A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

"Bhaktivedanta" and "Prabhupada" redirect here. For the college, see International Society for Krishna Consciousness. For other people called Prabhupada, see Prabhupad.

His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Abhay Charan De
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami in Germany, 1974
Title	Founder-Acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness
Personal
Born	Abhay Charan De (1896-09-01)1 September 1896 Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India
Died	14 November 1977(1977-11-14) (aged 81) Vrindavan, India
Resting place	Srila Prabhupada's Samadhi Mandir, ISKCON Vrindavan 27.57196°N 77.67729°E / 27.57196; 77.67729
Religion	Gaudiya Vaishnavism (Hinduism)
Nationality	Bengali
Parents	Gour Mohan De (father) Rajani De (mother)
Lineage	from Chaitanya Mahaprabhu
Notable work(s)	Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (trans. and comm.) Caitanya-caritāmṛta (trans. and comm.) Bhagavad-gītā As It Is (trans. and comm.) Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead Teachings of Lord Caitanya The Nectar of Devotion Īśopaniṣad (trans. and comm.)
Alma mater	Scottish Churches College, University of Calcutta
Known for	the Hare Krishna movement
Signature
Senior posting
Guru	Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur
Initiation	diksha: 1933 (by Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati) sannyasa: 1959 (by Bhakti Prajnan Keshava)

Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (IAST: Abhaya Caraṇāravinda Bhakti-vedānta Svāmī Prabhupāda; 1 September 1896 – 14 November 1977) was an Indian Hindu spiritual teacher who was the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), commonly known as the Hare Krishna movement. Followers of ISKCON view Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada as a representative and messenger of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

Born in Calcutta (now Kolkata) to a Suvarna Banik family, he was educated at the Scottish Church College. While working at a small pharmaceutical business, he met and became a follower of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati. In 1959, after his retirement, he left his family to become a sannyasi and started writing commentaries on Vaishnava scriptures. As a travelling Vaishnava monk, he became an influential communicator of Gaudiya Vaishnavite theology across India and the Western world through his leadership of ISKCON, founded in 1966. He was well regarded by a number of American religious scholars but was criticised by anti-cult groups.

He has been subject to criticism over his racist views against black people, discrimination against lower castes, anti-Semitism, negative views on women, and advocacy of crimes of Adolf Hitler.

Early life (1896–1922)

Abhay Charan De was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, on September 1, 1896, the day after Janmashtami (the birth anniversary of Krishna). His parents, Gour Mohan De and Rajani De, named him Abhay Charan, meaning “one who is fearless, having taken shelter of Lord Krishna’s lotus feet”. Following Indian tradition, Abhay’s father invited to the house an astrologer, who calculated the child’s horoscope. The astrologer predicted that at the age of seventy Abhay would cross the ocean, become a famous religious teacher, and open 108 temples around the world.

Abhay was raised in a religious family belonging to the suvarna-vanik mercantile community. His parents were Gaudiya Vaishnavas, or followers of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, who taught that Krishna is the Supreme Personality and that pure love for Krishna is the highest attainment.

Gour Mohan was a middle-income merchant and had his own fabric and clothing store. He was related to the rich and aristocratic Mullik mercantile family, who had been trading in gold and salt for centuries.

Opposite the De house was a temple of Radha-Krishna that for a century and a half had been supported by the Mullik family. Every day, young Abhay, accompanied by his parents or servants, attended temple services.

At the age of six, Abhay organized a likeness of the “chariot festival”, or Ratha-yatra, the huge Vaishnava festival held annually in the city of Puri in Odisha. For this purpose, Abhay persuaded his father to obtain for him a scaled-down copy of the massive chariot on which the form of Jagannatha (Krishna as “Lord of the universe”) rides in procession in Puri. Decades later, after going to America, Abhay would bring Ratha-yatra festivals to the West.

Education (1916–1920)

Though Abhay’s mother wanted Abhay to go to London to study law, his father rejected the idea, fearing Abhay would be negatively influenced by Western society and acquire bad habits. In 1916 Abhay began his studies at Scottish Church College, a prestigious school in Calcutta founded by Alexander Duff, a Christian missionary.

Marriage and family

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Abhay Charan De (seated, left) with his wife Radharani (standing), father Gour Mohan (seated, center), and other family members. (1924)

In 1918, while in college, Abhay, as arranged by his father, married Radharani Datta, also from an aristocratic family. They had five children over the course of their marriage. After graduation from college, Abhay began a career in pharmaceuticals and later opened his own pharmaceutical company in Allahabad.

Gandhi’s movement

Abhay grew up while India was under British rule, and like many other youth his age he was attracted to Mahatma Gandhi's non-cooperation movement. In 1920 Abhay graduated from college with a specialization in English, philosophy, and economics. He successfully passed the final exams, but as a sign of opposition to British rule he refused to take part in the graduation ceremony and receive a diploma.

Midlife (1922–1965)

In 1922, while still in college, Abhay was persuaded by a friend, Narendranath Mullik, to meet with Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati (1874-1937), a Vaishnava scholar and teacher and the founder of the Gaudiya Math — a spiritual institution for spreading the teachings of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. (The word “math” denotes a monastic or missionary center). Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati was continuing the work of his father, Bhaktivinoda Thakur (1838-1914), who regarded Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s teachings as the highest form of theism, intended not for any one religion or nation but for all humanity.

Memorial at the spot of Abhay Charan De's first meeting with Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati. Kolkata. (2024)

When the meeting took place, Bhaktisiddhanta said to Abhay, “You are an educated young man. Why don’t you take the message of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and spread it in English?” But Abhay, according to his own later account, argued that India first needed to become independent before anyone would take Chaitanya’s message seriously — an argument Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati defeated. Convinced, Abhay accepted the instruction to spread the message of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in English, and it was in pursuance of this order from Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati that he later traveled to New York. Many years later he recalled: “I immediately accepted him as spiritual master. Not formally, but in my heart”.

The Gaudiya Math and initiation (1933)

After meeting Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur in 1922, Abhay had little contact with the Gaudiya Math until 1928, when sannyasis (renounced, itinerant preachers) from the Math came to open a center in Allahabad, where Abhay and his family were living. Abhay became a regular visitor, contributed funds, and brought important people to the lectures of the Math’s sannyasis. In 1932 he visited Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati in the holy town of Vrindavan, and in 1933, when Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati came to Allahabad to lay the cornerstone for a new temple, Abhay received diksha (spiritual initiation) from him and was given the name Abhay Charanaravinda.

Over the next three years, whenever he was able to visit Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati in Calcutta or Vrindavan, Abhay Charanaravinda would carefully hear from his spiritual master. In 1935 Abhay Charanaravinda moved for business to Bombay and then in 1937 back to Calcutta. In both places he assisted other members of the Gaudiya Math by donating money, leading kirtans, lecturing, writing, and bringing others to the Math. At the end of 1936 he visited Vrindavan, where he again met Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur, who told him, “If you ever get money, print books” — an instruction that would inform his life’s work.

Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur, two weeks before his death on January 1, 1937, wrote a letter to Abhay Charanaravinda urging him to teach Gaudiya Vaishnavism in English. . After Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur passed away, the unified mission of the Gaudiya Math split, and a battle for power broke out between his senior disciples. Although Abhay Charanaravinda continued to serve with other disciples of his spiritual master and wrote articles for their publications, he kept clear of the political struggles.

“Bhaktivedanta” title (1939)

In 1939, elders in the Gaudiya community honored Abhay Charanaravinda with the title “Bhaktivedanta”. In the title, bhakti means “devotion”, and vedanta means “the culmination of Vedic knowledge”. Thus the honorary title acknowledged his scholarship and devotion.

Back to Godhead magazine (1944)

In an effort to fulfill the order of his guru, in 1944 A. C. Bhaktivedanta began publishing Back to Godhead, an English fortnightly magazine presenting the teachings of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. He singlehandedly wrote, edited, financed, published, and distributed the magazine, today still published and distributed by his followers.

Accepting vanaprastha

In 1950 A. C. Bhaktivedanta accepted the vanaprastha ashram (the traditional retired order of life), and went to live in the Indian holy town of Vrindavan, regarded as the site of Krishna’s Lila (divine pastimes), although continuing to commute to Delhi on occasion. In Mathura, adjoining Vrindavan, he wrote for and edited the Gauḍīya Patrikā magazine published by his godbrother Bhakti Prajnana Kesava Goswami.

Forming “The League of Devotees” (1952)

Prabhupada's passport, issued for his journey to the United States. (1965)

In 1952, A. C. Bhaktivedanta attempted to set up organized spiritual activities in the central Indian city of Jhansi, where he started “The League of Devotees” — only to see the organization collapse two years later.

Taking sannyasa (1959)

On September 17, 1959, prompted by a dream of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati calling on him to accept sannyasa (renounced order of life), A. C. Bhaktivedanta formally entered sannyasa asrama from Bhakti Prajnan Keshava at his Keshavaji Gaudiya Math in Mathura and was given the name Bhaktivedanta Swami. Wishing to preserve the initiatory name given him by Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, as a sign of humility and connection to his spiritual master he kept the initials “A. C”. before his sannyasa name. Now he was A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami.

Staying at the Radha Damodar temple (1962–1965)

From 1962 to 1965 Bhaktivedanta Swami stayed in Vrindavan at the historic Radha-Damodar temple. There he began the task of translating from Sanskrit into English and commenting on the eighteen-thousand-verse Srimad-Bhagavatam (Bhagavata Purana), the foundational text of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. With great effort and struggle, he finally succeeded to translate, produce, raise funds for, and print the first of its twelve cantos, in three volumes.

Journey to the United States (1965)

The Jaladuta. (1961)

August 31, 1965. After Prabhupada undergoes a heart attack onboard the Jaladuta, for five days his diary has no entries. He then writes, “Passed over a great crisis on the struggle for life and death”.

It was at this time also, after accepting sannyasa, that Bhaktivedanta Swami began planning to travel to America to fulfill his spiritual master’s desire to spread Chaitanya’s teachings in the West.

To leave India, Bhaktivedanta Swami had many hurdles to overcome: He needed a sponsor in America, official approvals in India, and of course a ticket for his travel. After significant difficulties he managed to secure the needed sponsorship and approvals, and at last he approached one of his well-wishers, Sumati Morarjee, the head of the Scindia Steam Navigation Company, to ask for free passage to America on one of her cargo ships. Because of his age, she at first tried to dissuade him: “I said to him, ‘Swamiji, don’t go there. You are too old to go, and it will be too cold for you.’ I said, ‘Are you crazy? Old man, you are going to die! Who will look after you? What will you do there?’”

