Prabhupāda: ...Kali-yuga, everything should be managed by society. In Bhāgavata also. Yes.
Hayagrīva: Oh, democracy. In Kali-yuga, democracy.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Society. Body.
Hayagrīva: This is not best. This is not best. You mention that in the books, that this is not very good.
Prabhupāda: This is not very good in this sense... But at that time one man was so advanced that his order was perfect. Actually these kings like Mahārāja Parīkṣit and others, they were consulting learned brāhmaṇas, not that they were actually autocrat. No. They used to consult how the government should be conducted.
Kīrtanānanda: They had a council of brāhmaṇas.
Prabhupāda: Yes, council of brāhmaṇas. Yes. The brāhmaṇas, they are not politicians, but they would give from śāstra direction, "You are a king. You do like this."
Kīrtanānanda: There were instances when the king wouldn't follow the brāhmaṇas, so they were thrown out, weren't they?
Prabhupāda: Yes. There were such instances also. Just like Prthu Mahārāja. His father was dethroned. I think same thing was in England also, the knights. If they liked, they dethroned the king.
Kīrtanānanda: Not exactly the knights. They were more...
Prabhupāda: Noblemen. Yes. The knights are different?
Kīrtanānanda: Yes. Knights were fighting men.
Satyabhāmā: They're warriors. Knights were like kṣatriya.
Prabhupāda: Oh. Oh. And noblemen?
Kīrtanānanda: They were the lords. They were...
Satyabhāmā: There were no brāhmaṇas, though. (laughs)
Śyāma: There were bishops.
Kīrtanānanda: Not exactly brāhmaṇas. They were proprietors of large tracts of land, and they were responsible for giving protection to a certain number of people under them.
Prabhupāda: Aristocrats. The same system the Britishers introduced in India also. They were called zamindari.