Srila Prabhupada
The Saint Who Walked Among Us
His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada came into this world in 1896 in Calcutta, India. Born into a family of orthodox Vaishnavas, he was taught the ancient spiritual science of Krishna Bhakti (devotion to God) from an early age.
He first met his guru (spiritual master) in 1922 and was requested by him to spread Krishna consciousness to the Western world. Dedicating his life to this purpose, he began Back To Godhead magazine in 1944 and after years of deep study, began his life's masterwork, the English translation and commentary on the eighteen thousand verse Srimad Bhagavatam.
At the age of seventy, Srila Prabhupada arrived in the United States with little more than a trunk of his books and within a year, founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in 1966. Over the next eleven years, he carefully guided his society and saw it grow to a worldwide confederation of over one hundred temples, schools and farm communities.
Circling the globe fourteen times on tours that took him to six continents, he still regularly worked in the early morning hours, writing prolifically. His nearly seventy books constitute a comprehensive library of Vedic philosophy, religion, literature and culture. His writings have been translated into over forty-five languages and full sets of his books can be found in 90 percent of the major colleges and universities in the world.
Srila Prabhupada left this world in 1977, but for the sincere student who desires his association, he lives forever within his books and through the Krishna Consciousness movement.