But finally she relented and granted him a ticket on a freighter, the Jaladuta. Bhaktivedanta Swami began the 35-day journey to America on August 13, 1965, at the age of 69.

He took with him little more than a suitcase, an umbrella, some dry cereal, forty Indian rupees (about seven US dollars), and two hundred three-volume sets of his translation of the first canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam.

After surviving two heart attacks during his maritime journey, Bhaktivedanta Swami finally arrived at the Boston Harbor on September 17, 1965, and then continued on to New York City.

Later years (1965-1977)

Beginnings in New York City

See also: International Society for Krishna Consciousness

Bhaktivedanta Swami had no support or acquaintances in the United States except the Agarwals, an Indian-American family, who, although strangers to him, had agreed to sponsor his visa. Upon reaching New York, he took a bus to the town of Butler, Pennsylvania, where the Agarwals lived. In Butler he delivered lectures to different groups at venues like the local YMCA.

After a month in Butler, he returned by bus to New York City. He stayed at various places — sometimes in a windowless room, sometimes a Bowery loft — until with the help of early followers he found a place to stay in the Lower East Side, where he converted a storefront curiosity shop with the serendipitous name “Matchless Gifts” into a small temple at 26 Second Avenue. There he offered classes on the Bhagavad-gita and other Vaishnava texts and held kirtan (group chanting) of the Hare Krishna mantra:

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

The Hare Krishna Tree in Tompkins Square Park, New York.

After he and his followers held Hare Krishna kirtan one Sunday under a tree in nearby Tompkins Square Park, The New York Times reported the event: “Swami’s Flock Chants in Park to Find Ecstasy; 50 Followers Clap and Sway to Hypnotic Music at East Side Ceremony”. He slowly gained a following, mainly from young people of the 60s counterculture.

In contrast to the 60s countercultural lifestyle, he required that in order to receive spiritual initiation his followers had to vow to follow four “regulative principles”: no illicit sex (that is, sex outside of marriage), no eating of meat, fish, or eggs, no intoxicants (including drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and even coffee and tea), and no gambling. New initiates also vowed to daily chant sixteen meditative “rounds” of the Hare Krishna 'mantra' (that is, to complete sixteen circuits of chanting the mantra on a 108-bead strand). During the first year in New York, he initiated nineteen people.

In July 1966 he incorporated the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).

In December of 1966 he made a recording of Krishna kirtan (along with a brief explanatory talk) that took the form of an album entitled Krishna Consciousness, released under the “Happening” record label. The record helped the early spread of what he called “the Hare Krishna movement”.

With his small band of followers in a little storefront, he was already sharing a vision of spreading “Krishna consciousness” around the world. He asked them to help — for example, by typing his manuscripts for the second canto of the Srimad-Bhagavatam. After he completed his Bhagavad-gita As It Is (by mid January of 1967), he asked a new disciple to find a publisher for it.

Bhaktivedanta Swami personally taught his first followers to spread Krishna’s message, prepare food to offer to Krishna, collect donations, and chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra (“great mantra”) on the streets.

San Francisco

Main article: Mantra Rock Dance

Allen Ginsberg greeting A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami at the San Francisco airport. (January 1967)

In 1967 Bhaktivedanta Swami established a second center, in San Francisco. The opening of the temple in the heart of the booming hippie community of Haight-Ashbury attracted many new adherents and was a turning point in his movement’s history, marking the beginning of rapid growth. To gain attention and raise funds, his disciples organized a two-hour concert with kirtan led by Bhaktivedanta Swami and rock performances by the Grateful Dead and other famous rock groups of the day. This “Mantra Rock Dance”, held at the popular Avalon Ballroom, attracted some three thousand people and brought attention to the local Hare Krishna temple. One commentator dubbed it the “ultimate high of that era”.

The Mantra-Rock Dance poster by Harvey W. Cohen (created December 1966).

Later that year, Bhaktivedanta Swami’s followers organized San Francisco’s first Ratha Yatra, the festival he had celebrated as a child in imitation of the massive parade held annually in the Indian city of Puri. For this first San Francisco version, a flatbed truck with four pillars holding a canopy took the place of Puri’s three huge ornate wooden vehicles. He would later establish this annual festival in major cities around the world, with big vehicles —“chariots” — and thousands of people taking part.

At first Bhaktivedanta Swami’s followers referred to him as “the Swami” or “Swamiji”. From mid-1968 onwards they called him “Prabhupada”, a respectful epithet that “enjoys currency with devotees and an increasing number of scholars”.

Great Britain and Europe

In 1968, Prabhupada asked three married couples among his disciples to open a temple in London, England. Following his instructions, the disciples, dressed in their robes and saris, began singing Hare Krishna regularly on London streets and at once attracted attention. Soon newspapers carried headlines like “Krishna Chant Startles London” and “Happiness is Hare Krishna”.

A further breakthrough came in December 1969 when the disciples managed to meet with members of the rock band the Beatles, who were at the peak of their global fame. Even before then, George Harrison and John Lennon had gotten a copy of the maha-mantra recording released by Prabhupada and his students in New York and had begun singing Hare Krishna.

In August 1969, Harrison produced a single of the Hare Krishna mantra, sung by the London disciples, and released it on Apple Records. For the recording, the disciples called themselves “The Radha Krishna Temple”. Harrison told a press conference convened by Apple that the Hare Krishna mantra was not a pop song but an ancient mantra that awakened spiritual bliss in the hearts of people listening to and repeating it. Seventy thousand copies of the record sold on the first day. It rose to number 11 on the British charts, and Prabhupada’s students performed live four times on the BBC’s popular TV show Top of the Pops. The record was also a success in Germany, Holland, France, Sweden, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia (as well as South Africa and Japan), and so the group was invited to perform in a number of European countries.

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Prabhupada with disciples in Paris. 1974

The next year, 1970, Harrison produced with Prabhupada’s disciples another hit single, “Govinda”, and in May 1971 the album The Radha Krishna Temple. In 1970, Harrison sponsored the publishing of the first volume of Prabhupada’s book Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, which relates the activities of Krishna's life as told in the tenth canto of the Srimad-Bhagavatam. In 1973 Harrison donated a seventeen-acre estate known as Piggots Manor, fifteen miles northwest of London. The Hare Krishna devotees converted this into a rural temple-ashram and renamed it Bhaktivedanta Manor in Prabhupada’s honor.

Once Prabhupada’s disciples had made a start in England, Prabhupada over the years visited England many times and from there traveled to Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, leading kirtans, installing forms of Krishna in ISKCON temples, meeting religious and intellectual leaders and others keen to meet him, and guiding and encouraging his disciples.

Africa

In 1970 Prabhupada made the first of several visits to Kenya. Although the disciples he had sent there had settled into doing spiritual programs for the local Indian people, Prabhupada insisted on doing programs meant for Africans. On one notable occasion in Nairobi, when he was scheduled to do a program at an Indian Radha-Krishna temple in a mainly African area downtown, he ordered the doors opened to invite the local residents, so that the hall soon flooded with African people. Then he held kirtan and gave a talk. Prabhupada told his local leaders that this is what they should do: spread Krishna consciousness among the local African people. Prabhupada also later visited Mauritius and South Africa and sent his disciples to Nigeria and Zambia.

The Soviet Union

Prabhupada in front of Saint Basil's Cathedral on Red Square in Moscow. (July 1972)

Prabhupada’s visit to Moscow from June 20 to June 25, 1971 marked the beginning of Krishna consciousness in the Soviet Union. During his five days in Moscow, Prabhupada managed to meet only two Soviet citizens: Grigory Kotovsky, a professor of Indian and South Asian studies, and Anatoly Pinyaev, a twenty-three-year-old Muscovite. Pinyaev, who went on to become the first Soviet Hare Krishna devotee, met Prabhupada through the son of an Indian diplomat stationed in Moscow. Prabhupada’s assistant gave Pinyaev a copy of Prabhupada’s Bhagavad-gita, which Pinyaev was able to translate into Russian, copy, and then distribute underground in the Soviet Union during Communist times. Pinyaev showed a great interest in Gaudiya Vaishnavism, accepted initiation from Prabhupada, and did much to ignite interest in Krishna consciousness in the Soviet Union. Pinyaev was later imprisoned in Smolensk Special Psychiatric Hospital and forcibly treated with drugs for his practice of Krishna consciousness.

India

Having achieved some success in the West, in 1970 Prabhupada directed his attention especially to India, with the hope of turning India back toward her original spiritual sensibilities. He came back to India with a party of Western disciples — ten American sannyasis and twenty other devotees — and for the next seven years focused much of his effort on establishing temples in Bombay, Vrindavan, Hyderabad, and a planned international headquarters in Mayapur, West Bengal (the birthplace of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu).

By that time, Prabhupada saw, India had set a course towards Europeanization and sought to imitate the West. Therefore, the appearance on Indian soil of American and European Hare Krishna devotees who had rejected Western materialism and embraced Indian spiritual culture “caused nothing less than a sensation among the modernizing (i.e. Westernizing) Indians, planting seeds for an authentic religious revival there”.

Timeline of Prabhupada's travels around the world (1965‒1977)

By the early 1970s, Prabhupada had established his movement’s American headquarters in Los Angeles and its world headquarters in Mayapur.

Around the world

In Latin America, Prabhupada visited Mexico and Venezuela. In Asia he visited Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. He also spent time in Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji. In the Middle East he visited Iran. Among the places he sent disciples to spread Krishna consciousness was China.

Early in the movement, Prabhupada had guided his students personally, but later, as the movement rapidly expanded, he relied more on letters and his secretaries. By giving his students instructions, advice, and encouragement, he ensured a “strong paternal presence” in their lives. He wrote more than six thousand letters, many now collected and kept at the Bhaktivedanta Archives. Besides receiving reports of accomplishments, via correspondence he also had to deal — almost daily — with setbacks, perplexities, quarrels, and failures. He tried to correct them as much as possible and kept on advancing his movement.

Wherever he was, he took an hour-long early-morning walk, which became a time for disciples to ask questions and receive personal guidance. On returning from his walk, he lectured daily on the Srimad-Bhagavatam, often reading from the portion of the manuscript he was working on. Every afternoon he met with disciples or with dignitaries and leaders from various parts of his mission.

Traveling constantly to lecture and tend to his disciples, Prabhupada circled the world fourteen times in ten years. He opened more than one hundred temples and dozens of farm communities and restaurants, as well as gurukulas (boarding schools) for ISKCON's children. He initiated nearly five thousand disciples.

Death (1977)

On November 14, 1977, at the age of 81, after a long illness, Prabhupada passed away in his room at the Krishna Balaram Mandir, the temple he had established in Vrindavan, India. His burial site is located in the courtyard of the temple beneath a samadhi (memorial shrine) built by his followers.

