298 Srimad-Bhagavatam

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 International Society for Krishna Con-
sciousness in July of 1966. Under his careful guidance, the Society has
grown within a decade to a worldwide confederation of almost one
hundred dsramas, 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 thou-
sand acres, his students 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 the Gurukula school in
Dallas, Texas. The school began with 3 children in 1972, and by the
beginning of 1975 the enrollment had grown to 150.

Srila Prabhupada has also inspired the construction of a large inter-
national center at Sridhama Mayapur in West Bengal, India, which is also
the site for a planned Institute of Vedic Studies. A similar project is the
magnificent Krsna-Balarama Temple and International Guest House in
Vrndavana, India. These are centers where Westerners can live to gain
firsthand experience of Vedic culture.

Srila Prabhupada’s most significant contribution, however, is his
books. Highly respected by the academic community for their authori-
tativeness, depth and clarity, they are used as standard textbooks in
numerous college courses. His writings have been translated into eleven
languages. The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, established in 1972 ex-
clusively to publish the works of His Divine Grace, has thus become the
world’s largest publisher of books in the field of Indian religion and phi-
losophy. Its latest project is the publishing of Srila Prabhupada’s most
recent work: a seventeen-volume translation and commentary —com-
pleted by Srila Prabhupada in only eighteen months—on the Bengali
religious classic Sri Caitanya- caritamrta.

In the past ten years, in spite of his advanced age, Srila Prabhupada
has circled the globe twelve times on lecture tours that have taken him to
six continents. In spite of such a vigorous schedule, Srila Prabhupada
continues to write prolifically. His writings constitute a veritable library
of Vedic philosophy, religion, literature and culture.
