Not very long ago, say about two hundred, three hundred years ago, in Krishnanagara, there was a big zamindar, Raja Krishnachandra. So he went to a learned scholar, paṇḍita, brāhmin. In those . . . brāhmin, they voluntarily accept poverty. They don't care. So Raja Krishnachandra came to him and asked him, "Paṇḍitjī, can I help you in some way?" He replied . . . he replied: "I don't require any help from you." "No, I see that you are very poverty-stricken." "No, I am not poverty-stricken. My students get some rice for me, and my wife cooks it, and I get some . . ." There was a tamarind tree. "So I get some tamarind leaves. So it is very nice. I don't require any help." You see?
This is India's . . . Cāṇakya Paṇḍita, he was the greatest scholar, politician. He was prime minister of Mahārāja emperor Candragupta, under whose name the Cāṇakya Purī is going on. He was living in a cottage, not accepting any salary. And as soon as Mahārāja Candragupta wanted some explanation,immediately resigned. This is the standard of persons who are born in India. Vyāsadeva—who can be greater scholar than Vyāsadeva? He has written . . . his last contribution is Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and each word, if you study for hundreds of years, still, you have to understand. Each word. Such a scholar. He was living in a cottage.