680
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 1, Ch. 13]
śūdra.  He was to play the part of a so-called  śūdra  for one hundred years, being cursed by Maṇḍuka Muni. He was the incarnation of Yamarāja, one of the twelve Mahājanas on the level with such exalted personalities as Brahmā, Nārada, Śiva, Kapila, Bhūṣma, Prahlāda, etc. Being a Mahājana, it is the duty of Yamarāja to preach the cult of devotion to the people of the world, as Nārada, Brahmā, and other Mahājanas do. But Yamarāja is always busy in his plutonic kingdom, punishing the doers of sinful acts. Yamarāja is deputed by the Lord to a particular planet, some hundreds of thousands of miles away from the planet of earth, to take away the corrupt souls after death and convict them in accordance with their respective sinful activities. Thus Yamarāja has very little time to take leave from his responsible office of punishing the wrongdoers. There are more wrongdoers than righteous men. Therefore, Yamarāja has to do more work than other demigods who are also authorized agents of the Supreme Lord. But he wanted to preach the glories of the Lord, and therefore by the will of the Lord he was cursed by Maṇḍuka Muni to come into the world in the incarnation of Vidura and work very hard as a great devotee. Such a devotee is  neither a śūdra nor a brāhmaṇa . He is transcendental to such divisions of mundane society, just as the Personality of Godhead assumes His incarnation as a hog, but He is neither a hog nor a Brahmā. He is above all mundane creatures. The Lord and His different authorized devotees sometimes have to play the role of many lower creatures to claim the conditioned souls, but both the Lord and His pure devotees are always in the transcendental position. When Yamarāja thus incarnated himself as Vidura, his post was officiated by Aryama, one of the many sons of Kaśyapa and Aditi. The Ādityas are sons of Aditi, and there are twelve Ādityas. Aryama is one of the twelve Ādityas, and therefore it was quite possible for him to take charge of the office of Yamarāja during his one hundred years' absence in the form of Vidura. The conclusion is that Vidura was never a  śūdra , but was greater than the purest type of  brāhmaṇa .
TEXT 16
युधिष्ठिरो लब्धराज्यो दृष्ट्वा पौत्रं कुलंधरम् । 
    शत्रुधिरोक्त्वपात्रार्थेषुद्रे परया श्रिया ॥१६॥
yudhiṣṭhiro labdha-rājyo 
    drṣṭvā pautraṁ kulandharam 
    bhrātrbhir loka-pālābhair 
    mumude parayā śriyā