The story of Dharmraj being born as Vidur

Once upon a time there lives a great saint called Mandavya. He was an ascetic and lived in the jungles. Once he had taken the vow of silence and was meditating when a gang of robbers came and hid in his hermitage. The King’s soldiers followed the robbers and asked the saint their whereabouts. As the saint had taken a vow of silence he did not speak even after repeatedly being asked. The soldiers got angry and called the king. The king too asked the saint but he did not speak. The king was furious and ordered that the saint be hanged on the hook till he died. The soldiers carried the orders and the saint was hanged. The saint hung there for many weeks but did not die and suffered in silence. The soldiers saw him and felt moved by the suffering of the saint. They informed their king and the king ordered that the saint be unhooked. The saint was brought down and the soldiers tried to remove the hook from his body, but the hook would not budge. The soldiers then sawed off the portion of the hook that was out of the saint’s body and left the remaining portion embedded there. A few years later when the saint died and reached heaven, he asked the Dharmraj (the god of Dharma or right conduct) why he was made to suffer on the hook for so long when he had done no wrong all his life. Dharmraj replied that when he was a child he had caused an insect to suffer as he had pierced it with a pin. Saint Mandavya was furious. He said that as a child one is not responsible for ones actions. Till the age of fourteen one is not held responsible for what one does, and as you made me suffer for something which was no fault of mine I curse you that you shall be born in a lowly household on earth and will have to live like a mortal. He thus cursed Dharmraj who was born as Vidur to a maid and Rishi Vyas, in Hastinapur. He was the stepbrother of Dhritrashtra and Pandu.