e-Krishna
www.brcindia.com is the website of the Bhaktivedanta Research Centre.
According to Director Hari Sauri Dasa, the Bhaktivedanta Research Centre (BRC), situated in Kolkata, India, is the result of Srila Prabhupada’s desire to preserve for future generations the works of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura and other acaryas.
The aims of the center are to perform extensive research in historic Sanskrit and Bengali texts of Vaisnavism, to promote Vedic research, and to collect, preserve, and digitize the literature of Gaudiya Vaisnavism from the period of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu to the present.
The library holds more than 15,000 titles and contains nearly all the major works by acaryas in the Gaudiya Vaisnava line, all the way back to the six Gosvamis of Vrindavan. It includes most of the works of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati and Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura.
The library holds many ancient manuscripts handwritten on leaves, including a four-hundred-year-old copy of the Madhya-lila of Sri Caitanya-caritamrta.
By clicking on the About Us tab on the site menu, you can read a brief history of the project going back to 1972 when Srila Prabhupada asked devotees to make film copies of manuscripts for preservation. You can also read the complete aims and objectives of the center.
The research center is home to a guest house, which you can read about and see under the Guest Rooms tab on the menu. There are photos of the rooms and contact details.
Under the Library tab on the menu are two options: Books and Manuscripts. Under the Books option you can browse a list of many of the books held at the center. The list provides authorship and publication details and includes the shelf location at the library.
Under the Manuscripts option you can view photographs of some of the handwritten manuscripts held at the library.
Click on the Contact tab for an email address to request to receive the Bhaktivedanta Research Centre newsletter.
—Antony Brennan