Srila Prabhupada

His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977) is the founder-acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). For the Hare Krishna Movement Kota and this temple, he is the acharya of the present age. Through him, the Brahma-Madhva-Gaudiya sampradaya reached every continent of the world within a single lifetime. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu started the sankirtana movement in sixteenth-century Bengal. Srila Prabhupada, at an age when most people have long retired, carried that same movement by cargo ship to America. In under twelve years he established over a hundred temples on six continents.

What follows gives the outline of his life; the sections below expand each stage in full. Older pages on his biography and mission, his twenty-six qualities as a pure devotee, a year-by-year milestone timeline, the Gaudiya Vaishnava sampradaya and his pre-1978 books remain in place and are linked from the relevant sections below.

Birth and Family #

He was born Abhay Charan De on 1 September 1896 in Calcutta, the day after Janmashtami. His father was Gour Mohan De, a modest cloth merchant and a devout Gaudiya Vaishnava, and his mother was Rajani. An astrologer consulted at his birth predicted that at the age of seventy he would cross the ocean, become a renowned religious teacher, and open one hundred and eight temples. The family kept this prediction, and the movement's own historians now point to it as strikingly accurate. The full account of his birth and childhood is told separately, including the miniature Ratha-yatra cart he built at the age of six, decades before he brought the real festival to the streets of San Francisco.

Education and the Meeting That Set His Life's Direction #

Abhay studied at Scottish Church College, Calcutta, and graduated in 1920 with English, philosophy and economics. In sympathy with Gandhi's non-cooperation movement, he refused to accept his diploma in person. His education and the influences of that period are covered here. In 1918, while still a student, he was married by his father's arrangement to Radharani Datta; their household life together, and the five children born to them, are described on their own page.

The decisive event of his life took place in 1922, when a college friend brought him to meet Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, the founder of the Gaudiya Math. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura told him to take Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's message and preach it in English. The young Abhay objected that India needed political independence first. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta's answer convinced him so completely that he later wrote, "I immediately accepted him as spiritual master. Not formally, but in my heart." That meeting, and the instruction that would direct the rest of his life, is told in full here, together with the specific order to preach in English that followed it.

The Gaudiya Math Years #

Formal initiation came a decade later, in 1933 at Allahabad. In the following years Abhay balanced business, family and more and more work for the Gaudiya Math. He donated, lectured and wrote. He also kept in mind the instruction his spiritual master had given him at their last meeting, that "if you ever get money, print books." The Gaudiya Math years, the title Bhaktivedanta conferred on him in 1939, and his spiritual master's final letter are covered here. In 1944, entirely alone, he launched an English fortnightly magazine, Back to Godhead. He wrote, edited, financed and distributed it by hand himself; the founding of that magazine, still published today, is its own story.

Renunciation and the Years of Writing #

In 1950 he accepted vanaprastha, the retired order of life, and moved to Vrindavan, living simply and beginning the translation of the Srimad-Bhagavatam from Sanskrit. Those years of vanaprastha and translation, culminating in the first printed volumes, are told here. In 1959, prompted by a dream of his spiritual master, he accepted the sannyasa order at Mathura and became A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami; his acceptance of sannyasa is described in full.

The Voyage to America #

At sixty-nine, carrying forty rupees, a trunk of his own books, and little else, he boarded the cargo ship Jaladuta at Calcutta on 13 August 1965. He suffered two heart attacks during the thirty-five day crossing and later wrote in his diary of passing "a great crisis on the struggle for life and death." He arrived at Boston Harbor on 17 September 1965. The full account of that voyage, including what he wrote in his diary at sea, is told here, and the difficult first year in New York that followed, living in a windowless room and a Bowery loft before the storefront at 26 Second Avenue, is told here.

Founding ISKCON and Building a Global Movement #

In July 1966 he incorporated the International Society for Krishna Consciousness in New York. The founding of ISKCON, and the first disciples who gathered around him in that single storefront, are described here. Within a decade he had personally circled the globe more than a dozen times. He opened temples across the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia, and he met George Harrison and the Beatles. He founded the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust in 1972 and published dozens of books through it, and he established major temples at Mayapur and Vrindavan. That worldwide expansion is covered in detail here.

His Personality, in His Own Words #

Those who knew him describe a teacher of careful scholarship and very strict standards. Yet the same teacher, in the very next moment, could show real tenderness and a quick, dry sense of humour. A selection of his recorded conversations and the personal qualities they reveal is gathered here. It adds to the existing page on his twenty-six qualities as a pure devotee and does not repeat it.

Final Days and Legacy #

He died at the Krishna-Balaram Mandir in Vrindavan on 14 November 1977, at the age of eighty-one, having established a Governing Body Commission in 1970 to carry the movement forward and having named eleven senior disciples as ritviks, in a letter of 9 July 1977, to continue initiating on his behalf. His final months, last instructions and disappearance are told here. He left behind temples on every continent and his own books translated into dozens of languages. These are the reason this temple exists at all today.

Songs in the Vaishnava Song Book #

The Vaishnava Song Book carries 32 songs attributed to Srila Prabhupada. See the full author page here.