96 The Nectar of Instruction

to devote more time to his studies and writing. Srila Prabhu-
pada traveled to the holy city of Vrndavana, where he lived
in very humble circumstances in the historic medieval tem-
ple of Radha-Damodara. There he engaged for several years
in deep study and writing. He accepted the renounced order
of life (sannydsa) in 1959. At Radha-Damodara, Srila
Prabhupada began work on his life’s masterpiece: a
multivolume translation and commentary on the eighteen
thousand verse Srimad-Bhagavatam (Bhagavata Purana).
He also wrote Easy Journey to Other Planets. ;

After publishing three volumes of Bhdagavatam, Srila
Prabhupada 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 trans-
lations, commentaries and summary studies of the philo-
sophical and religious classics of India.

In 1965, when he first arrived by freighter in New York
City, Srila Prabhupada was practically penniless. It was after
almost a year of great difficulty that he established the Inter-
national Society for Krishna Consciousness in July of 1966.
Under his careful guidance, the Society has grown within a
decade to a worldwide confederation of almost one hundred
asramas, schools, temples, institutes and farm communities.

In 1968, Srila Prabhupada created New Vrndavana, an
experimental Vedic community in the hills of West Virginia.
Inspired by the success of New Vrndavana, now a thriving
farm community of more than one thousand acres, his stu-
dents have since founded several! similar communities in the
United States and abroad.

In 1972, His Divine Grace introduced the Vedic system of
primary and secondary education in the West by founding
