Week 7 Story: The Dharma in Vidura

The shrine itself was unremarkable, but its visitor was not. Vidura's annual pilgrimage was easier now than it was in the old days. The rush to return to the city was no longer necessary since he had stepped down as prime minister, and each year he enjoyed stretching his journey out longer.

The hermit greeted him each year in silence, but always offered him tea and food. Neither knew the other's name nor spoke, but each ate together near the fire each night. Vidura had tried to offer his own provisions in the early years, but the hermit always refused.

Each year Vidura approached the shrine, and each year he began his vigil. The incense came first, six bundles carefully placed in the basin below the weathered statue. He did not know who the statue was supposed to be, and it did not matter to him. This was not a rite of devotion, but of penance.

He chose the shrine forty years ago for its isolation, and it was here their remains were buried. Their names he never learned, and that he regretted to this day. Their faces he never forgot. The mother and her five boys, begging and hungry and gullible. To this day he asked himself whether their appearance was a sign of the gods, as he told himself so long ago. Low-castes would never be missed, the Pandavas had argued as the beggar family drank and gorged in a room deep within the doomed palace.

The morning after, while the smoke still rose to the sky, their bodies were discovered. The nation grieved for the Pandavas, but Vidura grieved for his soul. After the commotion died down, he sent a manservant to gather their remains. His hasty vacation after the Pandavas left was spent urging a pack-mule carrying six suspicious sacks up this lonesome mountain, and the hermit had seen him bury them all.

Vidura was glad the hermit never spoke.

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

Author's note
The Mahabharata account of the palace of fire, planned execution site for the Pandava family, included a revolting bit of detail regarding their clever escape. Previously I had regarded the Pandavas as dashing, bold, and heroic figures. Until they killed an entire family of innocents with no hesitation. Vidura, the architect of their escape, is described as the incarnation of Dharma, which is to say, justice, law, and order. I found it hard to stomach that he could accept this happening, but equally hard to deny that he had knowledge of what occurred. So I wrote a story about his journey to forgiveness.

"...A low-caste woman and her five sons had come to the lac palace to beg food. The Pandavas gave them food, meat, and wine, and they ate and drank until they lay down in a drunken stupor. As they lay asleep, the palace took fire and, all unconscious, they perished in the flames."

The House of Fire, The Indian Heroes, C. A. Kincaid