Life & Legacy
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada arrived in New York City in 1965 at the age of sixty-nine, with little money and a mission given by his teacher, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati: to spread the chanting of the holy names in the English-speaking world. In 1966 he founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) and led public Kirtan in Tompkins Square Park — sessions attended by the poet Allen Ginsberg — that introduced the Hare Krishna maha-mantra to a generation of Western seekers.
Over the next decade he traveled the world, established temples on every continent, and translated and commented on dozens of classical Vaishnava texts. The worldwide explosion of Hare Krishna Kirtan — and much of the contemporary Western Kirtan scene that grew up around and alongside it — traces directly to his work.
