His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada was born in 1896 in
Calcutta, India. He first met his spiritual master, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta
Sarasvati Gosvami, in Calcutta in 1922. Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, a prominent
devotional scholar and the founder of sixty-four branches of Gaudiya Mathas
(Vedic institutes), liked this educated young man and convinced him to dedicate
his life to teaching Vedic knowledge in the Western world. Srila Prabhupada
became his student, and eleven years later (1933) at Allahabad, he became his
formally initiated disciple.
At their first meeting, in 1922, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura
requested Srila Prabhupada to broadcast Vedic knowledge through the English
language. In the years that followed, Srila Prabhupada wrote a commentary on
the Bhagavad-gita and in 1944, without assistance, started an English
fortnightly magazine.
Recognizing Srila Prabhupada's philosophical learning and devotion, the Gaudiya
Vaisnava Society honored him in 1947 with the title "Bhaktivedanta."
In 1950, at the age of fifty-four, Srila Prabhupada retired from married life,
and four years later he adopted the vanaprastha (retired) order to devote more
time to his studies and writing. Srila Prabhupada traveled to the holy city of
Vrndavana, where he lived in very humble circumstances in the historic medieval
temple of Radha-Damodara. There he engaged for several years in deep study and
writing. He accepted the renounced order of life (sannyasa) in 1959. At
Radha-Damodara, Srila Prabhupada began work on his life's masterpiece: a
multivolume translation and commentary on the 18,000-verse Srimad-Bhagavatam
(Bhagavata Purana). He also wrote Easy Journey to Other Planets.
After publishing three volumes of Bhagavatam, Srila Prabhupada came to the
United States, in 1965, to fulfill the mission of his spiritual master. Since
that time, His Divine Grace has written over sixty volumes of authoritative
translations, commentaries and summary studies of the philosophical and
religious classics of India.
In 1965, when he first arrived by freighter in New York City, Srila
Prabhupada was practically penniless. It was after almost a year of great
difficulty that he established the International Society for Krishna
Consciousness in July of 1966. Under his careful guidance, the Society has grew
within a decade to a worldwide confederation of almost one hundred asramas,
schools, temples, institutes and farm communities.
In 1968, Srila Prabhupada created New Vrndavana, an experimental Vedic
community in the hills of West Virginia. Inspired by the success of New
Vrndavana, then a thriving farm community of more than one thousand acres, his
students founded several similar communities in the United States and abroad.
In 1972, His Divine Grace introduced the Vedic system of primary and
secondary education in the West by founding the Gurukula school in Dallas,
Texas. The school began with three children in 1972, and by the beginning of
1975 the enrollment had grown to one hundred fifty.
Srila Prabhupada also inspired the construction of a large international
center at Sridhama Mayapur in West Bengal, India, which is also the site for a
planned Institute of Vedic Studies. A similar project is the magnificent
Krsna-Balarama Temple and International Guest House in Vrndavana, India. These
are centers where Westerners can live to gain firsthand experience of Vedic
culture.
Srila Prabhupada's most significant contribution, however, is his books.
Highly respected by the academic community for their authoritativeness, depth
and clarity, they are used as standard textbooks in numerous college courses.
His writings have been translated into eleven languages. The Bhaktivedanta Book
Trust, established in 1972 exclusively to publish the works of His Divine
Grace, has thus become the world's largest publisher of books in the field of
Indian religion and philosophy.
In the last ten years of his life, in spite of his advanced age, Srila Prabhupada
circled the globe twelve times on lecture tours that have took him to six
continents. In spite of such a vigorous schedule, Srila Prabhupada continued to
write prolifically. His writings constitute a veritable library of Vedic
philosophy, religion, literature and culture.
Srila Prabhupada left us a veritable library of Vedic philosophy and
culture. Highly respected by scholars for their authority, depth, and clarity,
his books are used at colleges and universities around the world.
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