Text 18
dehinām ātmavat-preṣṭhaḥ
suhṛdāṁ nandi-vardhanaḥ
mukta-saṅga-prasaṅgo ’yaṁ
daṇḍa-pāṇir asādhuṣu
dehinām — to all living entities having a body; ātma-vat — as himself; preṣṭhaḥ — considering dear; suhṛdām — of his friends; nandi-vardhanaḥ — increasing pleasures; mukta-saṅga — with persons devoid of all material contamination; prasaṅgaḥ — intimately associated; ayam — this King; daṇḍa-pāṇiḥ — a chastising hand; asādhuṣu — to the criminals.
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.
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-saṅga-prasaṅgaḥ, which indicates that the King was always associating with liberated persons.