Vidura’s Moral Philosophy

An epic must be vast. It must include all the aspects of life. Life has all the colors of possibilities and facts. Mahabharata is a great epic and contains all the true colors of life. In this epic, there are characters which are regarded as personification of morality and virtue; and there are characters which are regarded as personification of evil too. Vidura and Bheeshma belong to first category, the personification of virtue.

Vidura explains his theory of moral principles with a clear distinction between shreyas (good) and preyas (pleasing). Vidura says that the good (Shreyas) is one thing, the pleasant (Preyas) is another. These two having different purposes, bind a man. Of these two, it is well for him who takes hold of the good; he who chooses the pleasant misses his end. The good and the pleasant approach a man; the wise man considers and distinguishes the two. Wisely does he prefer the good to the pleasant, but a fool chooses the pleasant for its worldly good. He compares shreyas (good) with medicine which does not have a good taste but beneficial for health. On the other side he compares preyas (pleasant) with honey. The honey seeker is busy only in seeking honey and falls into the abyss. So this way, he explains that a wise person always choose the ‘good’, not the ‘pleasing’. It is difficult to choose the ‘good’ but very beneficial; it is very easy to choose ‘pleasing’ but dangerous.

In Mahabharata, Vidura has a role of a counselor and his counseling is based on morality. He explains the difference between two states of mind; state of mind of a wise man and state of mind of an ignorant one. Vidura explains it in a different way. He talks about the six cardinal vices. He defines a wise man by listing remaining vices which are greed, anger, lust, irrational attachment, jealousy and arrogance. He explains that one, who does not have these six cardinal vices, is a wise man. Here we should not an interesting thing that, Vidura agrees