page_title: A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
section_title: Within India
hierarchical_section_title: A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada / Within India
caption_attribution_description: English: ISKCON temple in Delhi, India.Русский: Храм Международного общества сознания Кришны в городе Дели, Индия
context_page_description: Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami or Srila Prabhupada, born Abhay Charan De, was an Indian spiritual teacher and the founder-preceptor of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, commonly known as the "Hare Krishna Movement". Members of the ISKCON movement view Bhaktivedānta Swāmi as a representative and messenger of Krishna Chaitanya.
  Appearing in Kolkata, he was educated at the Scottish Church College there. Before adopting the life of a novice renunciate in 1950, he was married with children and owned a small pharmaceutical business. In 1959 he took a vow of renunciation and started writing commentaries on Vaishnava scriptures. In his later years, as a travelling Vaishnava monk, he became an influential communicator of Gaudiya Vaishnava theology to India and specifically to the West through his leadership of ISKCON, founded in 1966. As the founder of ISKCON, he "emerged as a major figure of the Western counterculture, initiating thousands of young Americans." He was criticized by anti-cult groups, but was well regarded by religious scholars, such as J.
context_section_description: Beginning his public preaching mission in India, he founded the League of Devotees in Jhansi in 1953.
  Following the establishment of temples and centres in the United States and Europe, he returned to India in 1971, holding many public programs which were well attended. From 1971 onwards, the movement became increasingly popular and spread throughout India. He was particularly eager to see the progress on "the impressive temple project in" Mumbai which he and his disciples had fought with determination to establish, with large temples in Mayapur and Vrindavan to follow in the mid-1970s. To promote the vedic education system within the modern Indian education structure, he introduced a chain of Gurukul in various part of India. The Bhaktivedanta Gurukula and International School is one of the most successful schools in the list.
  In 1996, the Government of India recognized his accomplishments by issuing a commemorative stamp in his honour as a part of Prabhupada Centennial celebrations.
  Speaking at the inauguration of ISKCON's cultural centre in New Delhi on the occasion of Ramnavmi in 1998, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, then newly elected as India's prime minister, said:
  If today the Bhagavad Gita is printed in millions of copies in scores of Indian languages and distributed in all nooks and corners of the world, the credit for this great sacred service goes chiefly to ISKCON. ...
  For this one accomplishment alone, Indians should be eternally grateful to the devoted spiritual army of Swami Prabhupada's followers. The voyage of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada to the United States in 1965 and the spectacular popularity his movement gained in a very short spell of twelve years must be regarded as one of the greatest spiritual events of the century.
  — Atal Bihari Vajpayee – 5 April 1998
  Srila Prabhupada also saw the dream to built an Temple of Vedic Planetarium which will show creation of world according to Bhagvatam for which he asked his disciple Alfred Ford known as Ambarish Das (his initiation name).This temple is being built in Mayapur.
caption: ISKCON Temple in Delhi, India
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "<Digimax V5 / Kenox V5>", "Image Make": "SAMSUNG TECHWIN CO., LTD", "Image Model": "Digimax V5 / Kenox V5", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "96", "Image YResolution": "96", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "5241", "Image DateTime": "2004:11:21 15:43:36", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "COPYRIGHT, 2004", "Image ExifOffset": "290", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "1", "Thumbnail YResolution": "1", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "41946", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9792", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/125", "EXIF FNumber": "49/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2004:11:21 15:43:36", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2004:11:21 15:43:36", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "375307/102400", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "223/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "147/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "23/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "99/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2560", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1920", "EXIF RelatedSoundFile": "RelatedSound", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "41810", "EXIF ExposureIndex": "1", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "49", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}