So, Nachiketas went straight to Yama, the god of Death. Yama was busy at that time. There must have been deaths, many deaths, all around him, and in many regions, universes. Therefore had Nachiketas, the young Nachiketas, to wait in the house of Yama for three long days. Yama coming back from his various jobs, seeing Nachiketas in his house, a guest, and hearing he had been waiting for three days, requests Nachiketas to ask for three boons, one boon for each day. A guest, furthermore a Brahmin, should never be made to wait for so long, and especially without food or water. And like a boy, Nachiketas begs, first his father’s anger must be abated by the time, he, Nachiketas, returns home. The second question is simple: ‘How, Sir, does one get to heaven—by what sacrifices?’ Yama then tells Nachiketas, of the first sacrifice (perhaps of Purusha) of which all others are paradigms, and making such a sacrifice, he the sacrificer attains, imam santim, everlasting peace. The third question was the most difficult to answer. For Nachiketas begged: ‘Tell me, tell me, Sir, what is Death? Does one remain after it occurs, or is it one’s real end?’ Yama could not answer such an august, terribly occult question. How could he? How could he reveal himself? What then would remain of the world? For if death were not, would the world be? So, Yama offered the young boy ‘noble maidens, chariots, musical instruments’. But Nachiketas would have none of these. All such objects are transitory, spurious. ‘Tell me the Truth, Sir?’ And Yama, perceiving the desperate earnestness of Nachiketas, says: ‘The knowing Self is never born, nor does he die at any time.’ He sprang from nothing and nothing sprang from him. He is unborn, eternal, abiding and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain . . . Sitting, the Self moves far, lying he goes everywhere. The Self cannot be attained by scholarship, nor by clever casuistry. Only the Self can reveal the self: ‘Yamevaisa vrinute, tena labhyas tasvaisa atma vivinute tanum svan.’ ‘Beyond the senses are the objects (of the senses), and beyond the objects is the mind; beyond the mind is the intellect, and beyond intellect the Great Self . . . The Self without sound, without touch, and without form, is likewise without smell, without beginning, without end, beyond the great, abiding, by discerning That, one is freed from the face of Death.’ Thus, on hearing and understanding this, Nachiketas realized the ‘I’, the Absolute. And went back to his father, a wise formidable son.