Succession

Prabhupada's samadhi in Vrindavan, India.

In 1970 Prabhupada established a Governing Body Commission (GBC), then consisting of twelve leading disciples, to oversee ISKCON’s activities around the world and to serve as ISKCON’s ultimate managing authority. In 1977, four months before his departure, he appointed eleven senior disciples to perform spiritual initiations on his behalf while he was ill.

Despite the measures Prabhupada took to organize the management of his movement, his death in November 1977 caused a crisis of authority in ISKCON that destabilized the organization and became a turning point in its development. The succession process was beset by conflicts, with disagreements persisting for decades. Nonetheless, by 2023 nearly one hundred disciples and grand-disciples in succession from Prabhupada were serving as initiating gurus in his branch of the Gaudiya Vaishnava lineage.

Philosophy and teachings

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Prabhupada talks with Cardinal Daniélou in Paris. (1973)

Within Eastern systems, spiritual lineages are integral to each tradition, and a teacher is mandated to maintain theological fidelity by transmitting knowledge as given in the lineage. Prabhupada comes in the Brahma-Madhva-Gaudiya lineage, which traces back to the fifteenth-century saint and mystic Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486–1533) and the thirteenth-century theologian Madhvacharya (1238–1317), and further back, its teachings say, to the beginnings of creation. This lineage (sampradaya) follows such texts as Srimad-Bhagavatam, the Bhagavad-gita, and the writings of Chaitanya’s disciples and their followers. Prabhupada’s extensive commentaries on the sacred texts follow those of Bhaktisiddhanta, Bhaktivinoda, and other traditional teachers, such as Baladeva Vidyabhushana, Vishvanatha Chakravarti, Jiva Goswami, Madhvacharya, and Ramanujacharya.

The Absolute Truth

In accordance with the teachings of the Srimad-Bhagavatam, Prabhupada taught that the supreme truth, or Absolute Truth, is the one unlimited, undivided spiritual entity that is the source of all. That Absolute Truth, he taught, is realized in three phases: as Brahman (all-pervading impersonal oneness), as Paramatma (the aspect of God present within the heart of every living being), and as Bhagavan, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Though the Absolute Truth is one, he taught, that one Absolute is progressively realized in these three features according to one’s level of spiritual advancement. In the initial stage the Absolute is realized as Brahman, in a more advanced stage as Paramatma, and at the most advanced stage as Bhagavan.

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Radha-Krishna, the supreme manifestation of God in the teachings of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, which Prabhupada represented.

Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead

In the Srimad-Bhagavatam, and so in Prabhupada’s teachings, Krishna is seen as the original and supreme manifestation of Bhagavan – in Sanskrit, svayam-bhagavan, or the Supreme Personality of Godhead himself. No one is equal to or greater than Krishna. Brahman and Paramatma are partial realizations of Krishna. The various Vishnu forms, such as Ramachandra and Narasimha, are “nondifferent” from Krishna; they are the same Personality of Godhead, appearing in different roles. But the form of Krishna is the original and the most complete form. In the Hindu pantheon, he taught, the gods other than the Vishnu forms are demigods — that is, assistants of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

The energies of the Absolute

If the Absolute Truth is one, this raises the question of how there can be diversity. If, as the Upanishads say, there is only the Absolute Truth and nothing else, we need some way to account for the existence of living beings, with all their differences, and the world, with all its many colors, forms, sounds, aromas, and so on. Prabhupada responds by referencing a statement from the Upanishads that the Absolute Truth has varied energies. As a fire located in one place gives off heat and light throughout a room, the Absolute Truth fills the world with every sort of variety.

Oneness and difference

Prabhupada taught Chaitanya’s doctrine of achintya bheda-abheda-tattva, in which everything is seen as simultaneously, inconceivably one with the Absolute — that is, with Krishna — and yet different. By way of analogy, Prabhupada gives the example that heat is in one sense identical with the fire from which it emerges and yet the two are different — when sitting in a fire’s warmth, we are not burning in the fire itself. This “oneness and difference” accounts for the oneness of an Absolute Truth that includes limitless varieties.

The inferior and superior energies

Among Krishna’s energies, Prabhupada taught, the ingredients of this world collectively belong to Krishna’s “inferior energy” — inferior in that, being inert matter, it lacks consciousness. But superior to inert matter are the conscious living beings (jivas) that belong to Krishna’s “superior energy”.

The predicament of the living being

Because the living beings belong to Krishna’s “superior energy”, Prabhupada taught, they share in Krishna’s divine qualities, including knowledge, bliss, and eternality (sat, cit, and ananda). But because of contact with the “inferior energy” since time immemorial, the divine nature of the living beings has been covered, and subjecting the living beings in this world to ignorance, suffering, and repeated birth and death. In each life the living beings struggle against birth and death, disease and old age. While trying to control and enjoy the resources of nature, the living beings increasingly suffer from entanglement in nature’s complexities.

As spiritual beings, belonging to the “superior energy”, the living beings are different from their material bodies: the body may be male or female, young or old, white or black, American or Indian, but the living being within the body is beyond what he called these “material designations”. Prabhupada phrased this understanding in a maxim he often used: “I am not this body”.

When we falsely identify with these bodies, he taught, we are under the influence of maya, or illusion. Only when this illusion is dispelled can the soul become liberated from material existence.

Bhakti

Prabhupada taught that the living beings can be freed from illusion, and from their entire material predicament, by recognizing that they are tiny but eternal parts of Krishna and that their natural engagement lies in serving Krishna, just as a hand serves the body. Dormant within every living being, Prabhupada taught, is an eternal loving relationship with that Absolute, or Krishna, and when that loving relationship is revived, the living being resumes its natural eternal and joyful life. This eternal service in devotion to Krishna, rendered by one freed from all material designation, is called bhakti.

Prabhupada sings a Bengali bhajan by Narottama Dasa Thakur.

One can begin practicing bhakti, Prabhupada taught, even while in the earliest stages of spiritual life. In this way, bhakti is both the final end to be achieved and the means by which to achieve it. As a spiritual practice, bhakti is a powerful, transformative process that purifies the soul and enables it to see God directly.

Impersonalism

Prabhupada crusaded against what he called “impersonalism” — that is, the idea that ultimately the Supreme has no form, qualities, activities, or personal attributes. In this way he stood opposed to the teachings of Shankara (A.D. 788–820), who held that everything except Brahman is illusory, including the soul, the world, and God. Before Prabhupada, Shankara’s system of thought, known as Advaita Vedanta, had generally provided the framework for Western understandings of Hinduism, and the “steady procession of Hindu swamis” who came to America generally aligned themselves with Shankara’s monistic views and the idea of “the ultimate absorption of the self into an impersonal Reality or Brahman”.

But prominent Vaishnava philosophers from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries like Madhva and Ramanuja had opposed Shankara’s views with personalistic understandings of Vedanta. Those teachers presented strong philosophical arguments criticizing Shankara’s “illusionism” (mayavada), his view that personal individuality, indeed all individuality, is illusory. Philosophers in the Gaudiya line such as, in the sixteenth century, Jiva Goswami had continued to argue formidably against impersonalism, which they regarded as the essential metaphysical misconception”. So Prabhupada strongly opposed impersonalistic views wherever he encountered them and asserted the eternal personal existence of the Absolute and of all living beings. Where Buddhism shares ground with Shankara’s views by teaching that ultimately personality disintegrates, leaving nothing but a void nirvana, Buddhism too came in for Prabhupada’s strong personalistic critique.

Societal organization

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Prabhupada initiating a disciple into the chanting of the maha-mantra.

Prabhupada taught that society should ideally be organized in such a way that people have specific duties according to their occupation (varna) and stage of life (ashrama). The four varnas are intellectual work; administrative and military work; agriculture and business; and ordinary labor and assistance. The four ashramas are student life, married life, retired life, and renounced life. In accordance with the Bhagavad-gita and in opposition to the modern Hindu caste system, Prabhupada taught that one’s varna, or occupational standing, should be understood in terms of one’s qualities and the work one actually does, not by one’s birth.

Moreover, devotional qualifications always supersede material ones. Following Chaitanya, who challenged the caste system and undercut hierarchical power structures, Prabhupada taught that anyone could take to the practice of bhakti-yoga and become self-realized through the chanting of God’s holy names, as found in the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.

Prabhupada also emphasized the importance of self-sufficient farming communities as places where one could live simply and cultivate Krishna consciousness.

Spiritual practices

Kirtan

Pranbhupada plays the harmonium during a recording session in Germany. (1974)

The main spiritual practice Prabhupada taught was Krishna sankirtana (also simply called kirtan or kirtana), in which people musically chant together names of Krishna, especially in the form of the maha-mantra:

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.

Kirtan literally means “description”, hence “praise”, and sankirtana indicates kirtan performed by people together.

On the authority of traditional Sanskrit texts, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had taught that Krishna kirtan is the most effective method for spiritual realization in the present age (Kali-yuga) – more effective than silent meditation (dhyana), speculative study (jnana), worship in temples (puja), or performing the various physical or mental disciplines of yoga. Krishna kirtan, he had taught, can be done by anyone, anywhere, at any time, and without hard-and-fast rules. Because the names of Krishna are “transcendental sounds”, identical with Krishna himself, the chanting is spiritually uplifting.

Prabhupada leads Hare Krishna kirtan and explains the maha-mantra. October 1966.

When Prabhupada began his efforts to spread Krishna consciousness in the United States, he held kirtans in a Bowery loft, in his early storefront temples, in Tompkins Square Park in New York and Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, and wherever else he went. Following Prabhupada, his disciples soon began holding kirtans regularly in streets, parks, temples, and other venues in major cities in North America and Europe and then in Latin America, Australia, Africa, and Asia.Because of Hare Krishna kirtan, Prabhupada’s movement itself came to be referred to simply as “Hare Krishna” and its followers as “Hare Krishnas”.

Theologically speaking, the term sankirtana can extend from the public chanting of Hare Krishna to the distribution of books spoken by or about Krishna. Kirtan in the sense of public chanting is traditionally accompanied by kartals (hand cymbals) and mridangas (drums), and Prabhupada’s spiritual master and grand spiritual master had said that distribution of Krishna literature was the “great mridanga” because such distribution spreads Krishna consciousness still further. Prabhupada therefore gave great importance to such distribution.

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In 1966 Prabhupada posted this notice on the bathroom door of his first temple in New York, listing the principles he expected his disciples to follow.

