Srila Prabhupada

His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada was born in 1896 in Calcutta, India. He first met his spiritual master, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Gosvami, in Calcutta in 1922. Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, a prominent devotional scholar and the founder of sixty-four branches of Gaudiya Mathas (Vedic Institutes), liked this educated young man and convinced him to dedicate his life to teach Vedic knowledge in the Western world. Srila Prabhupada became his student and eleven years later (1933) at Allahabad, he became his formally initiated disciple.