KathaUpanishad

Purushamedha must have preceded the Ashvamedha. According to Jan Houben, the
actual occurrence of human sacrifice would be difficult to prove, since the relevant
pieces of evidence would be small in number.
However, in a late Vedic Brahmana text, the Vadhula Anvakhyana 4.108 (ed. Caland,
Acta Orientalia 6, p. 229) actual human sacrifice and even ritual anthropophagy is
attested: "one formerly indeed offered a man as victim for Prajāpati," for example
Karṇājāya. "Dhārtakratava Jātūkarṇi did not wish to eat of the ida portion of the offered
person; the gods therefore exchanged man as a sacrificial animal with a horse."
References to anthropophagy are also found in Taittiriya 7.2.10 and Katha Samhita
34.11.
Unless we assume that this is just a story, the best assumption will be that Nachiketu
submitted himself to his father's commitment and he was sacrificed along with the cows.
The animal sacrifice is still prevalent in Assam, Nepal and Tamil Nadu as part of the
Sakthi worship. In a Visvajit Sacrifice, a Son would be perfectly appropriate.
Here is the reconstruction of the story:
"Nachiketa understood the motive of his father's action and could not tolerate the wrong
act. He realised that his father was keeping the healthy cow for his son and so decided
to stop such wrong acts. He stood before his father and asked "To whom are you giving
me?" The father did not pay heed, being too busy donating the old cows. Nachiketa
again asked the same question; he repeated his question three or four times.
Uddalak could not control himself; he became angry and hastily said that he was giving
the boy to YamaRaj, King of Death.
Uddalak realised his mistake and pleaded him to forgive, when Nachiketa started going
away in the woods. But Nachiketa was firm. He could not be persuaded to stay back.
Folding his hands Nachiketa said to his father: "My revered father, I was told by you that
for the past twenty one generations, our ancestors never went back on their word.
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