kaTha upanishad IV. 1

[Yoshi Onishi]

At 17:49 7/7/98 -0700, Vidyasankar Sundaresan wrote:
>Under the 18th sUtra in the pratyabhijnAhRdayam, kshemarAja, the Kashmir
>Saiva author, quotes kaThavallI, IV. 1, and attributes this upanishad to
>the atharvaveda (AtharvaNikopanishatsu kaThavallyAM
>caturthavallI-prathama-mantre). This is probably the only Veda quotation
>in this work; in general, Kashmir Saiva authors prefer the Agama/tantra
>texts. The kAThaka samhitA and upanishad are generally considered to
>belong to the kRshNa yajurveda. Is there an alternative tradition
>attributing it to atharva, or is kshmerAja mistaken? Or is this another
>indication of the mysterious connection between tAntric traditions and
>atharvavedic tradiitons?
>
>A sub-question to the above - kshemarAja's quotation reads AvRtta
>cakshur amRtatvaM aSnan, whereas the standard reading is AvRtta cakshur
>amRtatvaM icchan. The difference is not without significance. Is aSnan a
>reasonably well-known variant?
>
>Vidyasankar
>
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Though I have no answer to the questions posed, may I just comment that
Jaideva Singh's English translation (The Secret of Self-recognition, p. 97)
says "wishing to taste immortality." (The aSnan version is printed there as
well.) Did Singh perhaps try to incorporate both versions somehow?

Yoshi Onishi