Sato Vrtteh
by Svami Bhakti Aloka Paramadvaiti
Following in the Footsteps of Previous Acaryas
THREE
SRILA A. C. BHAKTIVEDANTA SVAMI PRABHUPADA
Srila Prabhupada: The Importance of Publishing and Distributing Books
Srila Prabhupada completed the books of Srimad Bhagavatam one after another, and the devotees didn’t know what to do with them. Book distribution on a large scale was totally unknown to us then. When I joined the movement in 1971, we were distributing pamphlets, asking people for anything they would like to give us to help maintain our temple and continue spreading these pamphlets. There was no concept of giving a book to a person, what to speak of the later days, when Srila Prabhupada inspired his disciples to sell entire sets of Srimad Bhagavatam and Caitanya-Caritamrta, about 50 large hardbound volumes, in one shot to a person. In the beginning this was absolutely inconceivable to us. Srila Prabhupada sent pallets of books to the different temples and the devotees stored these books somewhere in the temple. They started to wonder what they should do with these books. Then some of the pioneer disciples of Srila Prabhupada started to distribute them. They offered them to people as they went out preaching, on harinama sankirtana or when they were just visiting people. Very slowly the devotees realized that one could make a concentrated effort to distribute this transcendental literature.
I remember feeling a sense of revolution when the Sri Isopanisad came out in German, giving us a book of our spiritual master. We would sell one or two a day. When someone gave a large donation for the pamphlet, we would show them the book and ask them if they wanted the book too. This went on until one devotee went out and instead of giving pamphlets to the people, he put the Isopanisad straight into their hands and asked for a donation.Late at night we were really surprised to hear that he had distributed fifteen Isopanisads in one day. Everybody was flabbergasted, completely shocked. How was that possible? Fifteen people in one day getting the holy teachings from the Isopanisad in their hands. Amazing! From then on, the revolution of book distribution started to manifest, and it created an explosion of transcendental literature. At the height of book distribution, Srila Prabhupada had one million Back to Godhead magazines printed and distributed, in addition to countless books.