South America – 21st Century Conquista: by Sitapati das
Prabhupada Marathon 2003 – South American Countries of the "Pacto Andino Trascendental"
Here is a short report of sankirtan on the west coast of South America.
This year is seeing a revival of sankirtan in the Andean nations of South America. Sankirtan devotees in these countries are working with very difficult material conditions, but due to the sincerity of the devotees, book distribution is going on in places that have been neglected for many years. In Ecuador, an International Coalition of the Willing and Able, under Aravinda das, Bhaktibhusana Maharaja's disciple from Argentina, and resident Argentinian sankirtan man Hanumat-prana das, is fanned out over the country distributing the mercy, despite a heavy government resistence which has seen devotees imprisoned for up to two weeks and deported from the country for the "crime" of distributing Srila Prabhupada's books.
However, this is all the arrangement of Lord Nityananda so that the mercy gets spread around. In La Paz, Bolivia, the world's highest capital city at over 6000 metres above sea level, two of Jayapataka Maharaja's disciples, Lila Madhava das and Yajña Caitanya das, both convicted book distributors, are fighting a desperate last stand. Outnumbered and surrounded, they have vowed, following the example of the famous Peruvian general Alfonso Ugarte, to never surrender, and to fight to the last book.
In the Andes of Perú a team of Perú's new generation of sankirtaneros lead by Prahladananda Swami's disciple Laxman das brahmacari are taking the message of Lord Caitanya to every town and village.
Further south in Chile, the devotees have been blessed with a temple president that is so much into the preaching that he is also the sankirtan leader, Adi-kesava das (BBS), who has the devotees marching out the door with him with boxes of books under their arms to conquer the countryside with love of God. In the main city of Santiago the municipal authorities have started confiscating books from the distributors so the sankirtaneros, including recently released prisoners of war Ananda-syam das and Premi Krishna dasa das (DAS), have headed out to the provinces.
The books that are being distributed this year are big and medium books: Bhagavad-gita, Krishna book 1 & 2, Teachings of Kapiladeva, and Teachings of Queen Kunti from the Argentinian BBT, and small books: The Perfection of Yoga, The Hare Krishna Challenge, The Transcendental Teachings of Prahlad Maharaja, Beyond Birth and Death, Coming Back, Perfect Escape, and Sri Isopanisad from the Peruvian BBT, all in Spanish language editions.
All Glories to the Sankirtan Devotees!
Soon… the néctar for which we are all anxious – reports of results.
your servants in the Peruvian BBT
