Māṇḍavya and Dharma

This is the account of Māṇḍavya Muni and Dharma Deva in the Uttara Khaṇḍa of the Padma Purāṇa. Māṇḍavya was a muni of great yoga and tapas. He was held for a theft he did not commit and was impaled on a stake. When he learned from Dharma Deva why this had come to him, he gave Dharma a śāpa (a curse). By that śāpa Dharma was born on earth as Vidura, the wise counsellor of the Pāṇḍavas.

Māṇḍavya at Gaṅgādvāra

Māṇḍavya was known as a master of meditation and was deeply devoted to Bhagavān Vishṇu. He lived at Gaṅgādvāra, the place where the Gaṅgā comes down from the mountains (now Haridvāra), and kept up hard tapas there without a break. He lived on leaves and fruits. He meditated on Bhagavān Vishṇu day and night and was fully absorbed in samādhi.

The false charge

In the nearby region King Viśvamohana ruled with his son Somacandra. Somacandra once went hunting in the forest near Gaṅgādvāra. While the hunting party camped there at night, someone stole Somacandra’s horse. In the confusion the soldiers searched for the thief.

They passed Māṇḍavya’s place of tapas and found him in deep samādhi. They took the muni for the thief, thinking he had tied up the stolen horse nearby, and seized him. They did not look into the matter. They brought him to the king as the man who had stolen the horse.

The king did not use proper judgement in the case of a brāhmaṇa who had plainly been in meditation. He ordered Māṇḍavya to be impaled on a stake. This was a harsh and public punishment, usually kept for serious criminals.

On the stake

Māṇḍavya was impaled on the stake. He was in deep samādhi and did not notice what was happening until some time had passed. When he became aware that he was on a stake, he was not upset as one would expect. He used his yogic sight and his knowledge of how karma works across time (he knew the past, the present and the future), and he looked within himself for the cause.

Dharma’s answer

Māṇḍavya went in his subtle form to Dharma Deva, who presides over the results of actions. He asked: “What act of mine from the past has brought this result?”

Dharma appeared before him and told him the cause. In his childhood, in a former existence, Māṇḍavya had caught a living moth and pushed a pointed stick through it, as a child’s act. That small cruelty, impaling an insect, had ripened over a long time into the suffering he now felt. The impaling was repaid by an impaling, though the moth and the muni were so far apart in size and though Māṇḍavya had gathered great puṇya (merit) since then.

Māṇḍavya’s śāpa on Dharma

Māṇḍavya was angry at this answer. The result seemed far too heavy: an act of childhood, before a child can be held to account, had brought such pain to a great muni. He declared that Dharma was unjust to apply the results of a child’s act to a grown person. He then gave his śāpa:

“O Dharma! You have laid the fruit of a childhood act on me, though children are not responsible for what they do. For this you shall be born as a śūdra on the earth.”

This śāpa, given by a great tapasvin (one who practises tapas), could not be taken back.

Dharma born as Vidura

Dharma Deva was bound by Māṇḍavya’s śāpa. He came down to earth and was born as Vidura, the well-known counsellor of the Pāṇḍavas. His mother was a śūdra woman, the maid of the Kuru queen, and his father was Vyāsa, through the niyoga (the custom by which a son is born to a childless queen). In this account of the Padma Purāṇa, Vidura is an avatāra of Dharma himself. He was born into a śūdra family because of Māṇḍavya’s śāpa.

Vidura at the Śābhramatī and Dharmāvatī confluence

At the end of his life Vidura set out on a tīrtha yātrā (pilgrimage). He came to the place where the river Dharmāvatī joins the Śābhramatī. He bathed at this confluence of the holy Śābhramatī and Dharmāvatī.

When he touched these holy waters he gave up the state of being a śūdra. The śāpa that Māṇḍavya had laid on Dharma was dissolved in the waters of the Śābhramatī. The river Dharmāvatī carries the name of Dharma, so it was the right place for Dharma’s avatāra to be freed from the condition the śāpa had brought.

Sources

• Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapter 141