Dhritarashtra and the Counsel of Vidura

When Duryodhana was born, omens warned of ruin. Vidura, the minister, advised Dhritarashtra to abandon this one son for the sake of the hundred. In the account Vidura recalls in the Prajagara, Dhritarashtra said he could not.

Later, with the dice game under discussion, Dhritarashtra first tells Duryodhana to have nothing to do with it, because Vidura disapproves and dice sow dissension. Duryodhana pleads jealousy of Yudhishthira’s prosperity, and the king relents. When Vidura objects, Dhritarashtra answers with fatalism: the universe moves at its Creator’s will.

The model minister

Vidura’s offense in the court is that he speaks unwelcome truth unasked. In the Prajagara he warns the king against four kinds of counselors: men of small sense, procrastinators, the indolent, and flatterers. He also says that those who always speak pleasing words are many, and that a speaker, and a hearer, of unwelcome but medicinal counsel is rare.

Counsel

Attachment does not blind a man to danger. Dhritarashtra saw it, and said so. Attachment makes the danger bearable. The king did not lack counsel. He lacked the will to act on the counsel he had. Choose the minister who will say what you will not want to hear, and then build in the discipline of listening.

Verification

Read in Kisari Mohan Ganguli's translation (via an ibiblio mirror of the sacred-texts edition): Udyoga Parva, Section XXXIX (the Prajagara episode, where Vidura recalls his advice at Duryodhana's birth); Sabha Parva, Sections XLIX and LVI (the dice). Section numbers are Ganguli's and differ from the Critical Edition, which we did not check. The Sanskrit pleasing-speech verse is cited as Mahabharata 5.37.14 on a secondary site, and the Critical Edition number is unverified.