Prabhupāda: By bugle announcement. In your country, I do not know, maybe. It is here in India still existing that if some public announcement has to be done, one takes a drum or bugle, he stands in one place and bugles or beats the drum. People then gathered, they announce something that, "This will be done. This is the order of the king or the state." Is there any such system in your country?
Śyāmasundara: Formerly there was.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Śyāmasundara: Formerly there was. A town crier.
Prabhupāda: Trumpeting.
Śyāmasundara: They call it town crier.
Prabhupāda: Town crier. Yes, yes.
Śyāmasundara: He would go around and announce.
Prabhupāda: Yes, the town crier. So the town crier began to preach that, "No more any sacrifice or yajña. Stop all this nonsense. (chuckles) No more Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra." (chuckles) Yes, they . . . just like in Russia we are afraid, of China, yes, they will immediately arrest.
So this declaration was there, public. Na yaṣṭavyaṁ na: no charity, no more charity. Just like government at the present moment, they are allowing charity still, but most of the portion of the income they take away by income tax, so that one may not have any power to give in charity. So at the present moment, the government does not declare that charity is illegal, but that time is coming very soon, very soon. As soon as there will be Communist government . . . our Indira Gandhi is cooperating with the Russian, and as soon as she is under the control of the Russian, gradually Communism will be introduced. People are afraid of this attempt by Indira Gandhi.
So anyway, these such things were existing formerly also, but they were not very common affair. Sometimes after many, many years, if a bad king would come . . . throughout the history, at least in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, we find this one king only, Vena, who declared the sacrifice, charity, illegal. Na yaṣṭavyaṁ na dātavyaṁ na hotavyaṁ dvijāḥ kvacit (SB 4.14.6), by the Brāhmiṇs. Just like the other day it was published in the paper that this India spiritual, this is a myth. They are also declaring. Iti nyavārayad dharmaṁ. So execution of religious principle was forbidden, nyavārayat. Bherī-ghoṣeṇa. Bherī means bugle, by bugle, sarvaśaḥ, everywhere.
- venasyāvekṣya munayo
- durvṛttasya viceṣṭitam
- vimṛśya loka-vyasanaṁ
- kṛpayocuḥ sma satriṇaḥ
- (SB 4.14.7)