Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 4.16.18

dehinām ātmavat-preṣṭhaḥ

suhṛdāḿ nandi-vardhanaḥ

mukta-sańga-prasańgo 'yaḿ

daṇḍa-pāṇir asādhuṣu

SYNONYMS

dehinām — to all living entities having a body; ātma-vat — as himself; preṣṭhaḥ — considering dear; suhṛdām — of his friends; nandi-vardhanaḥ — increasing pleasures; mukta-sańga — with persons devoid of all material contamination; prasańgaḥ — intimately associated; ayam — this King; daṇḍa-pāṇiḥ — a chastising hand; asādhuṣu — to the criminals.

TRANSLATION

The King will consider all embodied living entities as dear as his own self, and he will always be increasing the pleasures of his friends. He will intimately associate with liberated persons, and he will be a chastising hand to all impious persons.

PURPORT

The word dehinām refers to those who are embodied. The living entities are embodied in different forms, which number 8,400,000 species. All of these were treated by the King in the same way he would treat himself. In this age, however, so-called kings and presidents do not treat all other living entities as their own self. Most of them are meat-eaters, and even though they may not be meat-eaters and may pose themselves to be very religious and pious, they still allow cow slaughter within their state. Such sinful heads of state cannot actually be popular at any time. Another significant word in this verse is mukta-sańga-prasańgaḥ, which indicates that the King was always associating with liberated persons.

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His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness