Sunday, 23 June 2019 / Published in Inspiration

West Bengal Tourism Presents – Gaura Purnima Festival, ISKCON Mayapur

With the help of Sriman Subrata das from ISKCON Mayapur, the West Bengal Department of Tourism recently produced this video documentary of Gaura Purnima at ISKCON Mayapur. With the purpose of expanding the already popular Holy Tirtha of Sridham Mayapur, the birthplace of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, which is currently visited by over 5 million pilgrims annually, this video will help to bring Mahaprabhu’s message to millions more, especially in lieu of the Grand Opening of the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium in 2022.

The below article about ISKCON Mayapur appears along with the video by the West Bengal Tourism Department on their Youtube Channel, WBTourism.

ISKCON is an organization founded by Srila Prabhupada, a Bengalee born at Kolkata, who at the age of 69 embarked on this mission of spreading the message of Krishna in foreign countries as per the orders of his spiritual master Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura. It follows the Gaudiya Vaishnab Tradition of Sri Chaitanaya Mahaprbhu. As a result of Srila Prabhupada’s endeavor, many foreigners across the globe got acquainted with the Vedic culture and Sanatana dharma. They adopted a Saatvic lifestyle as prescribed in the Vedic scriptures.

Mayapur ISKCON temple at Nabadwip, the birth place of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, is the Head Quarter of ISKCON. It is one of the 20 sacred places most visited in the whole world with almost 5 million visitants/guests around the year!

ISKCON devotees follow a disciplined line of Gaudiya Bhagavata Vaishnavas and are the largest branch of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Vaishnavism means ‘worship of Vishnu’, and Gauda refers to the area where this particular branch of Vaishnavism originated, in the Gauda region of West Bengal. Gaudiya Vaishnavism has had a following in India, especially West Bengal and Odisha, for the past five hundred years. Bhaktivedanta Swami disseminated Gaudiya Vaishnava Theology in the Western world through extensive writings and translations, including the Bhagavad Gita, Srimad Bhagavatam (Bhagavata Purana), Chaitanya Charitamrita, and other scriptures. These works are now available in more than seventy languages and serve as the canon of ISKCON. Many are available online.

Krishna is described as the source of all the avatars of God. Thus ISKCON devotees worship Krishna as the highest form of God, svayam bhagavan, and often refer to Him as “the Supreme Personality of Godhead” in writing, which was a phrase coined by Prabhupada in his books on the subject. To devotees, Radha represents Krishna’s divine female counterpart, the original spiritual potency, and the embodiment of divine love. The individual soul is an eternal personal identity which does not ultimately merge into any formless light or void as suggested by the monistic (Advaita) schools of Hinduism. Prabhupada most frequently offers Sanatana-dharma and Varnashrama dharma as more accurate names for the religious system which accepts Vedic authority. It is a monotheistic tradition which has its roots in the theistic Vedanta traditions.