Vidura
Encyclopedia
Vidura was an important figure in the Mahabharata
, a major Hindu
epic. He was half-brother to the kings Dhritarashtra
and Pandu
of Hastinapura
, born the son of the sage Vyasa
and a lady-in-waiting
to the queens Ambika and Ambalika
of the city. By some accounts, he was an incarnation of the god of death and justice Yama Dharma Raja
, who had been cursed by the sage Mandavya
for punishing the latter more harshly than his transgression warranted.
Both Ambika and Ambalika were wives of King Vichitravirya
of Hastinapura, who, however, died childless. Anxious to ensure the survival of the royal lineage, Vichitravirya's mother Satyavati
called another of her sons, the ascetic Vyasa, to bestow motherhood upon the two queens by his mystical powers. Vyasa, as a hermit practising severe austerities, was unpleasant and even fearsome in appearance, so much so that Ambika shut her eyes tight when she saw him, and her sister Ambalika went pale with fear. As a result, the sons they bore were respectively the blind Dhritarashtra and the sickly albino Pandu, neither of whom thus met the ideals of kingliness.
Thereat, Satyavati asked Vyasa to grant a son to a royal lady-in-waiting, to ensure that at least one of the boys born would be fit in all respects to guide the ship of state. This dutiful lady not being frightened by Vyasa appearance had an unafflicted born to her. Thus was Vidura born. He was raised and educated by Bhishma
as the half-brother of Dhritarashtra and Pandu, but since neither of his parents was of the blood royal, he was made counsellor to his brothers, the kings, rather than a king himself. Upon the blind Dhritarashtra's succession, he took on the reins of government for all practical purposes, guiding his brother's government until the rise of Duryodhana
to manhood, when he was consigned to a secondary role.
In some versions, it is believed that Vidura is elder to Dhritarashtra and Pandu for when Bhishma asked Vidura for counsel on the marriages of the three princes, he indicated in order the brides for Vidura - a Yadava girl, Dhritharashtra - Gandhari
and Pandu - Madri
, in the order of precedence accorded by age. According to this version, Ambika initially sent a maid in her place out of fear of Vyasa, and the sage perceiving an act designed by Destiny for some greater purpose, blesses her with a son, making Vidura an incarnation of Dharma instead of the Mitra-Varuna pair. This event is considered to be a major transition from the Vedic to the Upanishad age. Contemporary translators, however have ignored this due to transcreations. Ambika later was persuaded to present herself to Vyasa, but turned pale and gave birth to Pandu, as recounted above.
Barring Krishna
, Vidura was most respected as an advisor by the Pandavas whom he forewarned on various occasions of Duryodhana's plots to exterminate them, such as Duryodhana's plan to burn them alive in the House of Lac. He was known for his wisdom and statecraft.
Krishna respected Vidura for his devotion to the people's welfare and his proficiency in every sphere of knowledge. When Krishna visited Hastinapura as a peace emissary of the Pandavas, he shunned Duryodhana
's offer to stay in the royal palace, preferring instead the dwellings of Vidura, on account of his being the only neutral man in the Kaurava court. Vidura was the only person excepting the prince Vikarna, a brother of Duryodhana, who protested against the humiliation of Draupadi in the Kaurava
court. According to krishna vidur was considered as dharmaraj which means lord of truth
In the Sanatsujatiya
section of the Mahabharata
, shortly before the Kurukshetra War
began, Vidura invoked the sage Sanatsujata to answer Dhritarashtra
's questions about death. In protest against the Kurukshetra War
, Vidura resigned from the post of minister.
After the great battle, Yudhishthira appointed Vidura the prime minister with complete control of the government. However, following the carnage of the war and his own age Vidura did not have the heart to govern. Soon thereafter he retired to the forests as an ascetic with Dhritarashtra
, and his sisters-in-law Gandhari
, and Kunti. He undertook very severe penances and was the first of the royal ascetics to die.
Vidura is considered as the Mahachohan in the Theosophical world. Mahachohan is said to be the chief of a Social Hierarchy of the trans-Himalayan mystics.
Viduraneeti, or Vidura's Statecraft, narrated in the form of a conversation between Vidur and King Dritrashtra, is considered the precursor in some ways of Chanakyaneeti.
Vidura is held to be a paragon of truth, dutifulness, impartial judgement and steadfast dharma
. He is considered the embodiment of the inner consciousness of the Mahabharata.
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....
, a major Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
epic. He was half-brother to the kings Dhritarashtra
Dhritarashtra
In the Mahābhārata, Dhritarashtra was King of Hastinapur at the time of the Kurukshetra War, the epic's climactic event. He was born the son of Vichitravirya's first wife Ambika, and was fathered by Vyasa. He was blind from birth, and became father to a hundred children by his wife Gandhari...
and Pandu
Pandu
In the Mahābhārata epic, King Pandu is the son of Ambalika and Rishi Ved Vyasa. He is more popularly known as the father of the Pandavas and ruled Hastinapur.-Birth:...
of Hastinapura
Hastinapura
Hastinapur is a town and a nagar panchayat in Meerut district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.-History:Hastinapur was the capital of the kingdom of the Kauravas, belonging to the Kuru dynasty of kings. The throne of this city was the prize over which the Kurukshetra War of the epic...
