Srila Gurudev Vyasa Puja

Sri Srimad Gurudeva was born in the village of Jagannatha-pura in Orissa, India as Braja-bandhu. By the age of eight, Braja-bandhu had read the entire Bhagavad-gita, Srimad-bhagavatam and Sri Caitanya-caritamrta and could also explain their meanings. On April 8th, 1974, at the age of 45 he left home and relatives in a quest of spiritual perfection. Carrying only a Bhagavad-gita and a begging bowl he wandered around India for one year and visited many sacred places along the river Ganges.

He was searching for that person who could help him develop a true understanding of the Hare Krishna Maha-mantra. In 1975, at the opening of ISKCON's Krishna-Balaram Temple in Vrindavana, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami accepted him as a disciple, gave him the name Gour Govinda and awarded him the sannyasa order, thus the name Sri Srimad Gurudeva. He is a saint within ISKCON and a true Vaisnava Sadhu. During his life, Gurudev preached primarily in Bhubaneswar, Orissa, and he also travelled extensively around the world preaching the glories of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu's Sankirtan Movement.

He worked to establish an ISKCON temple in Bhubaneswar, as he was instructed to do so by Srila Prabhupada in 1977. He is an author of many research papers and translated his Srila Prabhupada's books into the Oriya language. He left his body spontaneously in 1996 while in Mayapur, during a discussion about topics on Lord Jagannath, during which he was greatly ecstatic. He is remembered in annual ISKCON festivals and is celebrated on the Vaisnava calendar.