Association with devotees

Prabhupada’s tradition constantly makes the point that “association with saints inspires saintliness, association with devotees inspires devotion. The association of genuine devotees can exert a powerful effect upon one's consciousness”. And so when Prabhupada incorporated ISKCON, its founding document included as one the Society’s purposes “To bring the members of the Society together with each other and nearer to Krishna”.

Initiation vows

Prabhupada required of his followers, as a prerequisite for spiritual initiation, that they promise to follow four “regulative principles”: no illicit sex (that is, no sex outside of marriage), no eating of meat, fish, or eggs, no intoxicants (including drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and even coffee and tea), and no gambling. New initiates also vowed to daily chant sixteen meditative “rounds” of the Hare Krishna mantra (that is, to complete sixteen circuits of chanting the mantra on a 108-bead strand).

Hearing of Srimad-Bhagavatam

For at least the last millennium, the Srimad-Bhagavatam has been “by far the most important work in the Krishna tradition” and “the scripture par excellence of the Krishnaite schools”. It is sometimes described as “the ripened fruit of the Vedic tree”. Accordingly, Prabhupada instituted daily classes on the Bhagavatam in all his centers, and he spoke on Bhagavatam daily, wherever he went.

Deity worship

In accordance with traditional Vaishnava teachings, Prabhupada introduced worship of Krishna in the form of a murti: figures cast in metal or carved in stone or wood to match descriptions of Krishna given in Vaishnava texts. Scholar of religion Kenneth Valpey writes:

“Prabhupāda explained that although omnipresent, Kṛṣṇa makes himself perceivable and hence worshipable through material elements which are, after all, his own ‘energies.’ Based on this reasoning one should understand the image of Kṛṣṇa to be ‘Kṛṣṇa personally,’ appearing in a way quite suitable for our vision,’ that is, perceivable by ordinary persons with ordinary powers of sight”.

Prabhupada taught that because Krishna is personally present as the deity (the term Prabhupada used for such a form), worshiping the deity helps one develop loving exchanges with Krishna. Prabhupada installed deities in ISKCON temples around the world.

Deities of Radha and Krishna installed by Prabhupada in his temple in Vrindavan, India.

Food prepared and offered to the deity of Krishna with devotion becomes sanctified as krishna-prasadam ("mercy of Krishna"). Prabhupada taught that eating only prasadam purifies one’s existence and helps one develop in bhakti. From the beginning of his mission Prabhupada distributed prasadam to visitors and soon made it into the movement's major outreach vehicle. A weekly prasadam feast for the public has always been a program at all of ISKCON centers. Prabhupada wrote, “The Hare Krishna Movement is based on the principle: chant Hare Krishna mantra at every moment, both inside and outside of the temples, and, as far as possible, distribute prasadam".

Living in Vrindavan

Prabhupada’s predecessors such as Rupa Goswami had taught the value of living in Vrindavan (sometimes spelled “Vrindaban”), the sacred town between Agra and New Delhi that is held to be the site of Krishna’s rural “pastimes” on earth and therefore conducive to constant remembrance of Krishna. Prabhupada accordingly brought his disciples on pilgrimage to Vrindavan and there established the Krishna-Balaram temple. Yet with a broader outlook he wrote one disciple, “[W]herever you remain, if you are fully absorbed in your transcendental work in Krishna consciousness, that place is eternally Vrindaban. It is the consciousness that creates Vrindaban”.

Principal writings

Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, who had specifically encouraged writing and publishing, at one meeting told Prabhupada: If you ever get money, print books. So regardless of how busy or sometimes unwell Prabhupada might have been, he remained focused on producing books. Prabhupada slept little, waking at 1:00 am every night to translate and comment on the Srimad-Bhagavatam and other texts. During the day he would give attention to guiding disciples and seeing to the affairs of his international society and its temples, and very early in the morning, while most people were asleep, he did most of his writing “because even with his age and uncertain health, he was unwilling to sacrifice his writing time for extra rest”.

By 1970 he had translated the Bhagavad-gita, two cantos of the Bhagavatam, a summary study of its tenth canto, and a summary volume drawn from the expansive Caitanya-caritamrta. From 1970 on, his literary output slowed only slightly due to the demands of his expanding Hare Krishna movement. His task, as scholars have observed, was not merely to translate the text but to translate an entire tradition.

Historian of religion Thomas Hopkins relates that Prabhupada told him in a conversation in Philadelphia in 1975 that "the Gita provided the basic education on Krishna devotion, the Srimad-Bhagavatam was like graduate study, and the Caitanya-caritamrita was like postgraduate education for the most advanced devotees”.

Hopkins says that by presenting in English such works as the Bhagavatam and Caitanya-caritamrta, Prabhupada made important texts accessible to the Western world that were simply not accessible before. Hopkins says, “[W]hat few English translations there were of the Bhagavata Purana and Caitanya-caritamrta were barely adequate and very hard to get hold of”. Prabhupada, Hopkins says, “made these and other texts available in a way that they never were before” and “made the tradition itself accessible to the West”.

Bhagavad-gita As It Is

President of India Pratibha Patil receives a copy of Bhagavad Gita As It Is. (14 December 2011)

In 1966-67, Prabhupada wrote a translation and commentary on the Bhagavad-gita he entitled Bhagavad-gita As It Is. It was first published by the Macmillan Company in 1968 in an abridged edition and later, in 1972, in full. For each verse he first gives the Sanskrit Devanagari script, then a roman transliteration and word-for-word gloss, followed by his translation and a commentary, or “purport”. Scholar of religion Richard H. Davis comments that this was “the first English translation of the Gita to supply an authentic interpretation from an Indian devotional tradition”. It is “by far the most widely distributed of all English Gita translations”. In 2015 Davis wrote, “The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust estimates that twenty-three million copies of Prabhupada’s translation have been sold, including the English original and secondary translations into fifty-six other languages”. For Prabhupada, Davis says, “the essential fact about the Bhagavad-gita is its speaker. The Gita contains the words of Krishna, and Krishna is the ‘Supreme Personality of Godhead.’” In Prabhupada’s view, other translations lack authority because the translators use them to express their own opinions rather than the message of Krishna. In contrast, Prabhupada saw his task in presenting what Krishna wanted to say, and so he claimed to present the Bhagavad-gita “as it is”.

Srimad-Bhagavatam

At once a sacred history, a theological treatise, and a philosophical text, the Srimad-Bhagavatam “stands out by reason of its literary excellence, the organization that it brings to its vast material, and the effect that it has had on later writers”. Praising the poetry of the Bhagavatam, scholar of religion Edwin Bryant says, “[S]cholars of the text have every right to say that ‘the Bhagavata can be ranked with the best of the literary works produced by mankind.’”

Prabhupada’s edition of Srimad-Bhagavatam, with his translation and commentary.

It was this great work that Prabhupada, after taking sannyasa, set out to present in English, with, once again, the original Sanskrit text, its word-for-word meanings, a translation, and an in-depth commentary. Also known as Srimad-Bhagavata Purana, Bhagavata Purana, or just the Bhagavata Srimad-Bhagavatam is a work of twelve books (“cantos” was the word Prabhupada used) comprising more than fourteen thousand verse couplets. “Srimad” means “beautiful” or “glorious”.

Prabhupada began his translation and commentary on the Bhagavatam after accepting sannyasa in 1959, and by 1965 he had completed and published the first canto. He worked on translating the Srimad-Bhagavatam into English for the rest of his life.

The cantos were published one by one, as he finished them. He completed nine cantos and thirteen chapters of the tenth. The rest of the Bhagavatam was completed by his disciples.

Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead

Considering his old age and the vast size of the Bhagavatam, Prabhupada knew he might not live to finish it. So in 1968 he undertook to present the Bhagavatam’s tenth canto — the essence of the work — in summary form as Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

This summary study is “Prabhupada’s own exposition of the story of Krishna as it is told in the Tenth Canto”. It “laid out the account of Krishna from the Bhagavata Purana that provides the images and stories central to Krishna devotion”.

As Bryant says:

“The tenth book of the Bhāgavata has inspired generations of artists, dramatists, musicians, poets, singers, writers, dancers, sculptors, architects and temple-patrons across the centuries. Its stories are well known to every Hindu household across the length and breadth of the Indian subcontinent, and celebrated in regional festivals all year round”.

Prabhupada himself inspired artists among his disciples to provide the text with profuse full-color illustrations. Such illustrations became a feature of nearly all his books.

A related work is Light of the Bhagavat, written by Prabhupada in Vrindavan in 1961, before he went to the West, but published only after his death. The book is a treatment of one chapter (chapter twenty) of the tenth canto. Prabhupada composed forty-eight commentaries for the chapter’s verses. The book is accordingly illustrated with forty-eight paintings.

Ishopanishad

In 1969 Prabhupada published, again in his full verse-by-verse format, his translation and commentary for the Ishopanishad — also known as the Īśa Upaniṣad or Īśāvāsya Upaniṣad , which in 1960 he had partially serialized in his Back to Godhead magazine. The Ishopanishad, consisting of only eighteen mantras, is considered one of the principal Upanishads. In all indigenous collections of the Upanishads, the Iśopaniṣad comes first. Its first verse, “highly regarded as a capsule of Vedic theology”, presents a god-centered view of the universe. The celebrated traditional commentator Shankara wrote, “One who is eager to rid himself of the suffering and delusion of saṁsāra, created by ignorance, and attain Supreme Bliss is entitled to read this Upaniṣad”.

The Nectar of Devotion

Begun in 1968, The Nectar of Devotion is a summary study of Rupa Goswami’s Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu, his “famous exposition of the principles of devotion”. Scholar-practitioner Shrivatsa Goswami has described Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu as “a textbook of devotional practice, an exposition on the philosophy of devotion, and a study of devotional psychology”. The Nectar of Devotion “gave access to Gaudiya Vaisnavism’s most important theological treatise on devotion”.

Caitanya-caritamrta

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Prabhupada’s edition of Caitanya-caritamrita, with his translation and commentary.

Caitanya-caritamrta is the seventeenth-century account of the life and teachings of Chaitanya, who founded the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition. Written in the Bengali language, it runs to more than 15,000 verses and “is regarded as the most authoritative work on Śrī Caitanya”, a work of “rare merit”, with “no parallel in the whole of Bengali literature”. Scholar of religion Hugh Urban calls it “one of the greatest works in all of Indian vernacular literature”.

Prabhupada completed his translation in 1974, within two years, and it was published in seventeen volumes, again with verse-by-verse text, transliteration, word meanings, translation and commentary. He based his commentary on the Bengali commentaries of his predecessors Bhaktivinoda Thakura and Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati.

