352
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 2, Ch. 7]
livering;  arthitaḥ —so being prayed for;  jagati —on the world;  putra-padam —the position of the son;  ca —as well as;  lebhe —achieved;  dugdhā —exploited;  vasūni —produce;  vasudhā —the earth;  sakalāni —all kinds of;  yena —by whom.
TRANSLATION
Mahārāja Vena went astray from the path of righteousness, and the  brāhmaṇas  chastised him by the thunderbolt curse. By this King Vena was burnt with his good deeds and opulence and was en route to hell. The Lord, by His causeless mercy, descended as his son, by the name of Pṛthu, delivered the condemned King Vena from hell, and exploited the earth by drawing all kinds of crops as produce.
PURPORT
According to the system of  varṇāśrama-dharma , the pious and learned  brāhmaṇas  were the natural guardians of society. The  brāhmaṇas , by their learned labor of love, would instruct the administrator kings how to rule the country in complete righteousness, and thus the process would go on as a perfect welfare state. The kings or the  kṣatriya  administrators would always consult the council of learned  brāhmaṇas . They were never autocratic monarchs. The scriptures like  Manu-saṁhitā  and other authorized books of the great sages were guiding principles for ruling the subjects, and there was no need for less intelligent persons to manufacture a code of law in the name of democracy. The less intelligent mass of people have very little knowledge of their own welfare, as the child has very little knowledge of its future well-being. The experienced father guides the innocent child towards the path of progress, and the childlike mass of people need similar guidance. The standard welfare codes are already there in the  Manu-saṁhitā  and other Vedic literatures. The learned  brāhmaṇas  would advise the king in terms of those standard books of knowledge and with reference to the particular situation of time and place. Such  brāhmaṇas  were not paid servants of the king, and therefore they had the strength to dictate to the king on the principles of scriptures. This system continued even up to the time of Mahārāja Candragupta, and the  brāhmaṇa  Cāṇakya was his unpaid prime minister.
Mahārāja Vena did not adhere to this principle of ruling, and he disobeyed the learned  brāhmaṇas . The broad-minded  brāhmaṇas  were not self-interested, but looked to the interest of complete welfare for all the