{"id":5913,"date":"2008-06-07T04:16:39","date_gmt":"2008-06-07T03:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=5913"},"modified":"2008-06-07T05:17:10","modified_gmt":"2008-06-07T04:17:10","slug":"bbt-hyderabad-step-up-to-the-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=5913","title":{"rendered":"BBT Hyderabad Step Up to the Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Madhava Smullen<\/strong><\/p>\n

Friends of the BBT Newsletter: http:\/\/friendsofthebbt.org<\/a><\/p>\n

As a young man in Lille, France, Anandamaya Dasa probably never expected to live most of his adult life in India. But in 1971, he took an epic journey that would change his life, driving thousands of miles from his home to the mystical Eastern country, where he planned to spend a year travelling.<\/p>\n

On his way home, however, he happened to stop in Bihar, where several of Srila Prabhu-pada\u2019s disciples from ISKCON Calcutta were attending a mela. Anandamaya spoke to Tamal Krishna Goswami, and Achyutananda and Guru-kripa Prabhus, and was so fascinated with their philosophy that he followed them to Calcutta. \u201cI joined ISKCON there in 1972, and have lived in India ever since,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

India certainly seemed to be Anandamaya\u2019s destiny\u2014only four years later, when he was living in Hyderabad, he discovered his life\u2019s work. \u201cSrila Prabhupada came to inaugurate the new temple there, and was delighted to see it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I remember he told the president Mahamsa Swami, \u2018You have only done fifty per cent of the work.\u2019 Mahamsa\u2019s face fell, and Prabhupada explained, \u2018To do the remaining fifty per cent, you have to print all my books in Telugu.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The instruction embedded itself in Anandamaya\u2019s mind. When Prabhupada requested an outside pandit named S. Krishna- murti to translate his books into Telugu, Anandamaya assisted him, printing whatever Krishnamurti translated, and the Hyderabad BBT was born.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was difficult and slow work,\u201d says Anandamaya. \u201cBhakti Charu Swami was translating in Bengal, and later Gour Govinda Swami in Bhubaneswar. But we had no devotees proficient in the complicated Telugu language, nobody to check if the translations were accurate.<\/p>\n

I did my best, talking to the translator and systematically eliminating any philosophical discrepancies.\u201d It wasn\u2019t until 1984 that the first complete edition of Bhagavad-gita finally appeared, but when it did it was a victory for Anandamaya and BBT Hyderabad.<\/p>\n

Now, twenty-four years later, and fifteen years since he took on BBT work full-time, Anandamaya is BBT Hyderabad\u2019s Telugu branch manager. With Telugu the third most spoken language in India after Hindi and Bengali, that means he\u2019s serving a potential audience of sixty million.<\/p>\n

And all from a 300 square-foot office in the basement of the Hyderabad temple. Anandamaya\u2019s not complaining, however. \u201cIt\u2019s pleasant and cool in the summer, and the temple atmosphere is very favorable for working on Prabhupada\u2019s books,\u201d he says. \u201cI feel that the BBT is not a commercial enterprise\u2014it is a spiritual activity. So I\u2019ve tried to keep Prabhupada in the center and keep the atmosphere here spiritual, broad-minded and open.\u201d<\/p>\n

A large 2,000 square-foot warehouse helps too, allowing the Hyderabad BBT to store books for dispatching to ISKCON centers, although Anandamaya estimates that it will become too small for their needs within the next five years. With a total of 197,709 Telugu books sold in 2007, and book sales of almost eight million rupees, that\u2019s a foreseeable outcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get our inspiration from Prabhupada\u2019s instructions, from dedicated book distributors around the world, and from ISKCON centers that encourage book distribution, such as Tirupati, Bangalore, Rajmundry and others,\u201d says Anandamaya.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy watching them, we have managed to increase our book distribution by ten per cent every year, and expect to continue in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anandamaya and his small team are also doing their best to make sure all of Prabhupada\u2019s books are available in Telugu, just as he wanted them. So far, they\u2019ve published six big books, twenty small books by Srila Prabhupada, and five books by other ISKCON authors.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrabhupada used to say, \u2018Every time a new book is printed, I feel like I have conquered a new empire,\u2019\u201d Anandamaya recalls. \u201cI never quite understood that. But when our latest release, Prabhu pada\u2019s biography, finally arrived from the printer after ten long years of so many different corrections, translators, and printing problems, I finally could truly comprehend what he meant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next on the slate for BBT Hyderabad is Teachings of Queen Kunti, currently under translation, and expected by next year. Their most challenging project ever, the translation and printing of Caitanya-Caritamrita, will follow.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very difficult job that requires lots of dedication, devotion and knowledge,\u201d says Anandamaya. \u201cWe can only start once we have managed to build a team of devotee translators.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click to Read Rest of Article>><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"HareBy Madhava Smullen<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a young man in Lille, France, Anandamaya Dasa probably never expected to live most of his adult life in India. But in 1971, he took an epic journey that would change his life, driving thousands of miles from his home to the mystical Eastern country, where he planned to spend a year travelling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-distribution","category-newsletters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5913\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}