Who is Srila Prabhupada
Monday, January 7, 2008 by Hare Krsna
His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada appeared in this world in 1896 in Calcutta, India. He first met his spiritual master, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Goswami in Calcutta in 1922. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta the foremost scholar and devotee of his time had founded the Gaudiya Matha (a Vedic institute with sixty-four branches throughout India). He liked this educated young man and convinced him to dedicate his life to teaching Vedic knowledge. 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 followed, Srila Prabhupada wrote a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, the most important Vedic text, and he assisted the Gaudiya Matha in its work. In 1944 he single-handedly started an English fortnightly magazine called Back to Godhead. He edited and typed the manuscripts, checked the galley proofs and even distributed the copies for free and struggled to maintain the publication.
Recognizing Srila Prabhupada's philosophical learning and devotion, the Gaudiya Vaisnava Society honored him in 1944 with the title "Bhaktivedanta." In 1950, at age fifty-four, Srila Prabhupada retired from family life. Four years liter he adopted the vanaprastha (retired) order to devote more time to his studies and writing, and soon he traveled to the holy city of Vrndavana. There he lived in a small room in the historic Radha-Damodara temple and engaged in several years of deep study and writing In I 959 he accepted the renounced order of life (sannyasa). At Radha Damodara, Srila Prabhupada wrote Easy Journey to Other Planets and started his life s masterpiece – a multivolume translation of and commentary on the eighteen-thousand-verse Srimad Bhagavatam, the cream of the Vedic literatures.
After publishing three volumes of the Bhagavatam Srila Prabhupada came to the United States in 1965 to fulfill the mission of his spiritual master. After that time, His Divine Grace wrote some eighty volumes of authoritative translations, commentaries, and summary studies of the philosophical and religious classics of India. When he first arrived by freighter in New York City Srila Prabhupada was practically penniless. But after nearly a year of great difficulty, he founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness in July of 1966. Before his much-lamented passing on November 14 1977 he guided the Society and saw it grow to a worldwide confederation of more than one hundred ashrams, 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 (now a thriving farm community of more than one thousand acres), his students have since founded several similar communities in the United States and abroad.
In 1975 Srila Prabhupada s magnificent Krsna-Balarama Temple and International Guesthouse opened in Vrindavana, India. In 1978 a four-acre cultural complex (including a temple, modern theater, guesthouse, and vegetarian restaurant) opened at Juhu Beach, in Bombay. Perhaps Srila Prabhupada s most ambitious project is a planned city of fifty thousand residents in Mayapur, West Bengal. Sridhama Mayapur will stand as a model for the whole world — a microcosm of Vedic life as it was five thousand years ago.
In addition, Srila Prabhupada gave the West the Vedic system of primary and secondary education. The gurukula ("the school of the spiritual master") started only in 1972, but already it has hundreds of students and many branches around the world.
Srila Prabhupada's most significant contribution, of course, is his books. The academic community respects them for their authoritativeness, depth, and clarity, and has made them standard textbooks in numerous college courses. In addition, translations of Srila Prabhupada s books now appear in twenty-five languages. The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, established in 1972 primarily 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. A recent project has been the publishing of a seventeen-volume translation and commentary—which Srila Prabhupada completed in only eighteen months—on the Bengali religious classic Sri Caitanya-caritamrta. In just twelve years, in spite of his advanced age, Srila Prabhupada circled the globe fourteen times on lecture tours that took him to six continents. In spite of such a vigorous schedule, Srila Prabhupada continued to write prolifically. His writings are a library of Vedic philosophy, religion, and culture.
(Reprinted from the BBT publication "The Science of Self Realization"— "About the Author.")
