Founder-Acarya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness
His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977) is widely regarded as the
foremost Vedic scholar, translator and spiritual teacher of the modern era. He
is especially respected as the world’s most prominent contemporary authority on
bhakti-yoga, devotional service to the Supreme Personality of
Godhead, Krishna, as taught by the ancient Vedic writings of India. He is
also the Founder-Acarya of the International Society for
Krishna Consciousness.
Srila
Prabhupada, as he is known to his followers, translated and commented on over
eighty volumes of the most important sacred bhakti texts of
the Vedas, including the Bhagavad-gita, the multi-volume Srimad-Bhagavatam,
The Nectar of Devotion (Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu) and Sri
Caitanya Caritamrta. The latter being the most authoritative biography on
the life and precepts of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, the divine incarnation of Lord Krishna who revived Krishna-bhakti all over India in the 1500s.
Srila Prabhupada
met his spiritual master Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura for the first
time in 1922. During that meeting Bhaktisiddhanta instructed him to preach
Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s teachings throughout the English-speaking world.
While maintaining family and
business responsibilities, Srila Prabhupada struggled for forty years within
India to carry out the order of his guru. Then in his latter years, he boarded
a steamship bound from Kolkata to New York City in 1965. At the age of
sixty-nine, with forty rupees and a trunk of his Bhagavatam with his
profound English commentaries, his aim was to introduce Krishna consciousness
to the Western world.
During the last twelve years of
his life, Srila Prabhupada inspired thousands of people from West and East
alike to devote their lives to Krishna consciousness, launching one of the
fastest-growing spiritual movements in the history of the world.
Many scholars
and professors who met him and became familiar with his work continue to use
Srila Prabhupada’s books as standard university texts, and regard him as a
genuine, realised, and scholarly teacher of the bhakti tradition.
In July 1966 he
founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) popularly
known as the “Hare Krishna” movement. In this way he fulfilled his
spiritual master’s instruction and the desire of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu that
the holy name of the Lord be spread in every town and village all around the
world.
(c) copyright by Bhakti Charu Swami