The Forty-Year History of ISKCON Padayatra

by Gauragi Devi Dasi

In our high-tech world, a time-honored low-tech tradition still proves to be an effective way to spread Lord Krsna's teachings.

For thousands of years, people in India have performed padayatras ("walking festivals") to tour holy places and spread spiritual teachings. Like many great spiritual teachers before Him, Lord Caitanya went on padayatra. For almost six years He walked throughout India to spread the chanting of the Hare Krsna maha-mantra and establish the superiority of Krsna-bhakti. In 1953, Srila Prabhupada, the Lord’s own senapati-bhakta ("commander-in-chief devotee"), used padayatra to spread Krsna consciousness in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh. His regular Sankirtana party around the city would attract up to fifty followers. And once, with his first disciple, Acharya Prabhakar, he went on padayatra to Chirgaon, a small town about 30 km north of Jhansi.

1976: Srila Prabhupada Inspires Oxcart Padayatras in India

As early as 1969 Srila Prabhupada had advised his disciples staying with him at John Lennon’s estate outside London to use the land offered by John to grow fruits and vegetables and then transport them by oxcart to sell in the city. He spoke a similar message to a guest in Mauritius during a morning walk: “What is the use of a car? If you can get everything locally–basic necessities–then where is the need of a car? If you acquire a cart, you can have an oxcart. That’s all. Why should you hanker after petrol, oil, machine, this, that–so many things? Why?”

His instructions on conducting oxcart padayatra to bring Krsna consciousness to the villages of India resulted in two long padayatras in 1976. He appointed Lokanath Swami, an Indian disciple who grew up in a village, the leader of the group walking from Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh, to Mayapur, West Bengal. Their most important programs took place in the evening in halls, temples, and courtyards, and on farms. Because entertainment and public events were rare in the countryside, entire villages would attend the programs, which consisted of an arati ceremony for the traveling deities (Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundara [Caitanya Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu]), a long kirtana, a philosophical talk, and prasada. The biggest attraction may have been the few Western devotees, since at that time most of the villagers had never seen a foreigner. The main reward for Lokanath Swami was seeing Srila Prabhupada's beaming smile when they reached the Allahabad Kumbha-mela and his overwhelmingly loving reception when they arrived in Mayapur.

1984–1986: Celebrating Lord Caitanya’s Five-Hundredth Anniversary

ISKCON's first grand-scale padayatra, led by Lokanath Swami, was a phenomenal success. Some of the highlights: an elephant, several oxcarts, a camel cart, tent programs attended by thousands, kirtana groups of 50 to 200 devotees from different nations, a large advance party with up to seven vehicles, book distributors joined by busloads of local devotees, amazing receptions, Food for Life prasada distribution almost every day, dioramas and exhibits, numerous favorable articles in nationwide newspapers, meetings with officials, VIPs, politicians and religious leaders, visits to many places of pilgrimage, and about twenty thousand people viewing Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundara daily. Padayatra had revealed itself as a truly grassroots movement for spreading Lord Caitanya's message. It was just too good to stop in Mayapur.

1986–1996: The Worldwide Padayatra Explosion Leading up to Srila Prabhupada’s Centennial Year

After its initial successes, Padayatra India continued in a more humble way. The highlights of this decade were the inauguration of ISKCON's annual Vraja-maala-parikrama and Navadvipa-maala-parikrama (tours of Vrindavan and Mayapur), the trek to Badarikashrama in the Himalayas, and the erection of the Padayatra Gate in Dwarka. Devotees also organized walks in Orissa, West Bengal, and Maharashtra. In 1991 Lokanath Swami, now ISKCON's Padayatra Worldwide minister, started to plan for padayatras in a hundred countries as his Centennial offering to Srila Prabhupada. The first walks were in Mauritius, Guyana, the USA, Mexico, and Ireland. Padayatra was emerging slowly but definitely as an effective tool for spreading Krsna consciousness, and it gradually gained support from ISKCON leaders and members. Another reason for the padayatra explosion was that organizers learned how to adapt the program to their own countries–using horses instead of oxen, or using no animals at all, driving through uninhabited areas, and using boats or planes to get from island to island, as in the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean.

Several padayatra teams became permanent traveling parties, including Padayatra America, which continued on to Central America, and Padayatra Europe. Padayatra enthusiasts emerged. Parasurama Dasa organized walks in more than thirty countries, and in 1992 started his Vraja-maala oxcart padayatra. Bhaktimarga Swami walked alone across Canada. And Jaya Vijaya Dasa led Padayatra India for ten years. Srila Prabhupada's Centennial Celebration in 1996 culminated in a series of special events, including Global Padayatra Week. By the end of 1996, padayatras had taken place on four continents, in 105 countries, including communist countries (Cuba) and Muslim countries (Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Pakistan).

