Bhagavatham Stories

After the great war had ended, the kingdom had been reorganized, and Yudhishthira had firmly established himself as emperor, the blind king Dhritarashtra remained in the palace at Hastinapura. He lived there not as a ruler but as a honored guest of the Pandavas, cared for by the very people whose family he had allowed his evil sons to attack and whose kingdom he had permitted to be seized. This situation, which might seem strange from a material perspective, reveals the extraordinary nature of the Pandavas' character and their commitment to dharma. Despite the enormous suffering that Dhritarashtra's weakness and indecision had caused them - despite his failure to stop his sons' crimes, his passive acceptance of the plots against them, and his allowing the kingdom to be seized through dishonest means - the Pandavas treated him with profound respect and care as their elder uncle. Yudhishthira personally ensured that Dhritarashtra and his wife Gandhari received the finest food, comfortable accommodation, and every physical comfort that a palace could provide. They were treated with the reverence due to elders, and no servant or courtier would dare show any disrespect to them.

Yet despite this respectful treatment and physical comfort, Dhritarashtra lived in a state of constant, excruciating inner agony. He had lost all hundred of his sons in the Kurukshetra War - a loss so complete and devastating that it bordered on incomprehensible. Every single male heir of his line had been slaughtered on the battlefield. His kingdom - the vast realm that he had ruled and that should have passed to his sons and grandsons - was now lost to him forever. The crown he wore as a guest in Yudhishthira's palace was a constant reminder of his fallen status and former power. Most painfully, he was now dependent on the charity and goodwill of the Pandavas - the very people his sons had tried to kill, the people he had allowed to be cheated and exiled. Every moment of comfort he received, every meal he ate, every night he slept on a comfortable bed, all came from the hands of those whose kingdom his sons had tried to steal.

The psychological burden this created for Dhritarashtra was immense. He felt like a pet animal maintained by its owner - alive but robbed of dignity, sustained but without autonomy or self-respect. The proud king, who had once ruled mighty kingdoms, who had been surrounded by hundreds of sons, who had controlled armies of warriors, now found himself completely dependent on the mercy of others. Yet his attachment to material life, his fear of death, and his hope that somehow things might change, kept him physically bound to the palace. He was too old to attempt anything, too weakened by grief to take decisive action, yet too attached to material existence to simply let go. He lived in this state of perpetual tension - psychologically unable to bear his situation, yet physically and emotionally unable to escape it.

At this critical moment, the great sage Vidura arrived at the palace. Vidura was Dhritarashtra's younger brother - not his biological brother, but born as the result of a blessing from the sage Vyasa to serve as an advisor to the Kuru dynasty. Vidura was renowned throughout the world for his wisdom, his spiritual realization, and his ability to speak absolute truth even when that truth was difficult to hear. He had been traveling on pilgrimage across all the sacred places of the world, meditating deeply on the nature of existence, mortality, and the ultimate goal of human life. Through his travels and spiritual practice, he had gained profound insights into the nature of the self, the temporary nature of all material possessions, and the absolute necessity of preparing for death through spiritual practice while there was still time.

When Vidura arrived at the palace and saw the condition of his older brother - Dhritarashtra sitting passively, grieving, consuming food provided by others, seemingly just waiting for death to claim him - something in Vidura's compassionate heart moved him to speak words that were harsh in form but infinitely merciful in substance. Vidura spoke directly, without any softening or gentle approach. He said words that pierced through all of Dhritarashtra's resistance and denial: "What are you doing here? Why do you continue to cling to this life as if you will live forever? Don't you understand that you are already an old man? The twilight of your life has arrived. Your body is deteriorating, your senses are weakening, your mind is confused with grief. Every moment that passes brings you closer to death. Yet you sit here eating food given by those you have wronged, wasting these final precious days in false hope and foolish attachment to material comfort. How can you not see that this is not living - it is merely postponing death? If you truly wish to survive death and achieve eternal life, you must abandon this false sense of security in this palace and leave immediately to prepare yourself spiritually through meditation and spiritual practice."

These words of Vidura struck Dhritarashtra's heart like arrows of truth that could not be dodged or rationalized away. The shock of hearing such direct speech from his beloved brother, combined with the profound truth contained in those words, awakened something that grief and attachment had kept dormant. Dhritarashtra suddenly perceived the reality of his situation clearly - he was not truly living but merely existing in a state of denial, and that denial was preventing him from using his final days for the only thing that truly mattered: spiritual preparation for death and the afterlife. That very evening, without informing anyone except his wife Gandhari, Dhritarashtra made his decision. He left the palace quietly, abandoning all symbols of his former status and all the comforts he had known.

Dhritarashtra proceeded to the forest where he and Gandhari engaged in the most severe austerities - they fasted completely, speaking no words, minimizing all bodily movement and comfort. Through pranayama (breath control) and deep meditation, they gradually withdrew their consciousness from identification with the physical body. Eventually, when their consciousness had sufficiently withdrawn from material attachment, they performed a yogic process by which they burned their material bodies completely through the power of their meditation, achieving liberation from the material world. Their story teaches a profound lesson: that it is never too late to redirect one's consciousness toward spiritual realization, that true well-wishers sometimes speak harsh truths that save us from spiritual degradation, and that the final days of life, if utilized properly for spiritual practice, can undo all the mistakes and failures of previous years.