By Braja Hari dasa, Coordinator, Padayatra South Africa
Padayatra South Africa began eight years ago when Lokanatha Maharaja instructed ISKCON Durban temple president Svarup Damodar to launch the programme in KwaZulu-Natal, one of the country’s largest provinces. The idea was to get the project under way and then have it gradually taken up throughout the country, and indeed after observing our efforts in Durban the devotees in Johannesburg were soon motivated to follow suit.
Unfortunately, through the years the number of interested people visiting the Durban temple has dropped and the home programmes have dwindled. At one stage KwaZulu-Natal had fifty-two Nama-hatta centres, but now there are only fifteen. As members of the Festivals Committee, we sought to employ padayatra as a grass-roots means of rectifying the situation. I discussed our ideas with Maharaja and he gave us his blessings.
Our intention with padayatra this year, therefore, was to get more involved with the various Nama-hatta groups that are affiliated with the ISKCON centres in South Africa. We now have the Nama-hattas invite us with our deities and paraphernalia to their programmes, the goal being to rekindle householder interest in Krishna consciousness. Of course, book and prasadam distribution have continued as usual, but more importantly we wanted to assist the Nama-hatta devotees to increase attendance and simultaneously encourage the community to join our padayatra procession – and become more involved in temple activities generally.
Looking back over the year, I think we are achieving our objectives because the Nama-hatta leaders have assured me that the initiative has been paying dividends. Hopefully, in 2019 we will consolidate this with a greater number of padayatras in South Africa arising from our association with the Nama-hatta groups.
