In August 1965, a few weeks before Srila Prabhupada left for America, on his way to see Srimati Sumati Morarji, the shipping magnate who secured him passage to the US, he passed a neglected four-acre plot of land near her residence on Juhu Beach, outside Bombay, and thought it would be a nice location for a Radha-Krishna temple.<\/p>\n
It took thirteen years\u2014including six years of battling the crooked landlord, his agents, and corrupt municipal officials, all the while enduring terrible hardships, facing a score of obstacles, and responding with tremendous sacrifice and perseverance\u2014for Srila Prabhupada\u2019s vision to be realized. On January 14, 1978, Makara Sankranti, two months after Srila Prabhupada departed from this world, the Sri Sri Radha-Rasabihari temple was finally inaugurated by his dedicated disciples.<\/p>\n
In the seven years leading up to the grand opening, Srila Prabhupada spent 554 days in Bombay, more than anywhere else in the world. In 1972 he appointed his disciple Giriraj das Brahmachari, who had met him in Boston in 1969 and been selected as part of the group to accompany him back to India in 1970, to lead the Juhu effort. \u201cHe has not trembled in any circumstance,\u201d Prabhupada later commended Giriraj. \u201cThat is his qualification.\u201d As temple president and later as Governing Body Commissioner from 1972 to 1999, Giriraj Swami raised funds and oversaw every aspect of the project\u2014the only devotee to be closely involved throughout that period.<\/p>\n
After the conveyance of the Juhu land was signed, Srila Prabhupada leaned back behind his desk in triumph and declared, \u201cIt was a good fight. Someone should write a book about it.\u201d In 1971, he had told Giriraj, \u201cYou should write. This is your first business,\u201d and had repeated this instruction over the years. \u201cSo despite my limitations and disqualifications but with the encouragement and assistance of many well-wishers,\u201d Giriraj Swami said, \u201cI took up writing about him and Juhu.\u201d As noted by His Holiness Radhanath Swami, \u201cNo one else could write this book like His Holiness Giriraj Swami Maharaja, because he was there from the beginning to the culmination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1005,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[79],"product_tag":[80],"class_list":{"0":"post-1003","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-english-books","7":"product_tag-english","8":"product_shipping_class-medium","10":"first","11":"instock","12":"shipping-taxable","13":"purchasable","14":"product-type-simple"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iskconmalaga.com\/boutique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/1003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iskconmalaga.com\/boutique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iskconmalaga.com\/boutique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iskconmalaga.com\/boutique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iskconmalaga.com\/boutique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/1003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iskconmalaga.com\/boutique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iskconmalaga.com\/boutique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iskconmalaga.com\/boutique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=1003"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iskconmalaga.com\/boutique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=1003"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iskconmalaga.com\/boutique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=1003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}