Padayatra Is Here to Stay

Padayatras have proved to be an excellent tool to unite, reunite, inspire, and rejuvenate devotees. All the elements for rapid spiritual advancement are magically concentrated around the padayatra traveling temple: constantly chanting the holy names, associating with sincere and advanced devotees, hearing and talking about Gaura-Nitai and Radha-Krsna, living intimately with the deities, distributing books and serving in many other ways, sharing Krsna consciousness with the public, experiencing exciting adventures, taking part in many cultural festivals, subsisting on healthy and abundant prasada, and–most important–receiving the blessings of Srila Prabhupada and Sri Sri Gaura-Nitai.

In 1996 there were still about 123 countries through which padayatra had never walked, and even in the countries devotees had visited they had passed through only a small number of places. Lokanath Swami believed that as long as Padayatra India stayed on the road, the expansion of padayatra worldwide would continue. And Padayatra India has kept going. The participants have changed, but one constant has remained–book distribution, by which the party has become self-sufficient. Padayatra India has been on the road since 1984 and is now in Andhra Pradesh on its sixth tour of the country.

Besides padayatra’s public appeal, its tremendous success in the media, and its spiritual rewards for ISKCON’s devotees, there were other reasons to keep padayatra alive. For example, with its emphasis on ox-power, it is an integral part of Vaisnava culture. Srila Prabhupada often warned us that modern civilization can be finished at any moment. If the oil runs out or the transportation industry fails for any reason, Krsna's devotees will be ready to rely on their God-given feet and the oxen, to continue bringing the holy names to every town and village. Bhakti Raghava Swami, minister of the ISKCON Daiva Varashrama Ministry in India, foresees the day when every state in India will have its own permanent oxcart padayatra. Already one small party headed by Visnusvami Dasa has been traveling nonstop in Andhra Pradesh since December 2012.

Innovations, Continuation, and the Emergence of Padayatra as an Annual Function

After 1996 the padayatra fever generated at the time of the Centennial kept burning strong. Many countries organized new walks: Hungary, Italy, Russia, Netherlands, Brazil, Argentina, England, Philippines, South Africa, and New Zealand. Padayatra was taken to two new countries, Madagascar and Taiwan, and it became an annual function in the Czech Republic, Guyana, Mauritius, Orissa, and Slovenia. Avadhuta Siromai Dasa and his wife, Candrabhaga Dasi, walked with a horse-drawn cart from Pennsylvania in North America to Ecuador in South America.

ISKCON devotees kept innovating. One successful innovation was to take part in existing walking pilgrimages, such as the Walk for Peace to Assisi in Italy, the St. James Way in Spain, and the Dii-yatras in Maharashtra, India. This reduced the devotees' organizational work and increased the opportunity to share the maha-mantra and Lord Caitanya’s message with a huge number of souls.

For the past eighteen years, ISKCON devotees have been walking with other pilgrims during the four main annual Dii-yatras, which the devotees of Lord Vihala (the Krsna deity worshiped in Pandharpur and throughout Maharashtra) have been doing for more than seven centuries, singing devotional songs and chanting the Lord’s names along the way. At the beginning of July, around 140 devotees from ISKCON Pune join the largest Dii-yatra, the 18-day Tukarama (or Dehu) Dii, walking the 200 km from Dehu (Tukarama’s birthplace) to Pandharpur via Pune. More than 300,000 pilgrims take part in this Dii every year, and up to 1.5 million people gather in Pandharpur on each of the four main Ekadasis for bathing in the holy Chandrabhaga River and viewing Lord Vihala for a few seconds. Other ISKCON centers in Maharashtra–Aravade, Solapur, and Beed–have taken the responsibility to organize an annual Di?i of their own.

Walking: A Fast-Growing Trend of the Past Decade

Numerous articles show that walking is one of today's fastest-growing trends. More and more people walk to work for their health. Some go on organized walking tours during their vacations. There’s even a revival of walking pilgrimages among Christians. In 2013 alone 215,880 people walked the St. James Way through France and Spain for spiritual growth, introspection, and rejuvenation. So why not walk with and for Lord Caitanya and Srila Prabhupada? Our founder-acarya once said that with Lord Caitanya’s appearance the Krsna consciousness movement would become prominent for ten thousand years–the Golden Age within Kali-yuga. Padayatra is at the heart of that prediction, and our ecology-friendly oxcart padayatra is now more relevant than ever. Our planet is becoming more and more uninhabitable, with its increased pollution, climate changes, and natural disasters. While spreading the holy names and knowledge of Krsna, padayatris can teach cow protection, ox-power, and respect for Mother Earth.

