The Inception of the Bhaktivedanta Institute

The Inception of Bhaktivedanta Institute

Compiled from recordings of Bhaktisvarūpa Damodara Maharaja
by Rishiraja Dasa (AKA Ashish Dalela), of Shabda Media.

MARCH 5, 2017

In late 1997, H.H. Bhaktisvarūpa Damodara Maharaja told me that he wanted to compile Srila Prabhupada's instructions on Bhaktivedanta Institute into a book. With that intent, he and I made some recordings, where Maharaja narrated the early history of Institute and I transcribed the tapes. Following this, I searched for quotes, letters, conversations, etc. from the published material and inserted in into the transcribed text. I believe Maharaja had bigger plans for this book, which included Srila Prabhupada's cultural approach to religion ("Srimad-Bhagavatam is a cultural presentation for the re-spiritualization of the entire human society."). While I did not get a chance to work on it, I have had the transcribed copy of the recordings that we made in 1997. Over the years, I have read through this now and then, and it chokes me up every time. This isn't my work, and these are (for the most part) not my words (except when I lightly edited the recordings). I have thought of making it public many times, but every time I asked myself: Why now? I have now changed the question: Why not? And since I don't have a good answer, I'm taking the liberty of making this public. It isn't in the form that Bhaktisvarūpa Damodara Maharaja had planned and envisioned. But it is what we had done twenty years ago.

-Ashish Dalela