Before Srila Prabhupada’s translation, the work in English was simply unavailable. After Prabhupada’s edition came out, scholar J. Bruce Long wrote, “The appearance of an English translation of Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī's Śri Caitanya-caritāmṛta by A. C. Bhaktivedānta, Founder-Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, is a cause for celebration among both scholars in Indian Studies and lay-people seeking to enrich their knowledge of Indian spirituality”.

Several years earlier, in 1968, Prabhupada published Teachings of Lord Caitanya. The book offers a summary of selected portions of Caitanya-caritamrita.

The Nectar of Instruction

Prabhupada also wrote a verse-by-verse commentated translation of Rupa Goswami’s eleven-verse Upadeshamrita, one of Rupa Goswami’s shortest works, which provides concise directions on how to carry out devotional service.

Bhaktivedanta Book Trust

In 1972 Prabhupada founded the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust (BBT), which manages the international publishing and distribution of his writings. Apart from his major works, the BBT publishes various paperbacks derived from his lectures. The BBT also publishes Back to Godhead, the magazine Prabhupada founded, in multiple languages. Between 1973 and 1977, Prabhupada’s followers distributed several million books and other pieces of Krishna conscious literature every year in shopping malls, airports, and other public locations in the United States and worldwide. As of 2023, his books had been translated into eighty-seven languages. In 2022, the BBT printed more than two million pieces of literature.

Critical assessments of Prabhupada’s writings

Shrivatsa Goswami has said, “Making these Vaiṣṇava texts available is one of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s greatest contributions. Apart from the masses, his books have also reached well into academic circles and have spurred academic interest in the Caitanya tradition”. Further, he says, “The significance of making these texts available is not merely academic or cultural; it is spiritual. Jñāna, knowledge, is spread, proper doctrines are made known, people come closer to reality”. Other academics, too, have applauded Prabhupada’s publications as his most significant legacy.

But his edition of Bhagavad-gita, in particular, has come in for criticism as well. Eric Sharpe, scholar of religion, considers Prabhupada’s reading of Bhagavad-gita single-minded and fundamentalist. Sanskrit scholar A.L. Herman concurs. Another scholar, K. P. Sinha, takes exception to Prabhupada’s “misinterpretations and unkind remarks” directed toward Advaita Vedanta, the philosophy of absolute monism.

The most detailed critical analysis by a Western, non-Hindu scholar comes from historian of religion Robert D. Baird. Baird takes upon himself the task of not merely seeing Prabhupada as “an authentic proponent of Vaishnavism” but of examining as an academic scholar the way Prabhupada reads the Bhagavad-gita.

Prabhupada lectures on The Nectar of Devotion in front of Rupa Goswami’s samadhi in Vrindavan, India. (1972)

Whereas many scholars, Baird writes, see “some degree of progression” in the Gita, with different themes emphasized in different parts of the book, Prabhupada “reads the complete teaching of the book, indeed of Vedic literature generally, into any passage”. It appears “that he considers it legitimate to interpret any verse in the light of the whole system found in the Gītā whether it is explicitly mentioned in that verse of the Gītā or not”. In this way, he reads “Krishna consciousness” even into portions of the text where Krishna is not explicitly mentioned. Prabhupada cites later passages in the Gita to explain earlier passages. Indeed, he even quotes from other texts in the canon (whether written before the Gita or after) to indicate the intention of the Gita, “as though they have the same authority as the Gita itself”. And so: “In all, a wide range of texts are used to serve as authorities for understanding the Gītā. Swami Bhaktivedanta not only treats specific texts in a way that would be unusual among Western scholars, but he sees specific texts in the light of the Vedas in general”.

Whereas other scholars, Baird writes, would give great attention to the overall structure of the Gita, Prabhupada gives the structure scant notice, preferring instead to make this point: “In every chapter of Bhagavad-gītā, Lord Kṛṣṇa stresses that devotional service unto the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the ultimate goal of life”.

Prabhupada uses the text of the Gita to present various aspects of Krishna theology. And “he also goes beyond specific texts and the Gītā itself when he makes it the occasion for the inculcation of a Vaishnava lifestyle,” typified by chanting the maha-mantra, regulating one’s sexual activity, offering food to Krishna, and following a vegetarian diet. And so: “Swami Bhaktivedanta is more interested in expounding the principles of Krishna consciousness than in merely explicating the text at hand”. In one instance cited, “the text recommends one thing [astanga-yoga] and Bhaktivedanta Swami cancels that and offers the mahāmantra”.

As for competing interpretations: “Bhaktivedanta often seeks to show the superiority of the Vaishnava position and the error of other positions”. “The position that is attacked with the most regularity and vigor is that of Advaita Vedanta,” “the system of thought that is commonly used to provide the structure for Western understandings of ‘Hinduism’”, whose advocates Prabhupada calls Mayavadins, impersonalists, or monists. For Advaita Vedanta he reserves his strongest condemnations.

Nor does Prabhupada only criticize “impersonalists”. Rather, “Scholars in particular come under Swami Bhaktivedanta’s condemnation because they are merely ‘mental speculators’”. In Prabhupada’s view, Baird says, “Since these scholars are not surrendered to Krishna, they are not Krishna conscious; they are merely offering their own ideas rather than the truth within the paramparā system [the lineage of masters and disciples]”. Prabhupada “seldom engages in the kind of argumentation that scholars are accustomed to when deciding between alternative positions”. Instead he takes a position as a spiritual master within the disciplic succession and “merely declares" what is true. And so, Baird says, “The gulf between Swami Bhaktivedanta’s presentation and that of the scholarly exegete is simply unbridgeable, for their purposes operate on different levels”.

But what some scholars might see as faults, others see as virtues. Thomas Hopkins sees Prabhupada’s translations and purports as successfully conveying the meaning of the text precisely because Prabhupada draws upon the commentaries of his predecessors and brings to his work the understandings of his entire tradition. Moreover, Hopkins says, Prabhupada does this in such a way that the entire text becomes comprehensible to a modern reader, not only theoretically but practically. Translations of such texts as the Gita, Hopkins says, cannot be done mechanically. The translator has to understand the spirit and the experience that lie behind the text. Where Prabhupada’s translations expand the text, they do so “for the sake of making the meaning more clear, rather than obscuring it”. Hopkins says, “Writing a commentary is not a merely intellectual or academic exercise—it has a practical goal: to engage people with a living spiritual tradition”. Prabhupada, he says, brings the meaning of the text out of the past and into the present, giving it meaning in terms of people’s lives.

Challenges and controversies

In Prabhupada’s efforts to establish and expand Krishna consciousness, some of the difficulties he faced were internal to his new and growing movement. He had to train disciples unaccustomed to Vaishnava culture and philosophy and engage them in furthering his Hare Krishna movement; he had to set up and then guide his Governing Body Commission to see to ISKCON's global management. He often had to intervene when clashes and controversies within ISKCON grew out of hand. He had to sort out difficulties faced by individual disciples, ensure a proper understanding of his teachings, and, more broadly, transplant an entire cultural movement. He also faced challenges from the outside world.

Cult image and “brainwashing”

Until the mid-1970s the attitude of the Western public towards Prabhupada and his movement was cordial. News reports tried to reliably describe the Hare Krishna devotees, their beliefs, and their religious practices. The spirit of curiosity prevailed, while hostility was almost nonexistent.

But by the mid-1970s this changed. The rapidly expanding Hare Krishna movement — distinctive, foreign, highly visible, and vigorous (often over-vigorous) in spreading its message — became an early target for a nascent “anti-cult movement”. No longer was the Hare Krishna movement seen to represent an authentic spiritual tradition. Rather, it was now one of a myriad of “destructive cults” that won converts and took over their lives by “mind control” and “brainwashing”. When young adults, supposedly robbed of free will and “programmed” by mind control, became Hare Krishna devotees, some parents hired “deprogrammers” to kidnap them and “free them from the cult”. “Deprogrammings” typically involved days or weeks of isolation, browbeating, and intense verbal haranguing and harassment.

After one such “deprogramming” failed, the New York City District Attorney’s Office charged two local Hare Krishna leaders with illegally imprisoning two Hare Krishna followers by brainwashing them.

Prabhupada instructed his disciples to fight these charges, among other ways by entering his books into evidence. Meanwhile, two hundred scholars signed a document defending ISKCON as an authentic Indian missionary movement.

In March of 1977 a New York State Supreme Court justice threw out the charges and recognized that ISKCON represents a bona fide religious tradition. Nonetheless, in America and Europe the “cult” label and image persisted for the rest of Prabhupada’s lifetime and beyond.

As scholar James Beckford notes, in the 1970s Hare Krishna devotees became increasingly active in selling their literature and collecting donations from the public, so they were sharply criticized for what was seen as harassing people for money at airports and other public places. As Bryant and Ekstrand comment, “Questionable fund-raising tactics, confrontational attitudes to mainstream authorities, and an isolationist mentality, coupled with the excesses of neophyte proselytizing zeal, brought public disapproval” — something that Prabhupada had to deal with too.

Institutionalization

As ISKCON evolved towards being a worldwide organization, it suffered from the inevitable travails of institutionalization. Young disciples, mostly from an anti-establishment, anti-authoritarian background, became members of the GBC and found themselves running a worldwide institution. Preaching sometimes started giving way to revenue production; gender issues arose; leaders sometimes fell, and scandals broke out. Bureaucracy intruded on spontaneity, and many members left. As much as Prabhupada tried to leave management to the GBC, much of this he too had to deal with personally.

Child abuse

Prabhupada directed his disciples to train children in boarding schools called gurukulas, where they would receive education from spiritual teachers. However, as reported by sociologist of religion E. Burke Rochford, through mismanagement these schools became like orphanages. After Prabhupada’s departure it came to light that physical and sexual abuse occured within these schools due to lack of oversight.

Obstacles in India

In India, Prabhupada faced a special set of challenges. He had much to accomplish there, but his American and European disciples were inexperienced in how to get things done in India and even how to live there.

When Prabhupada’s young American followers came to India in the early 1970s and began holding festivals, including public sankirtana, many Indians were surprised to see Westerners adopting Indian modes of worship and devotion. Some local people, including even some Indian officials, suspected that the American devotees must be undercover operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Outspoken and uncompromising as he was in the way he presented Krishna’s teachings, in India, as elsewhere, Prabhupada found himself battling with opposing views of all sorts. Therefore another challenge came from Prabhupada’s consistent rejection of the common Hindu notion of caste by birth. Since Prabhupada, like his predecessors, insisted that anyone, from any race or nation, could become spiritually purified and fit to perform the duties of priests, he faced opposition from Hindu brahmins who held that performing such duties was an exclusive birthright of their caste.