, born the son of the sage Vyasa
Vyasa
Vyasa is a central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions. He is also sometimes called Veda Vyasa , or Krishna Dvaipayana...
and a lady-in-waiting
Lady-in-waiting
A lady-in-waiting is a female personal assistant at a royal court, attending on a queen, a princess, or a high-ranking noblewoman. Historically, in Europe a lady-in-waiting was often a noblewoman from a family highly thought of in good society, but was of lower rank than the woman on whom she...
to the queens Ambika and Ambalika
Ambalika
Ambalika was the daughter of Kashya, the King of Kashi and queen of Vichitravirya, King of Hastinapura.Along with her sisters Amba and Ambika, she was taken by force by Bhishma from their Swayamvara, the latter having challenged and defeated the assembled royalty...
of the city. By some accounts, he was an incarnation of the god of death and justice Yama Dharma Raja
Yama (Hinduism)
Yama is the lord of death in Hinduism, first recorded in the Vedas. Yama belongs to an early stratum of Indo-Iranian theology. In Vedic tradition Yama was considered to have been the first mortal who died and espied the way to the celestial abodes, thus in virtue of precedence he became the ruler...
, who had been cursed by the sage Mandavya
Mandavya
Mandavya was a sage, who according to Hinduism, was wrongly punished by the king by being impaled. This occurred as the chief of a band of robbers had hidden their stolen goods in a corner of his hermitage when he was in deep contemplation, and he was wrongly assumed to have stolen the goods. Lord...
for punishing the latter more harshly than his transgression warranted.
Both Ambika and Ambalika were wives of King Vichitravirya
Vichitravirya
Vichitravirya in the Hindu epic Mahabharata is the younger son of queen Satyavatī and king Śaṅtanu. His elder brother, Chitrāngada, had initially succeeded their father to the throne of Hastinapura, but when he died childless, Vichitravirya succeeded him.Vichitravirya was still a child when he was...
of Hastinapura, who, however, died childless. Anxious to ensure the survival of the royal lineage, Vichitravirya's mother Satyavati
Satyavati
Satyavati was the queen of the Kuru king Shantanu of Hastinapur and the great-grandmother of the Pandava and Kaurava princes . She is also the mother of the seer Vyasa, author of the epic...
called another of her sons, the ascetic Vyasa, to bestow motherhood upon the two queens by his mystical powers. Vyasa, as a hermit practising severe austerities, was unpleasant and even fearsome in appearance, so much so that Ambika shut her eyes tight when she saw him, and her sister Ambalika went pale with fear. As a result, the sons they bore were respectively the blind Dhritarashtra and the sickly albino Pandu, neither of whom thus met the ideals of kingliness.
Thereat, Satyavati asked Vyasa to grant a son to a royal lady-in-waiting, to ensure that at least one of the boys born would be fit in all respects to guide the ship of state. This dutiful lady not being frightened by Vyasa appearance had an unafflicted born to her. Thus was Vidura born. He was raised and educated by Bhishma
Bhishma
Bhishma or Bheeshma or Devavrata or 'Bhishma Pitamah' was the eighth son of Kuru King Shantanu who was blessed with wish-long life and had sworn to serve the ruling Kuru king. He was one of the most prominent characters of the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata. He was the grand uncle of both the...
as the half-brother of Dhritarashtra and Pandu, but since neither of his parents was of the blood royal, he was made counsellor to his brothers, the kings, rather than a king himself. Upon the blind Dhritarashtra's succession, he took on the reins of government for all practical purposes, guiding his brother's government until the rise of Duryodhana
Duryodhana
In the Hindu epic the Mahābhārata, Duryodhana is the eldest son of the blind king Dhritarashtra by Queen Gandhari, the eldest of the one hundred Kaurava brothers, Emperor of the world at that time which means Emperor of India or Bharatvarsha as it was known at that time, cousin and the chief...
to manhood, when he was consigned to a secondary role.
In some versions, it is believed that Vidura is elder to Dhritarashtra and Pandu for when Bhishma asked Vidura for counsel on the marriages of the three princes, he indicated in order the brides for Vidura - a Yadava girl, Dhritharashtra - Gandhari
Gandhari (character)
Gāndhārī is a character in the Hindu epic, the Mahābhārata. In the epic, she was an incarnation of Mati, as the daughter of Subala, the king of Gandhara, or the modern Kandahar, a region spanning northwestern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan, from which her name is derived...
and Pandu - Madri
Madri
In the Mahābhārata epic, Madri was a princess of the Madra kingdom and the second wife of Pandu.On his way to Hastinapur, King Pandu encountered the army of Shalya, King of Madra. Very soon, Pandu and Shalya became friends and Shalya gave his only sister, Madri to Pandu, as a gift of their...
