680 Srimad-Bhagavatam [Canto 1, Ch. 13

Sidra. He was to play the part of a so-called sidra for one hundred years,
being cursed by Manduka Muni. He was the incarnation of Yamaraja, one
of the twelve Mahajanas on the level with such exalted personalities as
Brahma, Narada, Siva, Kapila, Bhisma, Prahlada, etc. Being a Mahajana, it
is the duty of Yamaraja to preach the cult of devotion to the people of
the world, as Narada, Brahma, and other Mahajanas do. But Yamaraja is
always busy in his plutonic kingdom, punishing the doers of sinful acts.
Yamaraja 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 respec-
tive sinful activities. Thus Yamaraja has very little time to take leave from
his responsible office of punishing the wrongdoers. There are more wrong-
doers than righteous men. Therefore, Yamaraja 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 Manduka 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 Sidra nor a brahmana. 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 Brahma. 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 Yamaraja thus incarnated himself as
Vidura, his post was officiated by Aryama, one of the many sons of
Kaéyapa and Aditi. The Adityas are sons of Aditi, and there are twelve
Adityas. Aryama is one of the twelve Adityas, and therefore it was quite
possible for him to take charge of the office of Yamaraja during his ore
hundred years’ absence in the form of Vidura. The conclusion is that
Vidura was never a sidra, but was greater than the purest type of
brahmana.

TEXT 16
afafid sensei ty tt gta |
wrafeatemartyae ove fire 124

yudhisthiro labdha-rajyo
drstva pautram kulandharam

bhratrbhir loka-palabhair
mumude parayé sriya
