyāsin, personal relations and claims have henceforward
no meaning for him. Naciketas takes his father's words literally He in the course of his
teaching points out that the psychophysical vehicles animated by the spirit are
detennmed by the law of karma and subject to death. He who knows himself as the
spirit, and not as the psychophysical vehicle is free and unmortal. " (Dr.Radhakrishnan)
Yama, the god of Death
Yama is the god of death, belonging to an early stratum of Vedic mythology. In
Sanskrit, his name can be interpreted to mean "twin".
In the Zend-Avesta he is called "Yima".
According to the Vishnu Purana, Yama is the son of the sungod Surya and of Sanjna,
the daughter of Visvakarman, sometimes called "Usha" the dawn.
He is the brother of the current Manu Vaivasvatha and of his older sister Yami,
According to Harivamsa Purana her name is Daya.(Mercy) implying that death was
brought in to existence because of the mercy of God. Only the Buddhist influence
represented it as wrath of God.
Hindu Mythology, Vedic and Puranic by W.J. Wilkins [1900] CHAPTER X. gives the
following details of the Indian concept of Yama.
"Yama, the judge of men and king of the unseen world, was the son of Vivasvat (the
sun) and Saranya, the daughter of Tvastri. He was born before his mother had become
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