, in the order of precedence accorded by age. According to this version, Ambika initially sent a maid in her place out of fear of Vyasa, and the sage perceiving an act designed by Destiny for some greater purpose, blesses her with a son, making Vidura an incarnation of Dharma instead of the Mitra-Varuna pair. This event is considered to be a major transition from the Vedic to the Upanishad age. Contemporary translators, however have ignored this due to transcreations. Ambika later was persuaded to present herself to Vyasa, but turned pale and gave birth to Pandu, as recounted above.
Barring Krishna
Krishna
Krishna is a central figure of Hinduism and is traditionally attributed the authorship of the Bhagavad Gita. He is the supreme Being and considered in some monotheistic traditions as an Avatar of Vishnu...
, Vidura was most respected as an advisor by the Pandavas whom he forewarned on various occasions of Duryodhana's plots to exterminate them, such as Duryodhana's plan to burn them alive in the House of Lac. He was known for his wisdom and statecraft.
Krishna respected Vidura for his devotion to the people's welfare and his proficiency in every sphere of knowledge. When Krishna visited Hastinapura as a peace emissary of the Pandavas, he shunned Duryodhana
Duryodhana
In the Hindu epic the Mahābhārata, Duryodhana is the eldest son of the blind king Dhritarashtra by Queen Gandhari, the eldest of the one hundred Kaurava brothers, Emperor of the world at that time which means Emperor of India or Bharatvarsha as it was known at that time, cousin and the chief...
's offer to stay in the royal palace, preferring instead the dwellings of Vidura, on account of his being the only neutral man in the Kaurava court. Vidura was the only person excepting the prince Vikarna, a brother of Duryodhana, who protested against the humiliation of Draupadi in the Kaurava
Kaurava
The term Kaurava is a Sanskrit term, that means the descendants of Kuru, a legendary king who is the ancestor of many of the characters of the Mahābhārata.The term is used in the Mahābhārata with two meanings:...
court. According to krishna vidur was considered as dharmaraj which means lord of truth
In the Sanatsujatiya
Sanatsujatiya
The Sānatsujātiya refers to a portion of the Mahābhārata, a Hindu epic. It appears in the Udyoga Parva , and is composed of five chapters...
section of the Mahabharata
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....
, shortly before the Kurukshetra War
Kurukshetra war
According to the Indian epic poem Mahābhārata, a dynastic succession struggle between two groups of cousins of an Indo-Aryan kingdom called Kuru, the Kauravas and Pandavas, for the throne of Hastinapura resulted in the Kurukshetra War in which a number of ancient kingdoms participated as allies of...
began, Vidura invoked the sage Sanatsujata to answer Dhritarashtra
Dhritarashtra
In the Mahābhārata, Dhritarashtra was King of Hastinapur at the time of the Kurukshetra War, the epic's climactic event. He was born the son of Vichitravirya's first wife Ambika, and was fathered by Vyasa. He was blind from birth, and became father to a hundred children by his wife Gandhari...
's questions about death. In protest against the Kurukshetra War
Kurukshetra war
According to the Indian epic poem Mahābhārata, a dynastic succession struggle between two groups of cousins of an Indo-Aryan kingdom called Kuru, the Kauravas and Pandavas, for the throne of Hastinapura resulted in the Kurukshetra War in which a number of ancient kingdoms participated as allies of...
, Vidura resigned from the post of minister.
After the great battle, Yudhishthira appointed Vidura the prime minister with complete control of the government. However, following the carnage of the war and his own age Vidura did not have the heart to govern. Soon thereafter he retired to the forests as an ascetic with Dhritarashtra
Dhritarashtra
In the Mahābhārata, Dhritarashtra was King of Hastinapur at the time of the Kurukshetra War, the epic's climactic event. He was born the son of Vichitravirya's first wife Ambika, and was fathered by Vyasa. He was blind from birth, and became father to a hundred children by his wife Gandhari...
, and his sisters-in-law Gandhari
Gandhari (character)
Gāndhārī is a character in the Hindu epic, the Mahābhārata. In the epic, she was an incarnation of Mati, as the daughter of Subala, the king of Gandhara, or the modern Kandahar, a region spanning northwestern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan, from which her name is derived...
, and Kunti. He undertook very severe penances and was the first of the royal ascetics to die.
Vidura is considered as the Mahachohan in the Theosophical world. Mahachohan is said to be the chief of a Social Hierarchy of the trans-Himalayan mystics.
Viduraneeti, or Vidura's Statecraft, narrated in the form of a conversation between Vidur and King Dritrashtra, is considered the precursor in some ways of Chanakyaneeti.
Vidura is held to be a paragon of truth, dutifulness, impartial judgement and steadfast dharma
Dharma
Dharma means Law or Natural Law and is a concept of central importance in Indian philosophy and religion. In the context of Hinduism, it refers to one's personal obligations, calling and duties, and a Hindu's dharma is affected by the person's age, caste, class, occupation, and gender...
. He is considered the embodiment of the inner consciousness of the Mahabharata.