Lord Caitanya keeps inspiring ISKCON Vaisnavas to spread the holy names more and more, sometimes in conjunction with padayatra, as is done in Mauritius during the annual World Holy Name Week. We pray that more temples will follow in the footsteps of these devotees and that a new padayatra explosion will take place in the world to celebrate ISKCON’s fiftieth birthday. Padayatra is an easy, joyful way to distribute the tasty fruits of love of God and thus relieve the Lord of the anxiety He feels for the suffering souls of this world.

Some Words from Srila Prabhupada About Padayatra

"And oxen can be used for driving carts and preaching village to village. What is the question of killing them? Here in India our Lokanath Maharaja has successfully organized such a program, and it is a great success. He has traveled all over India, and everywhere they distribute books, prasadam, and perform kirtana, village to village. Each night they stop at a different village. We can introduce many millions of such carts all over the world."

(March 16, 1977, Letter to Nityananda Dasa, head of the New Talavan farm community in the USA)

“If some young men like you would join me, then along with some foreign disciples I can immediately take up this program and tour village to village and town to town. It will be very, very effective. I know that.”

(April 16, 1976, Prabhupada’s reply to Punjabi Premananda, a young Indian man interested in padayatra)

“I am also happy to hear your very nice activities. I wish I could have joined you. I like your program very much. If you continue this program, you will be benefited, people will be benefited, and everyone will be happy.”

(September 1976, Prabhupada’s reply to Lokanath Swami’s first padayatra report)

Bhaktimarga Swami, the Walking Monk

Since 1996, Bhaktimarga Swami, a sannyasi in his early sixties, has walked 30,964 km (19,240 mi), mainly in his native Canada (four crossings), and also in Ireland, Fiji, Guyana, Trinidad, Israel, and Mauritius.

“I’ll walk till I drop,” he has said.

In September 2015 he started walking from Boston to Butler, Pennsylvania, and from there to New York City, retracing Srila Prabhupada's historic journey fifty years ago when he started the Hare Krsna movement. In 2016, to celebrate ISKCON’s fiftieth anniversary, he plans to walk from New York to San Francisco, the location of the second ISKCON temple.

Although he walks alone, he has help from friends who precede him in a support vehicle, arranging accommodations and prasada, gathering supplies, contacting media and libraries, coordinating speaking engagements at institutes or in people’s homes, distributing Bhagavad-gitas, and occasionally placing them in prisons, hospitals, and school libraries. They also check on him every few hours. He doesn’t carry a backpack with a raincoat or a sweater–just his japa beads, a few brochures stuffed in a pocket, and recently a cell phone/camera.

We can best appreciate the impact of his simple walking, and his unique friendly style of reaching out to people, by what has been written and said about him in books and newspaper reports–all of which became more and more abundant and personal when he did his later walks across Canada. The headlines of numerous newspaper articles, usually accompanied by a photograph, all captured Bhaktimarga Swami's compassion and the spirit of his walks: spiritual healing; getting people to slow down; promoting a culture of walking, which encourages self-discovery and introspection; and reducing the excessive use of machines, especially cars, which he calls "big, shiny coffins." The articles offer many details about Bhaktimarga Swami's life, the Hare Krsna movement, and its philosophy. Several reporters have written about how meeting him benefited their own life. He has been interviewed by numerous media outlets, including the largest broadcaster in Canada, the CBC. He appeared eighteen times in The Longest Road, a television documentary on the Trans-Canada Highway released in 2002 by the National Film Board of Canada.

"What’s unique about this walking project," he says, "is that in each town or city you come to, you create a kind of sensation. There’s a ripple effect, an ongoing buzz at each place I go. It’s not like a splash when you do one festival, for example. Every time you go to a new city or town, you’re a sensation. And you get recognized–'There’s a monk around town.' Walking across Canada is quite amazing–an amazing feat–and people get a little bit excited about it.

"The public swoons at bad news, but this is different. It has its human-interest value, a sportsman’s spin. It’s positive. The third time I walked through the nation’s capital, Ottawa, the media went wild on all levels–television, newspaper, and radio–and then, of course, there was the public itself taking notice, honking horns, stopping, getting my signature, shaking my hand. On average, each day thousands of people read or heard Krsna's name.

"For me, walking is almost like an obsession. Lord Krsna created us with half of our body made up of legs, so I believe in using them for Him. I find there’s no better or more personal way to meet people than with the low-tech, highly organic approach of using your legs. The legs were made for walking and the mouth for speaking about the Absolute. What a perfect combination!"