When Prabhupada resolved to build a temple on land in Juhu, Bombay (now Mumbai), the man who had sold ISKCON the land tried to swindle the devotees and take it back. The man had deep political connections in the Bombay municipality and employed lawyers and even thugs to drive the devotees off, but Prabhupada persisted and eventually won.

Deviations

While working to establish his movement, Prabhupada had to deal with problems caused even by leading disciples, who, monks or not, could still hold on to intellectual baggage, disdain for authority, and ambitions for power. In 1968 Prabhupada's first sannyasi disciple openly disregarded Prabhupada’s instructions to him and twisted core tenets of Prabhupada’s teachings. This foreshadowed succession problems and issues of authority that Prabhupada’s movement would face both during Prabhupada’s presence and after.

Unlike Indian gurus who declared themselves avatars, divine appearances of God, Prabhupada from the very beginning of his preaching called himself only a servant or representative of God. But in 1970 four of Prabhupada’s early sannyasis announced at a large ISKCON gathering that Prabhupada’s followers had failed to recognize that Prabhupada was actually Krishna, God himself. Prabhupada expelled those sannyasis from his Society (he eventually readmitted them, after they recanted their claim).

In 1972, without consulting Prabhupada, eight of the twelve members of the GBC held a meeting in New York aimed at centralizing control of ISKCON's activities and finances. Their plans would have lessened Prabhupada's own oversight and set aside his emphasis on the autonomy of each ISKCON center. This prompted Prabhupada to suspend the entire GBC "until further notice", establish direct lines of communication with each temple's leaders, and re-emphasize spiritual purity, the selfless and voluntary nature of devotional life, and the exemplary conduct befitting ISKCON leaders. This, he said, is what he wanted, not corporate bureaucracy and excessive centralization. (He later unsuspended the GBC).

In 1975 a clash broke out when a team of ten parties of itinerant sannyasis, assisted by two hundred brahmacharis, criss-crossed America, visiting ISKCON temples to extoll renunciation and a missionary spirit — and urge brahmacharis to abandon the temples and join the sannyasi parties. The temples, the team argued, were led by presidents who were grihasthas (married men), and grihasthas had a propensity for enjoyment that undermined what should be an austere temple atmosphere.

The conflict reached its peak in 1976 in Mayapur at ISKCON’s annual global gathering when a sannyasi-dominated GBC passed resolutions severely restricting the role of women and families in ISKCON. After hearing from both sides, Prabhupada came down against this type of discrimination, calling it “fanaticism”, and had the GBC undo the resolutions. Prabhupada said, "I cannot discriminate — man, woman, child, rich, poor, educated, or foolish. Let them all come, and let them take Krishna consciousness".

Controversial statements

Prabhupada sometimes made statements that criticize various ideals of modern society or speak offensively of certain groups.

Two essays by Ekkehard Lorenz in The Hare Krishna Movement: The Postcharismatic Fate of a Religious Transplant compile controversial statements made by Prabhupada on slavery, lower castes, Hitler, Darwin’s theory of evolution, the moon landing, and women.

Reviewing the essays, scholar of religion Ravi Gupta writes that they depict Prabhupada as “racist, sexist, intellectually dishonest, ungrateful, unethical, unsophisticated, and unaware of the norms of the societies in which he lived” and blame his teachings “for condoning abuse of children, abuse of women, and abuse by leadership, while promoting dictatorship, intolerance, and autocratic rule by the guru”. As scholar of religion Måns Broo puts it, the compilation “paints a picture of a not very pleasant man, one far removed from the Gaudiya Vaishnava ideals described in the classical texts of the tradition”. And as yet another scholar of religion, Fred Smith, writes, “Lorenz, a former ISKCON member himself, vengefully presents a thoroughly damning view of Bhaktivedanta”.

While Prabhupada’s followers have had to contend with what the statements say, scholars have studied and commented on them.

• On slavery:

"The blacks were slaves. They were under control. And since you have given them equal rights they are disturbing, most disturbing, always creating a fearful situation, uncultured and drunkards. What training they have got? They have got equal rights? It is best, to keep them under control as slaves but give them sufficient food, sufficient cloth, not more than that. Then they will be satisfied".

• On caste:

"Shudras [people of low caste] have no brain". "Shudras does [sic] not require any training. Shudra means no training. Ordinary worker class. Otherwise, other three, especially two, namely the brahmins and kshatriyas, they require very magnificent training".

• On Hitler, Jews, and the Holocaust:

"Sometimes [a person] becomes a great hero — just like Hiranyakashipu and Kamsa or, in the modern age, Napoleon or Hitler. The activities of such men are certainly very great, but as soon as their bodies are finished, everything else is finished".

• On science:

"Darwin’s theory stating that no human beings existed from the beginning but that humans evolved after many, many years is simply nonsensical". Prabhupada referred to Charles Darwin and his followers as “rascals”.

• Prabhupada dismissed reports of the 1969 moon landing:

"Recently they have said that they have gone to the moon but did not find any living entities there. But Srimad-Bhagavatam and the other Vedic literatures do not agree with this foolish conception".

• On women:

"Women cannot properly utilize freedom, and it is better for them to be dependent". "Women in general should not be trusted". "Women are generally not very intelligent".

Responding to Lorenz’s article, Gupta (both an academic and an ISKCON member) writes that Lorenz “simply quotes Prabhupada out of context and then interprets his statements with no regard to Chaitanya Vaishnava theology, the social contexts in which Prabhupada lived, or Prabhupada’s own application of his teachings”.

Regarding context, Broo observes that when Prabhupada speaks, for example, about castes, the immediate context is that of an envisioned “ideal society” made up of self-sufficient agrarian communities in which people would be divided into different occupational groups “based not on hereditary but on individual qualifications”.

File:1973 NY B CT016028 DRUM.tif

An interview with Prabhupada in New York. (1973)

As another example of context, one of Prabhupada’s followers notes in a journal review that Prabhupada was actually speaking of Hitler disparagingly, because the “great heroes” Hiranyakashipu and Kamsa with whom he compared Hitler were Puranic diabolical tyrants.

Yet the reviewer admits that Prabhupada “did not usually condemn Hitler”. Therefore Smith suggests that although scholars of religion will naturally view Prabhupada “within the context of his Gaudiya Vaishnava predecessors”, Prabhupada’s statements (such as those concerning Hitler) also “must be understood in the context of the intellectual and political culture in which he matured” — specifically that of mid-twentieth-century Bengal, brewing with anti-colonialist nationalism championed by such figures as Subhash Chandra Bose, and therefore more favorably disposed to Nazi Germany than to Great Britain.

Both Broo and Smith also mention Prabhupada’s “flair for drama and overstatement”. Prabhupada, it seems, loved to make politically incorrect statements to reporters. As Broo comments, “It is difficult to decide how seriously any single remark is meant to be taken from a transcript”.

Nonetheless, both Broo and Smith comment that this is not enough to clear Prabhupada from blame for the more radical of his politically incorrect statements. Smith speaks of Prabhupada’s  “racism”. One disciple reviewer writes, “A few selected quotes about race and gender from the extensive Bhaktivedanta Vedabase do look unreasonable even in terms of Vaishnava values”, and another disciple-academic notes, “Some of Prabhupada’s statements seem blatantly sexist”.

Scholars have commented, however, on the contrast between such controversial statements and the full picture of what Prabhupada actually taught and did. Prabhupada’s statements about women, for instance, have received extensive consideration from Kim Knott, a scholar in religious studies who in relation to ISKCON describes her perspective as that of both an “outsider” and a “western feminist”. Knott writes:

"What was Prabhupada’s view of these matters? It seems clear from his commentaries, lectures, and conversations that he endorsed the view of the potential liability of a woman’s body both for the soul that resides within it and for others. However, he was most adamant on the point that bhakti yoga, the path of Krishna Consciousness, provided the possibility of transcending the body, whether female or male".

An elderly Hindu monk with a shaved head and in orange traditional robes points his finger at a written note to a young Western bespectacled woman who as she is looking intently at the note. Younger monks are visible in the background.

Prabhupada gives second initiation (gayatri) to Visakha Devi in Mayapur. (1972)

Knott relates Prabhupada’s telling two of his earliest women disciples, “If you think of yourselves as women, how will you make any advancement? You must see yourself as a spirit soul, eternal servant of Krishna”.

Knott continues:

"This was his first point, then, that being a Vaishnavi [a female Vaishnava], a true servant of Krishna, changed the terms of the debate about women. Additionally, through his behavior and teachings he demonstrated that, as Vaishnavis, women devotees — irrespective of their material form compared to men — were equally acceptable as servants of Krishna, equally empowered with intelligence, equally open to spiritual advancement and to contributing to the advancement of others".

Reflecting upon the tension between ancient philosophical ideals and immediate contemporary realities, Knott writes:

"It is commendable in the face of this tension that the founder of the Hare Krishna movement made a philosophy and practice that had once been largely closed to women available to them, allowing them effective equality with men and the opportunity to serve in the same ways despite his own cultural background and the ideal prescriptions of his tradition".

In this way, she writes, Prabhupada took time, place, and circumstance into account and acted in the spirit of Krishna consciousness, “in the manner of Chaitanya”.

Similarly, commenting on the role and degree of responsibility that Prabhupada's statements about women played in their abuse in ISKCON, E. Burke Rochford notes that Prabhupada’s personal example in dealings with his earliest women disciples was "[f]ar more important". Their collective personal experiences, Rochford observes, portray not only Prabhupada’s "respectful attitude and behavior toward his women disciples" in general, but his empowerment of women for the same rights and duties as his male disciples — something deemed "unthinkable" in his own spiritual lineage — as Prabhupada encouraged and engaged women in conducting public scriptural discourses, kirtans and temple worship, writing for ISKCON magazines and publications, personally accompanying and assisting him, and assuming "significant institutional positions in ISKCON".

Along the same lines, author Steven J. Rosen tells of a meeting between Prabhupada and a leading black disciple, Ghanasyama Dasa (later Bhakti Tirtha Swami), during the last months of Prabhupada’s life: “Srila Prabhupada smiled and called him near. Prabhupada then embraced him with tears of love and gratitude. Rubbing Ghanashyam’s head, Srila Prabhupada said, ‘Your life is successful, thank you very much’.” — an intensity of affection rarely shown by Prabhupada to any of his disciples, including those who were white or Indian.

Commenting on the underlying causes for such controversies, scholar of religion Larry Shinn attributes the conflict between Prabhupada's teachings and western cultural values to "[Prabhupada]'s insistence on the infallibility of the Krishna scriptures and (...) the authenticity of Prabhupada’s Krishna faith and practice".

