The Order to Preach in English

After the 1922 meeting described in Meeting His Spiritual Master, years passed with almost no further contact between Abhay and the Gaudiya Math. Several things slowly turned his inner conviction into formal discipleship, and then turned formal discipleship into a printed English magazine. There was a series of visits, an initiation, and an instruction to print books given near the end of his guru's life. Finally there was a letter that arrived two weeks before his guru's death.

A Kumbha-Mela Visitor at Prayag Pharmacy #

For several years after the 1922 meeting, Abhay had almost no further contact with the Gaudiya Math. He was busy building his pharmaceutical business in Allahabad, and Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati was busy spreading his own mission across India. Contact began again in January 1928, during the Kumbha-mela. A sannyasi disciple of Bhaktisiddhanta walked unannounced into Prayag Pharmacy with a few companions. He was looking for support to establish a Gaudiya Math center in Allahabad. Abhay recognized him at once from the Gaudiya Math circles he had come into contact with years earlier in Calcutta, and he offered his help.

A Regular at the Allahabad Gaudiya Math #

Once the Allahabad center opened, Abhay became one of its most reliable local supporters. He contributed money regularly, attended lectures, sometimes led kirtan himself, and used his position as a local businessman to bring prominent Allahabad residents to hear the Math's traveling preachers. His wife did not object to his involvement with the Math, but she chose not to take any initiation herself. She was content with the simple home worship the family already practiced. This difference between them is described further in Marriage and Household Life.

To Vrindavan and Back in 1932 #

In October 1932, Bhaktisiddhanta led several hundred disciples and pilgrims on a month-long parikrama of Vrindavan. They walked around the sites associated with Krishna's pastimes there. Abhay could not join the full pilgrimage because of his business commitments. But on its twentieth day he traveled from Allahabad to meet the party. For years he had been connected with his future guru only indirectly, through the Math's local preachers. Now he could spend time in Bhaktisiddhanta's company again.

Initiation at the Cornerstone Ceremony #

The following year, the Allahabad Gaudiya Math obtained land and funds for a permanent temple building. It arranged for Bhaktisiddhanta to preside over the cornerstone-laying ceremony in November 1933, with the governor of the United Provinces as guest of honor. When Abhay learned that Bhaktisiddhanta would also be conducting an initiation ceremony that day, he asked to be included. He received the initiation into chanting. Unusually, on the same occasion he also received the sacred thread marking second initiation. This was a sign of trust that Bhaktisiddhanta did not show to every new disciple. He was given the name Abhay Charanaravinda, "Abhay whose shelter is the lotus feet of Krishna," and from this point Vaishnava and scholarly sources generally refer to him as A.C. Bhaktivedanta. Bhaktivedanta was a further title. His godbrothers would give it to him within a few years, in recognition of his writing and scholarship.

If You Ever Get Money Print Books #

At the end of 1936, A.C. Bhaktivedanta again visited Bhaktisiddhanta in Vrindavan. As they walked together at Radha-kunda, Bhaktisiddhanta told him how troubled he was by the quarrels among his senior disciples in Calcutta. They were fighting over control of the Math's newly built marble temple building, and he feared the dispute would only get worse after his own death. "It would be better," he said, "to take the marble from the walls and secure money. If I could do this and print books, that would be better." Then, turning directly to his disciple, he gave an instruction that would outlast every dispute over property:

If you ever get money, print books.

A.C. Bhaktivedanta later said the words entered his life permanently at that moment, though it would be more than two decades before he had the means to act on them at any real scale.

A Letter Two Weeks Before the End #

By December 1936, Bhaktisiddhanta's health had seriously declined, and he was staying at Jagannatha Puri. A.C. Bhaktivedanta was still busy with business in Bombay. Most of his godbrothers were serving their guru directly as brahmacharis or sannyasis, but he himself remained a householder tied to a business. Knowing this, A.C. Bhaktivedanta wrote to ask whether there was any particular service he could offer. Two weeks later a reply arrived:

I am fully confident that you can explain in English our thoughts and arguments to the people who are not conversant with the languages of the other members. This will do much good to yourself as well as your audience. I have every hope that you can turn yourself into a very good English preacher if you serve the mission to inculcate the novel impression of Lord Chaitanya's teachings in the people in general as well as philosophers and religionists.

In this letter A.C. Bhaktivedanta recognized the same instruction he had first heard on the Ultadanga rooftop fourteen years earlier, when Bhaktisiddhanta gave it without being asked. His task was to carry Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's teaching into English. That first meeting is described in Meeting His Spiritual Master. This time the instruction came in his own guru's handwriting, addressed to him personally. It left no room for the objection he had once raised about India's political situation.

Bhaktisiddhanta's Death and a Fractured Mission #

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura passed away at 5:30 in the morning on 1 January 1937. He had spent his final days reading Chaitanya-charitamrita and chanting on his beads. He had instructed that a twelve-member governing body should manage the Gaudiya Math's affairs after his departure. But this instruction was largely ignored. Almost at once a struggle for personal control of the Math's properties broke out among his senior disciples, and it broke apart the mission he had built. A.C. Bhaktivedanta had already lost his father, and now he grieved the loss of his guru as well. He kept largely clear of the fighting between the groups. He continued to write occasional articles for Gaudiya Math publications while the institution around him came apart.

Launching Back to Godhead in 1944 #

The instruction to preach in English did not produce a magazine immediately. A.C. Bhaktivedanta acted on it fully only in 1944, when Calcutta was enduring Japanese air raids and the hardships of the Second World War. Working alone from his front room, he planned, wrote, edited, and laid out the first issue of an English fortnightly. He called it Back to Godhead. The title was explained by the motto at the top of the front page, "Godhead is Light, Nescience is darkness," which was printed beneath a logo. The logo showed Lord Chaitanya's shining light reaching toward a crowd still feeling its way in the dark. The first issue opened with quotations from wartime statesmen and religious leaders: Churchill, Roosevelt, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. They spoke about how morally worn out the world at war had become. The issue argued that no political settlement could succeed without a return to basic spiritual principles. Its content and stated purpose came from a single source, which was printed on the cover of every issue: "Edited & Founded... Under the direct order of His Divine Grace Sri Srimad Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Goswami Prabhupada."

Fighting the War for Newsprint #

Publishing while paper was rationed during the war was a struggle of its own. Government officials twice refused his requests to buy newsprint for a second issue. They said that an ordinary citizen's religious magazine did not deserve scarce paper. A.C. Bhaktivedanta wrote to the paper-control authorities a third time. He argued at length that a magazine devoted to spiritual and moral renewal was more urgent, not less, during a war than in peacetime. He asked to be allowed even a single page a month, instead of being shut down completely. The appeal succeeded. But after only a couple of issues the venture could not pay for itself, so he went back to writing for it privately instead of printing it regularly. Still, the magazine he founded in that Calcutta front room in 1944 survives today and is still published under the same title. This is described further on his published works page. For the fuller sequence of dates from birth to disappearance, see the Srila Prabhupada milestones timeline.