Sri Krishna Kathamrita Bindu Issue 390.
Srila Prabhupada’s Letter to Jawaharlal Nehru, 20 January 1952: In the old days, life was not so much conditional and encumbered. The simple problems were then the problems of bread, clothing and shelter, which were solved by the simplest process. By agriculture they used to solve the bread, clothing and shelter problems, and industrialization was unknown to them. Thus they had no idea of living in big palatial buildings at the cost of sacrificing the boon of humanity. They were satisfied to live in cottages, and yet they were perfectly intelligent. Even the famous Chanakya Pandit, who was the Prime Minister of India during the reign of Chandragupta, used to live in a cottage and draw no salary from the state. Such simple habits did not deteriorate his high intelligence and dignity, and as such he had compiled many useful literatures which are still read by millions for social and political guidance. Thus the simplicity of brahminical culture was an ideal to the subordinate members of the society, and in the deductive way the subordinate orders, namely the the ksatriyas , the vaisyas and the sudras, would follow the instruction of the cultured Brahmins. Such ways of approaching the truth are always simple, plain, and perhaps the most perfect. In the old days even a politician Brahmin like Chanakya would say: A really cultured, learned fellow is far above a politician because a politician is honored by the votes of his countrymen while a cultured and learned fellow is honored everywhere all over the world. So we say that Rabindranath and Gandhi were never dependent on the votes of their countrymen but they were honored all over the world for their cultural contribution. The same Chanakya Pandit defined the standard of learning. The standard of learning had to be testified by its result and not by the manner of university degrees. He said that one who looks upon all women except one’s married wife as mothers, all other’s wealth as pebbles on the street, and all living beings as one’s own self, is a really learned fellow. He never stressed on the point of how many grammars, rhetorics or other books of knowledge that one might have gone through or how many doctorates of different universities one might have been decorated with.
This issue can be downloaded at the following link:
https://archive.org/details/bindu390