The Sage on the Stake

The sages told the Pandavas the strange and troubling story of Mandavya - a tale of a terrible injustice done to an innocent man, of a sage who put the very god of justice on trial, and of how that quarrel gave the Kuru house its wisest and most righteous counselor.

Mandavya was a great ascetic, a sage of deep penance and perfect righteousness. He had taken upon himself a strict vow of silence, and he would sit for long periods in profound meditation outside the door of his hermitage, motionless, withdrawn from the world, speaking to no one, his mind fixed wholly upon the highest reality. He harmed no creature and wished no one ill; he was as pure and as blameless a man as lived upon the earth. And yet upon this innocent and holy man there was about to fall one of the cruelest injustices ever recorded - and through no fault of his own at all.