The Boy Who Questioned Death

Among the tales of the search for the deepest knowledge, the sages told the Pandavas of a boy named Nachiketa, who went to the house of Death itself and came back with the secret of what does not die.

Nachiketa was the young son of a sage named Vajashravasa, a man who wished to gain merit by performing a great sacrifice in which a giver is meant to give away all that he possesses. But when the time came to make his offerings, the father's heart was small. Instead of giving his best, he gave away only his worthless cattle - old cows that could no longer eat or drink or give milk or bear calves, cows that were of no use to anyone. He kept his good wealth and offered only what he no longer wanted, and called it sacrifice.

Nachiketa, though only a boy, was devoted to truth and dharma, and the sight of his father's hollow generosity troubled him deeply. He understood that a sacrifice made with such grudging, worthless gifts would bring no real merit, but rather the opposite, and out of love for his father he wished to wake him to what he was doing.