When Prabhupada’s controversial statements seem difficult to defend, his followers have responded in different ways: Some remain silent; others speak of context or allege that, because of negative biases, Prabhupada is being unfairly quoted; and still others are willing to distinguish between his statements they consider “absolute” and those they consider “relative” — that is, they accept “that some of Bhaktivedanta Swami’s teachings are relative to the circumstances and times in which he grew up and lived his life before coming to the US and therefore may or may not be true, in contrast to his absolute spiritual teachings”. And yet other followers see this path as “exceedingly risky” — after all, who is to decide which teachings are relative and which are not? Broo concludes that this is an issue “not likely to be resolved soon”.

Monuments

Statue of Prabhupada at Radha Damodar Mandir in Vrindavan

Samadhi of Swami in Vrindavan.

A number of samadhis or shrines to Prabhupada were constructed by the members of ISKCON, with those in Mayapur and Vrindavan in India being notable. Prabhupada's Palace of Gold, built by the New Vrindavan community in 1979, was intended to be a residence for Prabhupada, but has now developed into a tourist attraction.

In 1996 the Government of India issued a commemorative stamp and in 2021, a Rs 125 commemorative coin in his honour.

Legacy

In 2023, Scottish Church College and The Bhaktivedanta Research Center has established an academic award in honor of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada Memorial Award to keep alive the memory of Prabhupada's college life.

Books and publishing

Srila Prabhupada's books are considered to be among his most significant contributions. During the final twelve years of his life, Prabhupada translated over sixty volumes of classic Hindu scriptures (e.g. Bhagavad Gita, Chaitanya Charitamrita and Srimad Bhagavatam) into the English language. His Bhagavad-gītā As It Is was published by Macmillan Publishers in 1968 with an unabridged edition in 1972. It is now available in over sixty languages around the world with some of his other books available in over eighty different languages.

The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust was established in 1972 to publish his works.

In February 2014, ISKCON's news agency reported reaching a milestone of distributing over half a billion books authored by Swami since 1965.

Bengali writings

• Gītār Gān (in Bengali). c. 1973.

• Vairāgya-vidyā (in Bengali). 1977.

A collection of his early Bengali essays, which were originally printed in a monthly magazine that he edited called Gauḍīya Patrika. Starting in 1976, Bhakti Charu Swami reprinted these essays in Bengali language booklets called Bhagavāner Kathā (Knowledge of the Supreme) [from 1948 & 1949 issues], Bhakti Kathā (The Science of Devotion), Jñāna Kathā (Topics of Spiritual Science), Muni-gānera Mati-bhrama (The Deluded Thinkers), and Buddhi-yoga (The Highest Use of Intelligence), which he later combined into Vairāgya-vidyā. In 1992, an English translation was published called Renunciation Through Wisdom.

• Buddhi-yoga (in Bengali).
• Bhakti-ratna-boli (in Bengali).

Translations with commentary

• Srimad Bhagwatam. Vol. 3 vols. Delhi: League of Devotees. 1962–1965. LCCN sa64001457. OCLC 64215631.
• Bhagavad-gītā As It Is (in Sanskrit and English), New York: Macmillan, 1968, LCCN 68008322, Wikidata Q854700
• Śrī Īśopaniṣad. Boston, Mass.: ISKCON Books. 1969. ISBN 0-89213-138-1. LCCN 78102853. OCLC 70457388. OL 1145820M. Wikidata Q108771214.
• Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Vol. 30 vols. New York: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. 1972–1977. LCCN 73169353.
• Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, vol. 17 vols., New York: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1973–1975, LCCN 74193363, Wikidata Q108771289
• The Nectar of Instruction. New York: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. 1975. LCCN 75039755.
• Teachings of Lord Kapila, the Son of Devahūtī. New York: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. 1977. LCCN 77011077.

Summary studies

• Teachings of Lord Caitanya, a treatise on factual spiritual life. New York: International Society for Krishna Consciousness. 1968. LCCN 68029320.
• Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Vol. 2 vols. Boston, Mass.: ISKON Press. 1970. LCCN 74118081.
• The Nectar of Devotion: The Complete Science of Bhakti-yoga. New York: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. 1970. LCCN 78118082.

Discography

• Krishna Consciousness (12 in. LP record). New York, NY: Happening Records. 1966. OCLC 11402285. CA2210.
• Govinda (12 in. LP record). Los Angeles, CA: Golden Avatar Productions. 1973. LCCN 94748438. OCLC 12622399. GOPI-108.
• Kṛṣṇa Meditation (2 x 12 in. LP records). Germany: Radha Krsna Productions. 1974. OCLC 17247069. RKP-1005.

Other works

• Back to Godhead (magazine). 1944–1966. LCCN 45002240.
• Easy Journey to Other Planets (by practice of Supreme Yoga). Vrindaban, U.P. (India): The League of Devotees. 1960. ISBN 91-7149-699-8. LCCN 70118080.
• Kṛṣṇa Consciousness: The Topmost Yoga System. Boston, Mass.: ISKON Press. 1970. LCCN 77127182.
• Beyond Birth and Death. Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. 1972. ISBN 0-912776-41-2. LCCN 74118081. OCLC 1181333746.
• Kṛṣṇa, the Reservoir of Pleasure. Boston, Mass.: ISKCON Press. 1970. ISBN 0-89213-149-7. OCLC 1086768968.
• The Perfection of Yoga, New York: ISKCON Press, 1972, LCCN 72076302, Wikidata Q108770991
• Elevation to Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. New York: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. 1973. LCCN 73076635.
• On the Way to Kṛṣṇa. New York: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. 1973. LCCN 72084842.
• Rāja-vidyā: The King of Knowledge. New York: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. 1973. LCCN 72084845.
• Kṛṣṇa Consciousness: The Matchless Gift. New York: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. 1974. LCCN 73076634.
• Perfect Questions, Perfect Answers. New York: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. 1977. LCCN 74027525.
• The Science of Self-Realization. New York: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. 1977. ISBN 978-1-84599-039-8. LCCN 77095065. OCLC 819932403. OL 32140029M. Wikidata Q108772906.

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Media

News

• Banerjee, Sudeshna (25 February 2022), "Birthplace of Gaudiya Mission and Iskcon reopens as a temple-cum-museum: The single-storeyed stucture spread over eight cottahs at Gauribari Lane off Raja Dinendra Street", The Telegraph

• BBC (8 February 2002), "BBC News – Americas – Krishnas to file for bankruptcy", BBC UK

• Berkeley (5 January 2023), "Hare Krishna! A San Francisco Śrīla Prabhupāda Pilgrimage", Berkeley Art and Interreligious Pilgrimage Project, retrieved 20 October 2023

• Bratersky, Alexander (28 November 2011), "Krishna Holy Book Faces Ban in Tomsk", Moscow Times, archived from the original on 26 December 2011

• Corley, Felix (5 January 2012), "RUSSIA: Has "madness" of banning religious publications been stopped?", Forum 18, archived from the original on 24 March 2012, retrieved 21 March 2012

• Garga Samhita (16 July 2022), "Verse 1.2.28 [Garga Samhita]", Wisdom Library; The portal for Hinduism, Sanskrit, Buddhism, Jainism, Mesopotamia etc..., retrieved 22 October 2023

• Goodstein, Laurie (9 October 1998), "Hare Krishna Movement Details Past Abuse at Its Boarding Schools", The New York Times, retrieved 6 February 2024

• Hanz, Joyce (8 January 2023), Daycation: Palace of Gold in West Virginia on National Register of Historic Places, TribLIVE, retrieved 27 February 2024

• IANS (4 May 2018), "Facing 'ban Gita' case, Hindus build Krishna temple in Moscow", Deccan Herald, retrieved 1 April 2024

• Jaisinghani, Bella (13 August 2015), "Iskcon founder's journey to west completes 50 years", The Times of India, Mumbai

• Jenkins, Mark (13 July 2017), "'Hare Krishna!' takes an uncritical look at a controversial spiritual movement and its leader", The Washington Post, retrieved 9 February 2024

• Kazmin, Amy Louise (25 April 1998), "The Hare Krishnas caught up with me in New Delhi", Financial Times, At the ceremony, Vajpayee praised devotees for their work towards 'the globalisation of the Gita'. He cited the rapid spread of the movement as proof of 'the disillusionment of leading western minds' with 'materialist ideologies that are incapable of satisfying the real needs of man'. For the Hare Krishnas, long dismissed as fringe weirdos, it was the ultimate stamp of legitimacy.

• Kenigsberg, Ben (5 May 2017), "Summer Movie Release Schedule 2017 (English)", The New York Times

• LA Times (6 March 2016), "Hare Krishnas Say Suit Spurs Bankruptcy Filing", Los Angeles Times, retrieved 7 February 2024

• Maurya, Abhai (22 December 2011), "Russians kick up an unholy row over holy book", The Times of India, retrieved 22 October 2023

• McCarthy, Ellen (11 January 2013), "Can Hare Krishnas at Palace of Gold in W.Va. rebuild its tarnished community?", The Washington Post

• Mehta, Mona (28 December 2011), "Moscow courts had dismissed Gita cases", The Times of India, retrieved 6 February 2024

• Newsweek (23 July 2006), "Beliefwatch: Krishnas' New Look", Newsweek, [Hare Krishnas] are now part of the culture in ways that the average person couldn't have imagined some 20 or 25 years ago. ... ISKCON communities offer premarital counseling, interfaith activities, social-service programs and baby-sitting—just the kind of institutional structure that many early converts were fleeing.

• New York Times (16 November 1977), "Swami Prabhupada, 'Hare Krishna', Dead", The New York Times, p. 2, retrieved 12 February 2024

• Nordheimer, Jon (6 September 1972), "Young Ascetics Honor Lord Krishna", The New York Times, p. 47

• Pandey, Jhimli Mukherjee (11 July 2019), "Iskcon complaint gets UP to revoke road name rejig", The Times of India, Kolkata, India

• Pandey, Jhimli Mukherjee (2 September 2021), "Iskcon acquires founder's birthplace in Tollygunge, West Bengal CM unveils 'spiritual park'", The Times of India, Kolkata, India

• Pandey, Kirti (1 September 2020), "AC Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada Swami birth anniversary: Krishna devotee who founded the million-strong ISKCON", Times Now, If today the Bhagavad Gita is printed in millions of copies in scores of Indian languages and distributed in all nooks and corners of the world, the credit for this great sacred service goes chiefly to ISKCON. ... For this one accomplishment alone, Indians should be eternally grateful to the devoted spiritual army of Swami Prabhupada's followers. The voyage of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada to the United States in 1965 and the spectacular popularity his movement gained in a very short spell of twelve years must be regarded as one of the greatest spiritual events of the century.

