How Srila Prabhupada Brought Kirtan to the West

When A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada boarded the steamship Jaladuta in Calcutta in August 1965, he was 69 years old and carried little more than a suitcase, an umbrella, some dry cereal, about seven dollars in rupees, and two hundred sets of his Srimad-Bhagavatam translations. He suffered two heart attacks during the 35-day crossing and arrived in Boston harbor on September 17, 1965, before continuing on to New York City.

He had been asked by his teacher, in the line descending from Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, to carry the chanting of the holy names to the English-speaking world. In the summer of 1966 he settled into a small storefront at 26 Second Avenue on the Lower East Side — its previous sign, "Matchless Gifts," still hanging out front — and began holding evening classes and Kirtan. In July 1966 he incorporated the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).

Then came the moment that changed Western spiritual culture. On October 9, 1966, Prabhupada led his young followers to Tompkins Square Park, sat beneath an American elm, and began a two-hour public chant of the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra — the first great outdoor Kirtan in the West, with Beat poet Allen Ginsberg among the crowd. That elm still stands, honored today as the Hare Krishna Tree.

From that single storefront, Kirtan spread to city streets around the world — the shaved heads, the mridanga drums, the brass kartals, and above all the mantra itself, which entered Western popular culture within a few short years. Prabhupada passed away in Vrindavan in 1977, but the sound he carried across the ocean never stopped. Among the young Americans he initiated was a Chicago-born seeker who had hitchhiked overland to India on his own spiritual search — today known as Radhanath Swami, one of the most beloved living teachers in Prabhupada's line, whose memoir The Journey Home tells that story.

The lineage he planted keeps blossoming into new voices. Gaura Vani and The Mayapuris grew up inside the communities Prabhupada founded; Acyuta Gopi leads Kirtan from the same New York City where he first chanted in the park; and Jahnavi Harrison and Radhika Das carry the sankirtana tradition to new audiences across the UK and beyond.