Stories of the Great Bharata - A Retelling

Arc 2 - Vidhura Neeti Parva Chapter 6 - The Sādhya-devas and the Mendicant Sage

Vaiśampāyana said:

Vidura, desiring to steady the king’s heart, recited an ancient dialogue. In days long past, the deities called Sādhyas met the son of Atri, a great ṛṣi wandering as a mendicant. Perceiving his quiet brightness, they asked him to speak words weighty with learning and mercy. Then the sage, clothed in restraint, answered.

By tranquil breath the heart’s knots fall,

By bridled passions, tender sight;

The sweet and bitter taste the same—

The Self sees Self in shade and light.

The sage begins with śama (tranquillity) and dama (sense-restraint). Seeing the agreeable and disagreeable as one is early fruit of self-knowledge; it loosens granthis—the inner knots of clinging.

Return not taunts with taunts again;

Endure, let venom spend its breath—

The slanderer’s merit passes off,

His sin is yours to shed like death.

Patient forbearance burns the slanderer and, by a moral exchange, the sufferer is purified. Vidura’s point: do not repay reproach with reproach.

Harsh words are thorns that pierce the seed,

They scorch the life-spring’s secret place;

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Therefore the righteous cool their tongues

And let their sentences bear grace.

Harshness harms the very vitals—worse than wounds of steel. The wise choose gentle, bridled speech.

Word-arrows sting like sunlit fire,

Yet hold—endure the burning smart;

For patience gathers others’ worth

And lays their virtues in your heart.

When pierced by speech, bear and refine; the patient spirit appropriates the virtues of the aggressor while his sins recoil upon himself.

Sit near the saint, you take his hue;

With thieves, your fabric darkly runs;

Cloth drinks the vat it’s folded to—

Keep company with truthful ones.

Association dyes the soul. Choose companions of tapas and truth; shun the vile.

Struck, strike not back; reviled, be still;

Wish not the wounder any woe;

The gods keep tryst with such a one—

For mercy is their favorite vow.

Threefold restraint—no retaliation in deed or word, and no ill-will—wins divine regard.

Be silent first; if speak, speak true;

If truth you speak, then speak it kind;

If kind you speak, let dharma rule—

So rises speech, so rests the mind.

A graded rule: silence > truth > agreeable truth > moral agreeable truth. This is vāk-yoga—discipline of speech.

Like him you dwell with, such you grow;

From what you shun you find release;

Who shuns all snares is bound by none,

Nor conquers—nor is he conquered—peace.

Identity follows regard and residence. Renunciation removes the roots of bondage: no injury, no opposition, no swings of praise or blame.

The best: for others’ good he longs,

Is truthful, humble, passions stilled;

The middling: gives as pledged—no lies—

Yet notes where others’ walls are thin;

The worst: unruled, ungrateful, harsh,

Suspecting self and spurning friends.

Vidura grades character: parama (the high), madhyama (the middling), and adhama (the low), to guide the king’s discernment.

Attend the good; the neutral, sometimes;

The wicked—never share their bread;

For strength may heap a hoarder’s gold,

But honest fame eludes the bad.

Prosperity by force and cunning lacks honest repute and the virtues of high houses. Seek upright patrons and upright service.

Vaiśampāyana said:

Thus the son of Atri answered the Sādhyas, stringing gentle maxims on the thread of restraint and mercy. Vidura, recounting this, turned to the king.