Vidura Nirvāṇa and Dharma Avatāra

This is the account of the last days of Vidura in the Āśramavāsika Parva. Yudhishṭhira finds him deep in the forest, a thin tapasvin (one who practises tapas, austerity) with a vīṭāmukha in his mouth. Vidura then does a great act of yoga. He joins his prāṇa (breath of life) and his senses to Yudhishṭhira’s body and leaves his own. A voice with no body forbids Dhṛtarāshṭra to burn the body, because Vidura has reached yatidharma (the way of the renouncer) and needs no funeral rites. On the next day Vyāsa comes to the āśrama and tells Dhṛtarāshṭra, the Pāṇḍavas and the gathered ṛshis that Vidura was Dharma-devatā himself, born in the womb of a śūdra woman through the curse of Māṇḍavya Maharshi, and that Yudhishṭhira too is a part (aṃśa) of that same Dharma.

Chapter 26: the passing of Vidura

Dhṛtarāshṭra and Yudhishṭhira were exchanging the courtesies of kuśala-praśna (asking after one another’s welfare) at the forest āśrama. Yudhishṭhira asked about Vidura, who was not to be seen. Dhṛtarāshṭra answered that Vidura was doing the most terrible tapas. He took no food and lived on air alone. His body had shrunk until only the network of veins showed under the skin. He was seen by wandering brāhmaṇas only rarely, in some unknown corner of the empty forest. As part of this hard discipline he held a vīṭāmukha in his mouth.

While Dhṛtarāshṭra was still speaking, Vidura himself came into view in the distance. His hair was matted. The vīṭāmukha was still in his mouth. He was thin and unclothed, and his body was covered with dust and fallen flower pollen. He looked once toward the āśrama and turned sharply away. Only Yudhishṭhira ran after him. He called out, “Vidura! I am Yudhishṭhira, who is most dear to you!” He followed Vidura with great effort through the trackless forest, as Vidura came into sight and went out of sight among the trees.

At last Vidura stopped and leaned against a tree in a lonely place. His body was now only an outline, but Yudhishṭhira knew him by that outline alone.

The yogic merging

Vidura gazed at Yudhishṭhira without blinking. He fixed his sight in the king’s sight and became ekāgra-citta, with his mind gathered to a single point. Then the great-minded Vidura joined his limbs to Yudhishṭhira’s limbs, his prāṇas to Yudhishṭhira’s prāṇas, and his indriyas (senses) to Yudhishṭhira’s indriyas. By the strength of yoga he entered into Yudhishṭhira, as a person pours the water of one vessel into the water of another. In this way he gave up his own body.

Yudhishṭhira, receiving this, felt himself filled with great strength and with many noble qualities beyond his own. At that moment a memory rose in him, made holy by the yoga-dharma he had once heard Vyāsa explain to the citizens. The memory was that he and Vidura shared their origin in one aṃśa of Dharma. Vyāsa explains this fully in Chapter 28, below.

Yudhishṭhira found the body Vidura had left. It was leaning against the tree, with its eyes still open and not closing, but the life had gone. Wishing to do the last saṃskāra (rite), Yudhishṭhira began to prepare to burn the body. Then a voice with no body spoke:

“O King! Do not burn this body named Vidura. This is the eternal, sanātana dharma. He who has reached yatidharma is not to be burned. Bhārata! Parantapa! The Sāntānika lokas will be his. He has reached yatidharma, and he is not to be mourned.”

Hearing this, Yudhishṭhira turned back and told Dhṛtarāshṭra everything. Dhṛtarāshṭra, Bhīmasena and the other Pāṇḍavas were all filled with wonder at the bright light that now shone from the king, who had taken in Vidura’s tejas (radiance). Dhṛtarāshṭra then offered Yudhishṭhira water, roots and fruits as a gift of welcome (ātithya). Yudhishṭhira and his brothers took them and ate, and then rested in the shade of the trees.

Chapter 28: Vyāsa reveals that Vidura was Dharma

The next morning Bhagavān Vyāsa came to the āśrama, with devaṛshis and śishyas (pupils). Dhṛtarāshṭra, Yudhishṭhira, Bhīmasena and the others rose and bowed to him (abhivādana). Vyāsa took his seat on a black deerskin spread over kuśa grass, among the ṛshis led by King Śatayūpa.

After asking Dhṛtarāshṭra about his welfare, Vyāsa turned straight to the fate of Vidura. He said:

“O Mahārāja! Dharma, of great intellect, a mahāyogin, a mahātmā, of the highest realisation, was born as Vidura through the curse of Māṇḍavya. Neither Bṛhaspati among the devas nor Śukra among the asuras had intelligence equal to Vidura’s.”

The curse of Māṇḍavya

Vyāsa told the cause. Māṇḍavya Maharshi had once humbled the eternal Dharma-devatā himself. As a result Dharma had to spend his tapo-bala (strength of austerity) and then, in a short time, gather it again. By the order of Brahmā, and with the strength of his own tapas, this great-minded being was born in the kshetra of Vicitravīrya. That is, he was born through Vyāsa’s niyoga (appointed union) with a woman in Vicitravīrya’s household, the maidservant (dāsī) who received Vyāsa without fear.

Vyāsa went on: “The wise know Dharma, through steady mind and through dhyāna (meditation). That same eternal Devadeva, Mahārāja, is your own younger brother. He is nourished and made to grow through satya (truth), dama (self-control), śama (calm), ahiṃsā (non-harm) and dāna (charity). He is sanātana. That very eternal Dharma, of boundless intellect and measureless wisdom, took avatāra by the strength of yoga as the Kuru king Yudhishṭhira himself.

“Agni, vāyu, water, earth and ākāśa (space) are present here, there and everywhere. So is Dharma. The devas, untouched by even the smallest pāpa (sin), see this Dharma pervading the whole universe of things that move and things that do not.

“He who is Dharma is none other than Vidura. He who was Vidura is none other than this son of Pāṇḍu, who stands before you now, O King, looking outwardly like a servant. Your brother, the mahātmā, first among the wise, with the power of great yoga, saw the son of Kuntī and entered into him.”

Vyāsa then spoke to Yudhishṭhira himself: “My child, you too will soon reach śreyas (the highest good). Know that I have come here to remove doubt. As the fruit of my own tapas I will show all of you a wonder that no ṛshi before me has ever done. O King, whatever your heart wishes to see, to touch or to hear, tell me, and I will give it.”

This offer of a vara (boon) leads, in the chapters that follow, to Gāndhārī’s plea to see her slain sons, Kuntī’s confession about Karṇa, and the great darśana (sight) on the bank of the Gaṅgā.

What the episode shows

Vidura the counsellor and Yudhishṭhira the king are two births of one and the same Dharma-devatā. Vidura’s leaving his body is a yogic withdrawal. The body he left behind belonged to one who had reached yatidharma, and the voice forbade the rites of burning that are done for ordinary bodies.

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Āśramavāsika Parva, Chapter 26
• Mahābhārata, Āśramavāsika Parva, Chapter 28