A living archive
At sixty-nine, with almost no money and no contacts, he sailed alone to America to fulfill a promise made forty years earlier. By the time he passed away in 1977, that promise had become a movement spanning six continents. This archive holds the record of that life — year by year, and a place to still ask about it.
Ask the archive a question about his life — a year, a place, or a teaching.
Read the full timeline of his life, from Calcutta to a worldwide mission.
The full record lives on the Timeline. Here is the shape of it. Read the full timeline of his life.
1896 – 1965
Born in Calcutta on Tuesday, September 1, 1896, married, and set on his path by a single instruction from his spiritual master in 1922. Nearly forty years of writing, translating, and waiting followed before he ever left India.
1965 – 1971
At sixty-nine, he sailed to America alone. A storefront in New York became ISKCON; a handful of young Americans became the first disciples of a movement that spread to San Francisco, London, and beyond within five years.
1972 – 1977
Temples, books, and disciples multiplied across six continents. By his passing in 1977, what began with two followers and $200 had grown into over 100 centers worldwide.
Historical photographs preserved from the living archive of His Divine Grace.
How his work was received, beyond his own movement.
Poet Allen Ginsberg, an early observer of the storefront temple, described his Bhagavad-gita translation as unusually clear and thoroughly grounded in scholarship.
Religious studies scholars including J. Stillson Judah and Thomas Hopkins defended his translations as serious scholarship, pushing back against media portrayals of the movement as a cult.
By 1977, the movement he'd started alone in a rented storefront had grown into more than 100 temples and centers on six continents.
Ask the archive a question about his life — a moment, a year, or a teaching — or read the full timeline of his life.
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