The king said: 'Do you know how men, when they depart from here, separate from each other?' 'No,' he replied. 'Do you know how they come back to this world?' 'No,' he replied. 'Do you know how that world does never become full with the many who again and again depart thither?' 'No,' he replied. 'Do you know at the offering of which libation the waters become endowed with a human voice and rise and speak?' 'No,' he replied. 'Do you know the access to the path leading to the Devas and to the path leading to the Fathers, i.e. by what deeds men gain access to the path leading to the Devas or to that leading to the Fathers? For we have heard even the saying of a Rishi: "I heard of two paths for men, one leading to the Fathers, the other leading to the Devas. On those paths all that lives moves on, whatever there is between father (sky) and mother (earth)."' Svetaketu said: 'I do not know even one of all these questions.'

In plain words: The king asks Svetaketu five deep questions: where people go after death, how they come back, why the other world never fills up, how water takes on a human voice, and what leads people to the path of the gods or the path of the ancestors. Svetaketu admits he cannot answer any of them.