By Acarya Dasa – All India Padayatra leader
On 16th September we reached Motegaon, a village situated in the Renapur block of the Latur district in Maharashtra. It is the native place of Suryavamshi Dasa, an old padayatri and also an Ayurveda doctor. He spent more than 20 years on the road performing a very special service: visiting university campuses along the route and inviting chancellors and professors to purchase full sets of Srila Prabhupada books for their libraries. Thus he played a vital role in book distribution.
Initially we had planned to celebrate Radhastami in Latur, but as the roads were not so good, we could not reach there on time. Sundar Krishna Dasa, the president of ISKCON Latur, was eagerly waiting for us, but we could not make it. Accepting it as the Lord’s decision to be at Motegaon for our Radhastami celebration, we halted there for two days.
Suryavamshi Dasa arranged a warm welcome for the padayatris with flower garlands and sankirtana and he got us accommodations at a Hanuman temple. We started the preparations early as we like to celebrate every festival magnificently. The abhisheka of Sri Sri Nitai Gaurasundara is the most important part of the celebration, as the Lord explained to Uddhava in the SrimadBhagavatam (11.27.16) snānālaṅkaraṇaṁpreṣṭhamarcāyāmevatūddhav (In worshiping the temple Deity, my dear Uddhava, bathing and decoration are the most pleasing offerings).
The next day-Radhastami day- we decorated Their Lordships very opulently. During this festival we derived a double benefit: celebrating the appearance day of Srimati Radharani, and serving and worshiping Lord Gaurasundara, who is the combined form of Sri SriRadha and Krsna: sri-krsna-caitanyaradha-krsnanaheanya
The villagers had constructed a big pandal for the ongoing Ganesh festival and I felt as if Ganesh was also helping us in our celebrations. In the morning we placed our cart just outside the pandal and started kirtana. This was followed by a grand abhisheka of Their Lordships and the offering of 56 preparations. We had also prepared a delicious birthday cake. Many villagers who had joined us were amazed to see the way we worshipped our Deities. Akkiladhara Dasa spoke on the glories of Srimati Radharani and emphasized how we can only get the mercy of the Lord if we get her mercy. He also described the glories of Bhagavad-gita and other Vaisnava books.
After the lecture we performed arati and everyone honored the prasadam feast. Many villagers assembled in the pandal and experienced the bliss of harinama. In the evening, we did Gaura arati at the same place. Suddenly clouds covered the sky and it started raining. All the villagers happily danced in the rain as we continued chanting the holy names. We thought they were dancing as a part of celebration but later on Suryavamshi Dasa disclosed his previous conversation with the villagers. After watching padayatra and the magnanimous oxen, one of the villagers had asked him, “Will it rain, if they stay in our village?”Suryavamshi Dasa had asserted, “Yes, if they do kirtana, it will definitely rain.” The villagers were dancing in the rain; they were so joyful as there had been no rain in the area for a long time. It was all the mercy of Srimati Radharani. The villagers were very impressed. The next day we loudly chanted the holy names all around the village and it rained again!
THE BIRTHDAY OF THE ALL-INDIA PADAYATRA
This Radhastami was more special than previous years because it was also the birthday of the All India Padayatra! On September 2, 1984, devotees had launched a padayatra from Dwaraka Dhama, India’s westernmost point, to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the appearance of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Since then it has been traveling all over the country, covering about 170,000 kilometers while distributing books and pamphlets in 10 languages. The padayatris have successfully introduced or revived the chanting of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra in thousands of towns and villages throughout India.Padayatra India has also encouraged many devotees to organize walks in their own countries or to eagerly participate in them, making padayatra a worldwide phenomenon. The use of oxcarts has also served as a motivation, particularly in Western countries, where the idea was initially thought to be impractical and impossible. We pray that Padayatra India will continue to give birth to many offspring’s in all the Indian states and beyond. After all, there are so many oxen eager to pull Sri Sri Gaura-Nitai’s cart and attain the perfection of their animal form of life.
To this day Padayatra had circumambulated India 5 times and it is now on its 6th tour. This is the first round for Vitthala and Panduranga, the new pair of oxen who has joined us last July. Padayatra India has attended 5 Kumbha-melas; we stayed one month at the 2013 Allahabad mela, doing preaching programs every day. It has also inaugurated the Vraja-Mandala Parikrama and the Navadvipa-Mandala Parikrama, which continue every year since. We could only accomplish this due to the causeless mercy of our spiritual master and Padayatra minister, Lokanatha Maharaja.
Our Sri Sri Nitai Gaurasundara are very merciful. If a person takes their darsana once, he can never forget Them.Wherever we go, people become captivated by their beauty and their hearts fill with joy. My personal experience is that after taking their darsana people easily take up chanting and buy books. Since the inception of padayatra many people have surrendered their lives to Lord Krsna thanks to them. They are very powerful preachers!
Wherever we go devotees share their realizations with the public and with each other. One person in Faridabad told me, “Whenever I see devotees, I remember padayatra. Padayatra had a great impact on my heart.”
Sri Sri Nitai Gaurasundara ki! Jai!
Srila Prabhupada ki! Jai!
All India Padayatra Book score: August, 2018
| Month | Small soft cover books | Medium soft cover books | Big soft cover books | Maha-big hard cover books | Total |
| August | 9864 | 34 | 217 | 822 | 10937 |
