From Back to Godhead
The Vedic king Rantideva showed what
realization is required for true compassion.
WHAT WOULD modern-day social services make of a man who gives away the food meant for his own children to satisfy the hunger of strangers? How would they judge this man, whose family “shivered for want of food,” while he persisted in his unusual dedication to charitable impulses?
The story of this man, King Rantideva, who lived thousands of years ago, is told in the Ninth Canto of the Srima
