page_title: International Society for Krishna Consciousness
section_title: Succession of teachings
hierarchical_section_title: International Society for Krishna Consciousness / Management structure / Succession of teachings
caption_attribution_description: English: A Japa mala, or set of prayer beads, made from Tulasi wood. There are a total of 108 beads, including the head bead.
context_page_description: The International Society for Krishna Consciousness, known colloquially as the Hare Krishna movement or Hare Krishnas, is a Gaudiya Vaishnava religious organisation. ISKCON was founded in 1966 in New York City by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Its core beliefs are based on the Vedic scriptures, particularly the Bhagavad Gita and the Bhagavata Purana, and the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, which has had adherents in India since the late 15th century and American and European devotees since the early 1900s.
  The organization was formed to spread the practice of Bhakti yoga, the practice of love of God in which those involved dedicate their thoughts and actions towards pleasing Krishna, the Supreme Lord. Its most rapid expansions in membership as of 2007 have been within India and especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in Russia, Ukraine, and the rest of the ex-Soviet aligned states of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
  Today, it has around a million congregational members worldwide including 15,000 in the United Kingdom as of June 2019, and despite the "relatively small number of followers in the West", it has been described as influential.
context_section_description: ISKCON's founder A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada claimed to belong to the traditional system of paramparā, or disciplic succession, in which teachings upheld by scriptures are handed down from master to disciple, generation after generation.
caption: Chanting beads, normally of tulasi wood given by an ISKCON Guru at the initiation to an ISKCON devotee of Krishna.
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