New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

New Vrindaban Days As New Vrindaban winds up its celebration for its 50th anniversary (1968 to 2018), begins its 50th year of cow protection (1969 to 2019) as well as the 40th anniversary of the dedication of Srila Prabhupada’s Palace (1979 to 2019), I wrote this series of articles for the Brijabasi Spirit in an […]

By Madhava Smullen for ISKCON New Vrindaban Communications Archival Research by Chaitanya Mangala Dasa In the early 1960s, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the Hare Krishna Movement, was a simple Swami living in the village of Vrindavan, in Uttar Pradesh, India. Vrindavan, the land where five thousand years ago Lord Krishna grew up […]

Srila Prabhupada’s New Vrindaban Visits Written By Madhava Smullen for ISKCON New Vrindaban Communications Archival Research by Chaitanya Mangala Dasa ISKCON Founder-Acharya Srila Prabhupada visited New Vrindaban four times, giving the devotees there his association and dispensing practical advice for simple living that remains invaluable not only to New Vrindaban, but to all ISKCON rural […]

Back to Godhead Magazine, January/February 2018 issue New Vrindaban: An Overview in Honor of Its 50th Anniversary By Satyaraja Dasa Archival Research by Chaitanya Mangala Dasa With the successful worldwide celebration of ISKCON’s fiftieth anniversary in 2016, another semicentennial event naturally follows in its wake: commemoration of the founding of New Vrindaban in 1968, two […]

 Written by Madhava Smullen. Archival Research by Chaitanya Mangala. There’s no doubt that protecting cows was very close to Srila Prabhupada’s heart. In a series of Back to Godhead magazine articles in the mid 1950s, he was already envisioning a community where residents lived a simple life and protected cows. Soon after registering ISKCON in […]

By Madhava Smullen The 45th annual Janmastami festival at New Vrindaban in the USA this Labor Day Weekend saw more exciting progress made in revealing Lord Krishna’s holy dhama (abode) of Vrindavan there. The West Virginia village was established in 1968 by ISKCON founder Srila Prabhupada, who described it as “non-different from the original Vrindavan” […]

Written by Madhava Smullen. Archival Research by Chaitanya Mangala. June 21st, 1976 was a normal day at the Pittsburgh International airport until a group of Krishna devotees from New Vrindaban, dressed in an odd combination of dhotis or saris with large rubber farm boots, appeared. Commuters stared open-mouthed as the fifty-strong crew exploded into a […]

Strengthening The Vision:  Prabhupada’s Third Visit to New Vrindaban  Written by Madhava Smullen. Archival Research by Chaitanya Mangala.  From July 18th to 23rd 1974, Srila Prabhupada visited New Vrindaban for the third time, to further establish his vision for it as a sacred place known worldwide for five primary things: cow protection, simple-living, holy pilgrimage, […]

Below is an excerpt from the introduction to “Nava Vraja Mahima,” the nine volume series is “an epic work of over 4,000 pages on The Glories of New Vraja Dhama,” written by His Holiness Sivarama Swami. ——————————– Among Srila Prabhupada’s many innovations is the concept of “farming communities,” of which the first was New Vrindaban. The instructions […]