Padayatra India: The Inaugurator of ISKCON's Parikramas in Vrindavan and Mayapur

At the end of January 1987, the Padayatra India party arrived in Vrindavan, ready for Gaura Purima (Lord Caitanya's Appearance Day festival). Since 1974, devotees had taken buses to the local holy sites during ISKCON's two large annual festivals in Mayapur and Vrindavan, but these outings couldn’t compare to systematically walking to every corner of these holy places. So, on February 13 Padayatra India inaugurated ISKCON’s Vraja-maala-parikrama. Two hundred devotees absorbed themselves in thoughts of Krsna for twenty-five days as they walked together throughout the greater Vrindavan area. The following year the same team organized the second Vraja-mandala-parikrama, during the autumn month of Karttika. Eighty devotees from twenty countries walked the entire route, and gained the conviction that their home is not America, Japan, or England, but the eternal land of Krsna.

In January 1990, Padayatra India arrived in Mayapur after its second tour of India. At the request of the Mayapur Festival Committee chairman, Jayapataka Swami, the Padayatra India devotees organized the first ISKCON Navadvipa–maala parikrama, with the padayatra deities. The small group of padayatris, led by Jaya Vijaya Dasa, worked with local devotees to organize the tour and arrange accommodations, cooking facilities, kirtana leaders, and inspiring speakers. For nine days, 170 devotees from 29 nations blissfully walked the nine islands of Lord Caitanya's land while chanting the maha-mantra and “Jaya Sacinandana! Jaya Sacinandana!”

During the years leading up to the Srila Prabhupada Centennial, both parikramas became the biggest international reunions of Prabhupada’s disciples and followers. Besides their aspect as pilgrimages, the parikramas were also excellent for fostering unity, blissful devotee relationships, and the ecstasy of congregational chanting. With the Navadvipa-parikrama becoming more and more popular, in 1990 ISKCON's Governing Body Commission passed a resolution making it a yearly event. The number of participants kept increasing year after year, and in 1993 Lokanath Swami and Padayatra India handed the entire responsibility for the walk to the ISKCON Mayapur management, headed by Jayapataka Swami and Bhakti Puruottama Swami. For the 2015 parikrama, there were ten thousand devotees from about sixty countries, making up six groups: the international group for English-speaking devotees, the Russian group, the Hindi group, and three Bengali groups.

Lokanath Swami remains the chairman of ISKCON’s Vraja-maala-parikrama. Bhadra Dasa retired after nineteen years as co-manager with Radha-Ramaa Swami. The current members of the executive committee include such loyal padayatris as Radha-Ramaa Swami, Murali-mohana Dasa, Isadeva Dasa, and Varaha Rupa Dasi. ISKCON Jhansi temple president Vraja-bhumi Dasa, who has been active in parikrama organization for about twelve years, is now one of its chief coordinators, its treasurer, and its main fundraiser. Vraja-maala-parikrama has changed tremendously over the years, going from eighty devotees in 1987 to around two thousand in 2014. Initially there were mostly Westerners. Gradually the Indian temples and their large congregations started taking part, later joined by Russian-speaking devotees. Many improvements have been made in the past ten years: expert kirtana leaders from Mayapur, free bottled water, a daily shuttle to and from the Krsna-Balarama temple, portable toilets, and a skilled kitchen crew of Mayapur devotees, headed by Radhadyuti Dasa, a Padayatra India cook for many years. The year 2015 marked the five hundredth anniversary of Lord Caitanya’s visit to Vraja-maala, and in 2016 ISKCON will celebrate its thirtieth Vraja-maala-parikrama.

Fifty Padayatras for ISKCON's Fiftieth Anniversary

In 2014 the Padayatra Worldwide Ministry started to work on its offering of fifty padayatras by the end of 2016, in honor of ISKCON's Golden Jubilee. So far, twenty padayatras have taken place, and eight are planned, leaving twenty-two to reach the goal. Padayatra perfectly fits the key public message chosen for ISKCON's fiftieth anniversary–"The Joy of Devotion." The public cannot help but notice the blissful faces of the padayatris chanting, dancing, and serving together as they walk from town to town and village to village.

If your temple or group would like to help the Padayatra Worldwide Ministry reach the goal of fifty padayatras this year, visit [website address].

PADAYATRA MILES TRAVELED: 1976 to August 2015

India: 168,300 km (104,577 mi., 4.2 x Earth's circumference)

Europe: 32,491 km (20,189 mi.)

North, Central, and South America: 47,514 km (29,524 mi.)

Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, Islands, etc.: 10,300 km (6,400 mi.)

Grand Total : 258,605 km (160,690 mi., almost 6.5 x Earth's circumference)

THE LONGEST PADAYATRAS

Gaurangi Devi Dasi has been coordinator for the Padayatra Worldwide Ministry since 2012. After serving for five years in the Padayatra office in Delhi, she continued assisting the ministry by writing articles for the Padayatra newsletter and compiling the Padayatra manual. She’s now producing the newsletter, coordinating the website, and editing two books on padayatra. Email: [email protected].