05/09/98 - 1791

Srila Prabhupada’s Books in Spanish

USA (VNN) - by Swami B.A. Paramadvaiti

There are millions of Spanish speaking people in Spain, South America and North America. Nevertheless, many of Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s books are not yet published and distributed in the Spanish language. Even worse than this is that production of Spanish books has stopped entirely. The history of the spanish BBT is a big disaster covered by zonal politics with no concern for the need to get these books to the devotees.

Imagine, the situation is so bad that in South America hardly any of Srila Prabhupada’s books are available to the public, save some small books for street Sankirtan. The Srimad Bhagavatam was published in Spain but not reprinted. Many countries never even received any copies. The Chaitanya Charitamrita has also not been published, even though there are numerous professional English speaking devotees all over South America and Spain. The translation of the CC has stopped, and no copies or electronic CD program has been developed. BBT trustees of the Spanish BBT shamefully do not even speak Spanish, nor have they started to produce any folio-type project for the Spanish speaking world.

It seems like they do not care much for this. No forum exists to help in the production and distribution of books for representatives of Spanish speaking countries. Nor has any financial statement ever been published by the Spanish BBT to inform the contributing countries about the situation.

On the other hand, there are about eighty different temples in South America which belong to different Gaudiya Math branches. They are not allowed to buy books from the BBT at wholesale prices.

There is also an office of the BBT International in Sweden which sends letters threatening Srila Prabhupada’s disciples who are connected with the Gaudiya Math with court cases for publishing even a single photo of Srila Prabhupada.

In addition to not doing their work well they don not want others to preach the message of Srila Prabhupada.

All of Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Maharaj’s books, for example, have been translated into Spanish, published in hard bound version and distributed in Spain, South America and the US. Now all the books of Srila Narayana Maharaj are coming out, one by one. The book, Heart of Krishna, by Srila Bhakti Promod Puri Maharaj, teaching us all to stop all type of Vaisnava Aparadha is also published in Spanish. The Spanish world is inundated by the books of Gaudiya Vaisnava Acaryas, but books as basic as the Krishna book, Nectar of Devotion etc. by Srila Prabhupada are nowhere available.

The editorial policy of the Spanish BBT is that there is NO EDITORIAL POLICY.

No wonder people do not believe in the solution of old problems. It is a proven fact that Latin Americans have accepted Krishna Consciousness with the greatest enthusiasm. Even in North America the greater amount of active devotees, pujaris and cooks in Iskcon temples are of Latin background or are imported from India.
The matter of fact is obvious to me. The leaders of Iskcon do not understand the potential of Spanish language preaching, they do not care to improve this situation, they do not let local people manage, as Srila Prabhupada had requested us from the beginning.

They do not maintain honest and efficient procedures of the Spanish BBT and they do not even have an office to complain to. On my last trip to Spain I wanted to speak personally with the local Spanish BBT manager to find out how in the world we could buy the Srimad Bhagavatam. His Grace Sriman Hanuman das A. refused to see me. He was to busy.