14.5
sarvabhauma-upadese chadi’ raja-vesa
ekala vaisnava-vese karila pravesa
SYNONYMS
sarvabhauma—of Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya; upadese—under instructions; chadi’-giving up; raja-vesa—the royal dress; ekala—alone; vaisnava-vese—in the dress of a Vaisnava; karila pravesa—entered.
Following Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya’s instructions, the King had given up his royal dress.
He now entered the garden in the dress of a Vaisnava.
PURPORT
Sometimes members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness-especially in the Western countries-find it difficult to approach people to distribute books because people are unfamiliar with the traditional saffron robes of the devotees.
The devotees have therefore inquired whether they can wear European and American dress before the general public.
From the instructions given to King Prataparudra by Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya, we can understand that we may change our dress in any way to facilitate our service.
When our members change their dress to meet the public or to introduce our books, they are not breaking the devotional principles.
The real principle is to spread this Krsna consciousness movement, and if one has to change into regular Western dress for this purpose, there should be no objection.