क्षत्रं क्षयाय विधिनोपभृतं महात्मा
ब्रह्मध्रुगुज्झितपथं नरकार्तिलिप्सु ।
उद्धन्त्यसाववनिकण्टकमुग्रवीर्यस्
त्रिःसप्तकृत्व उरुधारपरश्वधेन ॥२२॥

ká¹£atraá¹ ká¹£ayÄya vidhinopabhá¹›taá¹ mahÄtmÄ
brahma-dhrug ujjhita-pathaá¹ narakÄrti-lipsu
uddhanty asÄv avanikaṇṭakam ugra-vÄ«ryas
triḥ-sapta-ká¹›tva urudhÄra-paraÅ›vadhena

 ká¹£atram - the royal order; ká¹£ayÄya - for the sake of diminishing; vidhinÄ - by destination; upabhá¹›tam - increased in proportion; mahÄtmÄ - the Lord in the form of the great sage ParaÅ›urÄma; brahma-dhruk - the ultimate truth in Brahman; ujjhita-patham - those who have given up the path of the Absolute Truth; naraka-Ärti-lipsu - desirous to suffer pain in hell; uddhanti - exacts; asau - all those; avanikaṇṭakam - thorns of the world; ugra-vÄ«ryaḥ - awfully powerful; triḥ-sapta - thrice seven times; ká¹›tvaḥ - performed; urudhÄra - very sharp; paraÅ›vadhena - by the great chopper.


Text

When the ruling administrators, who are known as the ká¹£atriyas, turned astray from the path of the Absolute Truth, being desirous to suffer in hell, the Lord, in His incarnation as the sage ParaÅ›urÄma, uprooted those unwanted kings, who appeared as the thorns of the earth. Thus He thrice seven times uprooted the ká¹£atriyas with His keenly sharpened chopper.

Purport

The ká¹£atriyas, or the ruling administrators of any part of the universe, either on this planet or on other planets, are factually the representatives of the Almighty Personality of Godhead, and they are meant to lead the subjects towards the path of God realization. Every state and its administrators, regardless of the nature of the administration — monarchy or democracy, oligarchy or dictatorship or autocracy — have the prime responsibility to lead the citizens toward God realization. This is essential for all human beings, and it is the duty of the father, spiritual master, and ultimately the state to take up the responsibility of leading the citizens towards this end. The whole creation of material existence is made for this purpose, just to give a chance to the fallen souls who rebelled against the will of the Supreme Father and thus became conditioned by material nature. The force of material nature gradually leads one to a hellish condition of perpetual pains and miseries. Those going against the prescribed rules and regulations of conditional life are called brahmojjhita-pathas, or persons going against the path of the Absolute Truth, and they are liable to be punished. Lord ParaÅ›urÄma, the incarnation of the Personality of Godhead, appeared in such a state of worldly affairs and killed all the miscreant kings twenty-one times. Many ká¹£atriya kings fled from India to other parts of the world at that time, and according to the authority of the MahÄbhÄrata, the kings of Egypt originally migrated from India because of ParaÅ›urÄma’s program of chastisement. The kings or administrators are similarly chastised in all circumstances whenever they become godless and plan a godless civilization. That is the order of the Almighty.