• Popham, Peter (12 April 1998), "India's PM takes to robots for Krishna", The Independent, Some people say my government is opposed to globalisation. But let me say I am all in favour of the globalisation of the message of the Bhagavad Gita. ... What we need today is the application on a national scale of the work-related ideology of the Bhagavad Gita. This will create a new work culture, and a new work culture will create a new India.

• Press Trust of India (13 August 2015), "Devotees from 106 countries practice yoga to mark ISKCON", Business Standard, Kolkata

• PTI (1 September 2021), "PM Modi releases special commemorative coin on ISKCON founder's 125th birth anniversary", Times of India, archived from the original on 13 September 2021, retrieved 13 September 2021

• Ritts, Penny (22 September 1965), "Devotee of Hindu Cult Explains Commission to Visit the West", Butler Eagle, Butler, PA

• Schumach, Murray (18 March 1977), "Judge Rejects Charges of 'Brainwashing' Against Hare Krishna Aides", The New York Times, p. 24, retrieved 9 February 2024

• Sikes, James R. (10 October 1966), "Swami's Flock Chants in Park to Find Ecstasy", The New York Times, p. 24

• Surrealist, Children of ISKCON vs.ISKCON Timeline, archived from the original on 9 February 2018, retrieved 22 July 2018

• Taylor, Robert (27 April 1969), "The Search for the Godhead in Boston", Boston Sunday Globe

• The Wall (28 February 2023), "AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada Memorial Award Has Been Launched", The Wall (in Bengali), archived from the original on 22 April 2023, retrieved 20 October 2023

• Tompkins Square Park (9 October 1966), "Tompkins Square Park Highlights", Hare Krishna Tree : NYC Parks, retrieved 20 October 2023

• Uncut (29 May 2013), "George Harrison Memorial Garden opens to the public", Uncut, retrieved 18 March 2024

• Vallely, Paul (21 November 1998), "Spirit of the Age: Rebirth of an ancient religion", The Independent, [T]here is a growing sense that the Hare Krishnas are forming a useful bridge to Britain's Indian community - and at the same time becoming reasonable and articulate exponents to the English of the Vedic way. Perhaps the Hare Krishnas are coming of age.

• Vanina, Elena (23 December 2011), "Dangers of putting Gita on trial", Russia & India Report, retrieved 6 February 2024

• Попова, Анна (28 December 2011), "На поле дхармы", Lenta.ru (in Russian), retrieved 28 December 2011

Officials

• Gabbard, Tulsi (2015), Tulsi Gabbard Message for Srila Prabhupada's Journey to USA_ISKCON 50th Anniversary, retrieved 12 February 2024

• India Govt Mint (2021), PM Modi Released Rs 125 Commemorative Coin To Honour ISKCON Founder

• Modi, Narendra (2021a), PM releases a special commemorative coin on the occasion of 125th Birth Anniversary of Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada Ji

• Modi, Narendra (1 September 2021b), PM's speech at release of commemorative coin on 125th Jayanti of Swami Prabhupada Ji -With Subtitles (in Hindi), retrieved 12 February 2024, It is as if millions of minds are bound by one emotion and millions of bodies are connected by one common consciousness! This is the Krishna consciousness which has been spread by Prabhupada Swami ji to the entire world. (...) Prabhupada Swami was not only a supernatural devotee of Krishna, but he was also a great devotee of Bharat. (...) Srila Prabhupada Swami always used to say that he is traveling in the countries because he wants to give India's most priceless treasure to the world. (...) Swami ji's revered Guruji Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati ji saw that potential in him and instructed him to take the thought and philosophy of India to the world. Srila Prabhupada ji made this command of his Guru his mission, and the result of his efforts is visible in every corner of the world today. (...) When we visit any country and when people greet us with 'Hare Krishna', we feel so much warmth and pride. (...) Srila Prabhupada and ISKCON took up this great responsibility of propounding Bhakti Yoga to the world. He worked to connect Bhakti Vedanta with the consciousness of the world. This was no ordinary task. He started a global mission like ISKCON at the age of about 70, when people become inactive. This is a huge inspiration for our society and for every person. (...) Prabhupada Swami remained active for his resolutions from his childhood till his whole life. When Prabhupada ji went to America by sea, he was almost empty-pocket; he had only Gita and Shrimad Bhagwat! During the journey, he suffered heart attacks twice. When he reached New York, he did not have any arrangements for food and no place to stay. But what the world saw in the next 11 years, in the words of revered Atal ji, it was nothing less than a miracle.

Videos

• IMDb (1996). Gaurav Seth (ed.). "Following Srila Prabhupada (TV Series 1997– )". IMDb. Retrieved 27 February 2024.

• Morarjee, Sumati (2017), Hare Krishna! The Mantra, The Movement And The Swami Who Started It All, event occurs at 34:45, retrieved 12 February 2024

• Syamasundar Das (2017), Hare Krishna! The Mantra, The Movement And The Swami Who Started It All, event occurs at 1:04:45, retrieved 12 February 2024

• Tripati, Keshari Nath (2015), Unveiling of Brass Srila Prabhupada Statue Jaladuta Journey to USA, event occurs at 4:35, retrieved 12 February 2024

ISKCON-related

• A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami (1997), Light of the Bhagavata, Los Angeles, CA: The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, ISBN 9789171492678

• BBT. "Languages". The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. Retrieved 23 October 2023.

• Bhaktivedanta Hospital, "History of Hospital", Bhaktivedanta Hospital & Research Institute, retrieved 21 October 2023

• Bhaktivedanta Research (1 March 2023), "Home", BRC Global, retrieved 21 October 2023

• Bhuta Bhavana Dasa (2018). Siddhanta Dasa (ed.). Prabhupada Memories. Vol. 47. Event occurs at 18:18.

• Child Protection Office (2018), ISKCON Child Protection Guidelines (PDF)

• Das, Daiva Rama (29 February 2020), "Major Street in Ahmedabad Renamed In Honor of Srila Prabhupada", ISKCON News, Gujarat, India

• Garga Samhita (16 July 2022), "Verse 1.2.28 [Garga Samhita]", Wisdom Library; The portal for Hinduism, Sanskrit, Buddhism, Jainism, Mesopotamia etc..., retrieved 22 October 2023

• GBC (2024). "List of Initiating Gurus in ISKCON".

• Haribol, Thomas (16 August 2023). "NE-BBT Releases 2022 Stats Showing Growth in Distribution, Printing, eBooks, and More". ISKCON News. Retrieved 23 October 2023.

• ISKCON (9 July 2011). "India". ISKCON Centers - World wide directory of official ISKCON Centres & Branches. Retrieved 23 October 2023.

• Prabhupada, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami (1965), The Jaladuta Diary (PDF), The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust

• PrabhupadaDotCom. "About Srila Prabhupada". Prabhupada.com. Retrieved 27 February 2024.

• PrabhupadaMemories. "Prabhupada Memories". Retrieved 27 February 2024.

• Reviews, Scholarly Appreciations of Srila Prabhupada's Books, retrieved 23 August 2013

• Smullen, Madhava (20 August 2018), "Srila Prabhupada and Jaladuta Sculpture Installed Outside ISKCON Boston", ISKCON News

• Vanipedia (2024). "Timeline of Srila Prabhupada's Life".

• Vedabase (14 February 1977). "Room Conversation — Varṇāśrama System Must Be Introduced". Online Vedabase. Retrieved 22 October 2023.

• Vedabase (21 May 1973). "Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.1.10". Online Vedabase. Retrieved 22 October 2023.

• Vedabase (28 July 2021). "Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 4.25.10". Online Vedabase. Retrieved 22 October 2023.

Works by Prabhupada's followers

• Greene, Joshua (2006), Here Comes the Sun. The Spiritual and Musical Journey of George Harrison, Los Angeles, CA: Turner Publishing, ISBN 9780471690214

• Greene, Joshua (2016), Swami in a Strange Land, San Rafael: Mandala Publishing, ISBN 9781608876440

• Griesser, John; Griesser, Jean; Ross, Lauren (15 December 2017), Hare Krishna: The Mantra, the Movement and the Swami Who Started It All, India: Spirituality & Practice, retrieved 29 August 2023

• Hayagriva Dasa (1970), "The Spiritual Master: Emissary of the Supreme Person" (PDF), Back to Godhead, no. 38

• Hayagriva Dasa (1985), The Hare Krishna Explosion: The Birth of Krishna Consciousness in America, 1966-1969 (PDF), Moundsville, WV: Palace Press

• Jayadvaita Swami (2015), Vanity Karma: Ecclesiastes, the Bhagavad-gita, and the meaning of life, Los Angeles, CA: The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, ISBN 9780892134496

• Kaunteya Das (2022), Tough Questions, Difficult Answers on Srila Prabhupada’s Contentious Remarks, Eye of the Storm Press

• Kurma Dasa (1999), The Great Transcendental Adventure: Pastimes of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in Australia and New Zealand, Botany, Australia: Chakra Press, ISBN 9780947259228

• Mukunda Goswami (2011), Miracle on Second Avenue: Hare Krishna Arrives in the West, Badger, CA: Torchlight Publishing, ISBN 978-0981727349

• Ravindra Svarupa Dasa (1993), "Disease", Back to Godhead magazine, 27 (1), The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust

• Rosen, Steven J. (2007b), Black Lotus: The Spiritual Journey of an Urban Mystic, Hari-Nama Press, ISBN 979-8640550719

• Satsvarupa dasa Goswami (2002), Srila Prabhupada-lilamrta, Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, ISBN 9780892133550

• Satyaraja Dasa (2011), "A Spiritual Happening on the Lower East Side", Back to Godhead, 45 (2)

• TheTVDB. "Following Srila Prabhupada". The TVDB. Retrieved 27 February 2024.

Further reading

• Zeller, Benjamin E. (2023), "The Hare Krishna Look: ISKCON Adornment as Religious Activism", in Zeller, Benjamin E.; Dallam, Marie W. (eds.), Religion, Attire, and Adornment in North America, Columbia University Press, pp. 295–319, ISBN 9780231555548

• Sengupta, Hindol (2023), Sing, Dance and Pray: The Inspirational Story of Srila Prabhupada Founder-Acharya of Iskcon, India Penguin Ananda, ISBN 9780143462446

External links

• Vanipedia — Online repository of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada's legacy
• Bhaktivedanta Vedabase – Official online multilingual library of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
• The Bhaktivedanta Archives — Archives of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
• A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada at Curlie
• A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada at IMDb
• BnF 118918976 – Bhaktivedanta Swami, A. C. (1896–1977)
• A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Works by or about A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada at Internet Archive