We’re at an extremely important juncture and turn of events wherein the gambling game (Dyutam) is progressing swiftly with Yudishtra losing each and every move of it. It all starts with a small garland being under bet, and subsequently the bet becomes bigger and bigger. At one stage, Yudishtra even loses his entire set of servants, his other key people, his entire kingdom along with his army and elephants. Finally as Yudishtra has nothing to stake for bet, he looks around, only to find his four brothers standing by his side! As Yudishtra is about to stake his brothers, Vidura intervenes timely and demands King Dhridiraashtra to stop this nonsense from continuing! Vidura has had enough of this now! He once again makes an earnest appeal to King Dhridiraashtra to send the Paandavas back to their kingdom by reinstating Yudishtra as the king, as this method of abducting the kingdom is not valid by any means.
Now this is a clear “make-or-break” situation for King Dhridiraashtra, before things nosedive into disaster mode! As Vidura continues thus, he turns towards Bhishmachaarya and Guru Dhronachaarya and appeals to them thus, “Oh Bhishmachaarya! Don’t you understand that whatever is happening here is totally illegal and is going to end up in a disaster? You are the senior most person in this family isn’t it? Why don’t you get up and talk? Why don’t you support my words? Why don’t you stand up for “Dharma”? Oh! Guru Dhronachaarya! You’re perfectly capable of stopping this nonsense aren’t you? One word from your mouth would put an end to all this! So please get up and talk! Please acknowledge my words for the good of this kingdom! King Dhridiraashtra thinks that his son is winning for the moment. But in the long run, he is not realizing that his son is going to be the biggest loser of all times! He might win Indraprastha by cheating Yudishtra today. But he can never cheat Bhagawan Krishna tomorrow, who is always by the side of the Paandavas. The Paandavas have “Dharma” by their side and Bhagawan Krishna would always favor only those who stand by “Dharma”. You might think today that you can cheat them! But you do not know who Bhagawan Krishna really is. If He thinks of cheating all of you, He could do it with just a small laughter! But He is very patient with all of us. He’s giving us opportunities to mend ourselves. If we do not utilize them today, things are going to be too late afterwards!”
Even as Vidura makes this earnest appeal, both Bhishmachaarya and Guru Dhronachaarya keep mum! Although they are suffering internally with pain, upon seeing what is unfolding, they are scared to open their mouths and talk! Bhishmachaarya does not know what to talk to King Dhridiraashtra, and so is Guru Dhronachaarya! This is the clear difference between Vidura and Bhishmachaarya. At a critical point wherein “Dharma” is under the scanner, Vidura was the person who stood for “Dharma” and had the guts to criticise King Dhridiraashtra, whereas, Bhishmachaarya chose to remain silent, just because King Dhridiraashtra was like his own son and he wasn’t able to talk against him. Guru Dhronachaarya also chose to remain silent because his thought process was that Duryodhana and Co. were the people who gifted him with all the luxuries that he has currently. Hence, as a token of “gratitude” to Duryodhana, he became a mute spectator to all the atrocities that Duryodhana did.
Thus, the important lesson for all of us here is that, if a person is talking in favour of “Dharma” and if his points are very valid to the situation, we should support that person, no matter who he is and who the other person is. We should never bring in the “human” element in between “Dharma”. In other words, if we’ve to weigh between “Dharma” and “People”, the heavier thing should always be “Dharma”. At the same time, if Bhagawan comes closer to us, and if we’ve to weigh “Bhagawan” vs. “Dharma”, Bhagawan should always weigh more! We can forsake “Dharma” at that point and go and capture Bhagawan’s divine lotus feet! Thus, when a scholarly person like Vidura is telling something, it was the duty of Bhishmachaarya and Guru Dhronachaarya to stand by Vidura and support him. However, both of them failed in their duty, owing to the “gratitude” that they had towards King Dhridiraashtra and Duryodhana! Thus, we can clearly see that the biggest mistake which Bhishmachaarya and Guru Dhronachaarya made was that they weighed people more than the “Dharma”, which led to their downfall!
However, Vidura was steadfast in this – He clearly weighed “Dharma” over “People” and this is what led him to render this important advice amidst everybody in the courtroom. Vidura never feared whether there would be a backlash from Duryodhana if he talks such things! Vidura also never feared if King Dhridiraashtra would openly oppose him in public! He did his duty as an able minister to King Dhridiraashtra! It is this clarity that all of us should develop. If we’ve to stand for “Dharma” at any situation, we’ve to be able to differentiate people from “Dharma” clearly. Just because we’ve to support our kith and kin, we should never compromise on “Dharma”. Moving on thus, Vidura continues his advice further. He is now explaining how “Atman” has to be given top priority over “Deham”. He is explaining how King Dhridirashtra and Duryodhana are giving more importance to the “Deha-Soukhyam” rather than the “Atma-Soukhyam”. This is an important point that Vidura is going to make, and for this, we shall wait till the next episode to understand it in detail! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 