The Author
His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda appeared in this world in 1896 in Calcutta, India. He first met his spiritual master, Śrila Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvati Gosvāmī, in Calcutta in 1922. Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvati, a prominent devotional scholar and the founder of sixty-four Gaudiya Maṭhas (Vedic institutes), liked this educated young man and convinced him to dedicate his life to teaching Vedic knowledge. Śrila Prabhupāda became his student, and eleven years later (1933) at Allahabad he became his formally initiated disciple.
At their first meeting, in 1922, Śrila Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvati Thākura requested Śrila Prabhupāda to broadcast Vedic knowledge through the English language. In the years that followed, Śrila Prabhupāda wrote a commentary on the  Bhagavad-gītā , assisted the Gaudiya Maṭha in its work and, in 1944, without assistance, started an English fortnightly magazine, edited it, typed the manuscripts and checked the galley proofs. He even distributed the individual copies freely and struggled to maintain the publication. Once begun, the magazine never stopped; it is now being continued by his disciples in the West.
Recognizing Śrila Prabhupāda's philosophical learning and devotion, the Gaudiya Vaiṣṇava Society honored him in 1947 with the title "Bhaktivedanta." In 1950, at the age of fifty-four, Śrila Prabhupāda retired from married life, and four years later he adopted the  vānaprastha  (retired) order to devote more time to his studies and writing. Śrila Prabhupāda traveled to the holy city of Vṛndāvana, where he lived in very humble circumstances in the historic medieval temple of Rādhā-Dāmodara. There he engaged for several years in deep study and writing. He accepted the renounced order of life ( sannyāsa ) in 1959. At Rādhā-Dāmodara, Śrila Prabhupāda began work on his life's masterpiece: a multivolume translation and commentary on the eighteen thousand verse  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam  ( Bhāgavata Purāṇa ). He also wrote  Easy Journey to Other Planets .
After publishing three volumes of  Bhāgavatam , Śrila Prabhupāda came to the United States, in 1965, to fulfill the mission of his spiritual master. Since that time, His Divine Grace has written over forty volumes of authoritative translations, commentaries and summary studies of the philosophical and religious classics of India.
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