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STORIES · THE MAHĀBHĀRATA · Āśramavāsika

Dharma, Yama, Vidura and Yudhishthira: one essence

Classical

The god who tested Yudhishthira at the lake, the man who advised Dhritarashtra and Yudhishthira himself are all treated as the same Yama-Dharma.

This story gathers three separate scenes from the Mahabharata and shows how they connect. A god who tests a king at a lake, a half-brother who advises a blind man in the dark, and a hermit who walks out of the forest and into the body of the king: the epic says these are the same person.

Start with the lake. After the Yaksha has asked Yudhishthira his questions and brought the brothers back, Yudhishthira asks who he is. The Yaksha says that he is Yudhishthira's father, the Lord of Justice, Dharma, who came to test him. He lists his own qualities, including truth, self-restraint and charity. In the same passage he adds, when offering a third gift, that Yudhishthira was born of him and that Vidura is a portion of him.

Vidura's connection to Dharma is explained in the Adi Parva. The Adi Parva is said to explain it: Dharma was cursed by the sage Mandavya to be born as Vidura. I did not read that passage myself, so I pass it on only as the epic's own link: Vidura is Dharma born among men, and in the Kuru court he is the one who tells Dhritarashtra the hard truths, as the night-counsel of the Vidura-niti shows.

Now the last scene. Long after the war, Dhritarashtra, Gandhari and Kunti have gone to live in the forest, and Yudhishthira comes to visit. Dhritarashtra tells him that Vidura is practising harsh austerities, eating only air, and that some Brahmanas have sometimes seen him in the woods. One day he is seen at a distance, and word is brought to Yudhishthira. When Vidura sees the king coming, he stops, looks toward the hermitage, then runs deeper into the forest. Yudhishthira follows him alone, calling out that he is King Yudhishthira.

At last Vidura stops in a lonely spot, leaning against a tree. He is thin, but Yudhishthira knows him. The king greets him and honours him. Vidura fixes his eyes on the king and stands perfectly still in yoga. Then, by the power of his yoga, he enters Yudhishthira's body limb by limb, joining his breath and senses with the king's. His own body stays propped against the tree, eyes fixed, and Yudhishthira sees that the life has gone from it.

The king feels stronger and finds himself with extra virtues. He remembers his earlier state, and remembers that Vyasa once taught him yoga. He wants to perform the last rites and burn the body, but an invisible voice tells him not to. The body is also his, it says. Vidura is the eternal deity of Righteousness, he will reach the Santanika worlds, and he kept the duties of an ascetic, so no one should grieve for him.

Yudhishthira goes back and tells Dhritarashtra everything. Bhima and the others are filled with wonder.

The pieces fit. Dharma tests his son at the lake; Dharma, as Vidura, serves the Kuru house; and in the end Dharma is not buried or burnt, but simply goes back into Yudhishthira. The title of this story also names Yama. The passages I read call him Dharma, and do not mention Yama, so that identification is the popular tradition's.

Who: Dharma, Yama, Vidura, Yudhishthira, Mandavya

Bound to

Mandavya impaled; Dharma cursed to be born a Shudra past-life-explains

The Yaksha's questions at the lake mirror

Vidura-nīti trivia-about

Death in the Forest Fire mirror

Where this comes from

See it on the tree · All stories

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