In the previous episode, we had witnessed Vidura’s continuation of his accord with King Dhritarashtra, wherein he is now criticizing King Dhritarashtra for his gross partial behaviour of favouring Duryodhana unduly just because Duryodhana is his son. Vidura questions him that if such acts of “Adharma” would have been exhibited by any other person in the kingdom other than Duryodhana will King Dhritarashtra let him go unpunished! Maybe if Yudishtra would have committed even 1% of what Duryodhana had done, would King Dhritarashtra let him go scot free? Asking these questions straight upon King Dhritarashtra, Vidura highlights the important point that as a king, he should be genuine towards genuine people. He shouldn’t show fickle-mindedness towards genuine people and if such a thing happens, it would backfire very badly at the king and his kingdom put together!
Saying thus, Vidura gives his concluding remarks to King Dhritarashtra – “Oh King! You’ve committed so many wrongful acts towards Yudishtra and Co. and still Yudishtra has not reacted in any hostile manner till now. Why do you think so? It is solely because Yudishtra respects you like his father. He sees King Paandu in you. But are you reciprocating his love, respect and affection in the right manner? Oh King Dhritarashtra! You should learn to treat the Paandavas as your own sons, just like how you’re treating Duryodhana. If you’re not doing this, it simply means that you are taking sides and showing partiality towards one side on the behest of the others. Even though Duryodhana has done enormous atrocities towards the Paandavas, Yudishtra obeyed your orders of going to the forest for thirteen years. You should honour his act of compliance by giving back his Indraprastha, shouldn’t you? Earlier, it was you and all the seniors like Bhishmachaarya, Guru Dhronachaarya, etc. who decided to split Hastinapura into two and give one portion to Yudishtra and Co. Duryodhana too accepted it. But now why are all of you going back on your own accord? Once a portion of the kingdom is split and given, you do not have any rights to claim that portion as yours, isn’t it? Don’t you understand this simple aspect of “Raaja Dharma”?
Vidura continues further thus, “Oh King Dhritarashtra! My sole advice to you is this – Firstly, tame Duryodhana’s atrocities. He is clearly going overboard and has breached all boundaries of “Dharma” for which he is going to pay a heavy price. Yudishtra is not a dumb person to be a sitting duck to whatever Duryodhana does. If he starts reacting, it would spell disaster to Duryodhana and to your entire Kaurava clan. If you’ve to stop this disaster from happening, please bring Duryodhana under your control! Secondly, please return Indraprastha to Yudishtra and this would resolve all problems between the two camps. Let Yudishtra be happy ruling his kingdom that he has rightly inherited. At the same time, let Duryodhana be happy in succeeding you as the king of Hastinapura. If this doesn’t happen, consequences might be extremely severe. It is in your hands as a king to take an appropriate decision in this regard and to end the feud that is building up rather quickly between the two camps!”
Saying thus, Vidura concludes his accord and leaves it to King Dhritarashtra to decide! With this, we come to the end of the section on “Vidura Neeti”, which is a great excerpt of almost all aspects of “Raaja Dharma” and leadership as explained by Vidura to King Dhritarashtra. Of course, we’ve only done a brief on this important section, since we’ve already done a project on this earlier. Readers may refer to our earlier projects for a detailed discussion on the “Vidura Neeti”, wherein we’ve done around 390 episodes! So for today, let us understand up to this point and in the next episode, we shall continue to witness what happens next! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 