The Suta Gosvāmī . . . Śukadeva Gosvāmī, he is addressing a king, rājendra. Formerly, that was the system. The saintly persons, learned brahmins and sages, they would give instruction to the kings, because the king was in charge of the public affairs. So they would take instruction from the learned, and by their direction they would rule over the citizens.
This is the division of four orders of life: brāhmin, kṣatriya, vaiśya, śūdra. The brāhmin means the most intelligent class of men in the society. Kṣatriya means the administrators, the politicians, the rulers of the society. Vaiśya means the productive class, traders, industrialists, those who are producing money or food, vaiśya. And śūdra means ordinary workers. That is the Vedic social system. And in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ (BG 4.13): "The social order, the brāhmin, the kṣatriya, the vaiśya and the śūdra, they are created by Me."
So anything created by God is present everywhere within the universe. So point is that don't think that the brāhmin, kṣatriya, vaiśya, śūdra, these divisions of society are in India only. No. Everywhere. Everywhere there are men who are very intelligent. They are supposed to be brahmin class. Then less, the politicians, the rulers, kṣatriya class. Then less, the traders, industrialists, they are vaiśyas. And the ordinary workers, they are śūdras.
So formerly, instructions were given to the administrators so that their brain may be adjusted how to rule over the people. Rājendra, Mahārāja Parīkṣit—rājendra means the emperor of the world—he was taking instruction at the point of his death. This subject matter we discussed in the last meeting last night, that Mahārāja Parīkṣit, King Parīkṣit, was just awaiting his death within seven days. Therefore, he was consulting learned sages what to do.
So the Śukadeva Gosvāmī advised that, "You hear about Kṛṣṇa. This is the most important subject matter." Therefore he is discussing, śrotavyādīni rājendra (SB 2.1.2), "My dear King, rājendra," śrotavyādīni, subject matter for hearing. Nṛṇāṁ santi sahasraśaḥ. The human society has got many thousands varieties of subject matter to hear. Just like newspaper in every country, they are being published not only once, twice, thrice, four times in a day, and they are giving news of the city, and the subject matters are very important, say, for two minutes or five minutes, then the newspaper is thrown away, nobody cares for it. But people have got the tendency to hear. That is a fact.