His Holiness Jayapataka Swami

His Holiness Jayapataka Swami appeared on the Ekadasi after Rama Navami amid opulent surroundings, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, North America. During his childhood he displayed extraordinary intelligence and great interest in philosophy and spiritual matters. When he was afflicted by a skin disease at the age of 11, at a suggestion of his grandfather, he cured himself simply by invoking the Holy Name of the Lord.

After graduating from the prestigious St John's Academy, he entered the Brown University on full scholarship. There, as a fresh enrolee, he was so much impressed by a guest lecture on the life of Lord Buddha that he lost all interest in his studies and began searching for a spiritual master. Realising that he would not get any bona fide spiritual master in the West he decided to go to India. But by the will of the Lord he met the disciples of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, Srila Prabhupada and joined them on a Rathayatra day in San Francisco. He then went on to Montreal and met Srila Prabhupada.

During those days he accepted ordinary jobs in order to raise funds for the temple. He was then initiated as Jayapataka Das Brahmacari by His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada. In addition to personally serving Srila Prabhupada, he served as Pujari and later as the Temple President of the Montreal temple. Following Srila Prabhupada's order he helped found the Toronto, Canada and Chicago, USA temples of the International Society Of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).

In 1970 Srila Prabhupada sent him to India in order to establish ISKCON centres in Sri Mayapur and Vrndavana. He joined Sri Acyutananda Das and began doing pioneering work of ISKCON in India on behalf of Srila Prabhupada. They would do kirtan, enroll Life Patron Members, deliver lectures, and perform public and private programs in people's homes.

In the same year, 1970 on the Holy Radhastami Day he was initiated into the renounced order of life, Sannyasa, by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami who gave him the name Jayapataka Swami.

As the president of the ISKCON Calcutta, he helped to organize two gigantic programs at which over 34,000 people gathered to hear Srila Prabhupada.

In 1971, land was obtained in Sri Mayapur for constructing the world headquarters of ISKCON's international preaching centre and Srila Prabhupada assigned him to develop the project as his life's mission. "I have given you the kingdom of God, now you develop it", Srila Prabhupada told him. He recognised the deities of Sri Sri Radha Madhava, the presiding Deities of Sri Mayapur Chandrodaya Mandir from a dream he had had years ago while preaching in the West.

Since that time, he has worked tirelessly and preached dynamically in India and around the globe. He has learned many Indian as well as foreign languages and has wonderfully accepted the original Vedic culture, mainly the culture of Caitanya Mahaprabhu's Bengal. He organized the ISKCON Food Relief program in India after the Bangladesh war to feed the refuges and hungry people. This program has continued for over a decade, feeding an average of around 4,000,000 plates of nourishing Krishna prasadam per year to the needy, without any discrimination.

During the 1978 and 1995 floods in Bengal he did a remarkable job and sometimes he would even risk his life in distributing Prasadam to the affected villagers. All this selfless service caused several prominent Indians and tens of thousands of villagers to petition the Indian government to grant him Indian citizenship.

In 1978 after the departure of Srila Prabhupada, His Holiness Jayapataka Swami began accepting disciples on behalf of the Gaudiya Sampradaya. He is at present one of the initiating spiritual masters (guru) of ISKCON and a member of the Governing Body Commission (GBC), as well as divisional trustee for the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust (BBT).

At present His Holiness Jayapataka Swami is continuously travelling around the world preaching the message of Lord Caitanya. Continuously involved in the planning and development of the Mayapur World Headquarters Project, he is also the ISKCON Minister of Congregational Preaching, to help spread the chanting of Hare Krishna to every town and village. He is assisting in publishing many of Srila Prabhupada's books in different Indian languages.

He has translated several important Vaishnava texts into English including "Vaishnava Ke!", originally written in Bengali by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, and is currently preparing other important works including "Caitanya lila" a book containing all the pastimes of Lord Caitanya.