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By Ritudvipa dasa, UP Padayatra leader

Walking through the city of Kanpur and the surrounding villages during the first few days of the Uttar Pradesh Padayatra in September 2019 was a big challenge for us, as people in that area are not aware of padayatra culture. We had virtually no donations and had to rely on the support of the congregation devotees to keep our mission moving, but we endured and found preaching on the road to be a rewarding experience.

On one occasion we had no grains or puls

By Ritudvipa dasa, UP Padayatra leader

The coronavirus lockdown kept the Uttar Pradesh Padayatra confined to the village of Bhilwal 30km from Lucknow for five months, about forty per cent of the time since padayatra’s inauguration in September 2019. However, by the mercy of Srila Prabhupada and our spiritual master, Lokanath Maharaja, the padayatris were able to take up their service again on October 22, 2020, continuing with our programmes and festivals while strictly observing social distancin

By Damodarlila dasa, Maharashtra Padayatra leader

Since the India-wide lockdown was announced in March 2020, the Maharashtra Padayatra has been under the shelter of the Sawantwadi ISKCON centre. The devotees here have been taking good care of us, especially temple president Vasusresta dasa. As we can’t leave the centre due to the lockdown, we have faced a shortage of grains and grocery items. After one of the morning programmes, I discussed the issue with congregation devotees Avadhut Krishna d

By Acarya dasa, Ritudeep dasa, Damodarleela dasa, and Radhavallabha dasa

(respective padayatra leaders)

All-India Padayatra

Just as the AIP reached Mahuva, a large town on the Arabian Sea coast in the Bhavnagar District of Gujarat, the Indian Government announced a three-week lockdown to inhibit the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus in the community. Initially, as people became aware that we are travelling all over India they were reluctant to provide us with anywhere to stay. The residents sa

By Svarupananda dasa and Jagbandhu dasa

By the blessings of our founder-acarya, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Srila Prabhupada, and his loyal disciple, Lokanath Swami Maharaja, the ISKCON Greater Noida devotees recently organized a one-day padayatra for their young Vaisnavas.

On January 19, 2020, a cold Sunday morning, the padayatra by little Vaiṣṇavas and Vaiṣṇavis took place for the pleasure of Sri Sri Gaur Nataraj Dayal Nitai and to spread the sankirtan movement, the specific missi

While chanting in the temple in Vrindavan during Kartik I overheard some boys talking in Marathi. I approached them and asked where they were from in Maharashtra. Their village was Khutalwadi in Kolhapur district, the place of the Mahalakshmi temple, an ancient pilgrimage site in Kolhapur city. By the Lord’s arrangement our Maharashtra Padayatra was about to go to Kolhapur in the coming days, so I took their addresses and contact numbers. They said, “Please come to our village when your padayat

By Damodarleela dasa and Arjuna Krishna dasa

Recently the Maharashtra Padayatra was at Koregaon in the Sangli district, a village enriched with devotees. Cintamani devi dasi, the daughter of a brother of Lokanath Maharaja, stays here and as part of a Vaishnava family she naturally follows the same spiritual path. Her son, Caitanya dasa, who studies in gurukul, was also at home to welcome padayatra and he sang and performed kirtan with us. They have a combined family, a rarity nowadays, and all

By Acarya dasa, All-India Padayatra leader

Srila Prabhupada once declared that he would personally travel by car taking dozens of men to preach in the villages of Gujarat.

“In the afternoon Kartikeya drove us five miles to a local village for a programme. In the car Prabhupada talked enthusiastically about village-to-village preaching. He is eager to see this programme established and said that mass propaganda of sankirtan and prasadam distribution will save India. He said that if programmes ar

By Radhavallabha dasa, AP Padayatra leader

The Andhra Pradesh Padayatra is currently walking towards Ahobilam, covering about 18km a day. As we passed through the villages around the city of Chittoor, we were often invited to programmes at devotees’ homes.

MLA comes for darshan

On December 6, we reached the small town of Chandragiri where we performed sankirtan in the main square. As news spread that padayatra had arrived, the Chandragiri constituency member of the AP Legislative Assembly,

We began our fourth Indraprastha ISKCON Noida to Vrindavan padayatra on September 29, but the preparations had been started long before. We planned for an ox cart sankirtan rath and an advance party to about fifteen villages and this year included arrangements for the ladies, whereas for the past three years it had been for prabhujis only. The number of participants on this year’s walk was set at thirty devotees.

The inauguration ceremony took place at 2pm after the Sunday love feast. About 20

By Acarya Dasa, All India Padayatra leader

On October 2nd we were making our way from Virar to Govardhana Eco village, Wada. The distance is about 18 kms. After walking about 10 kms we were searching for place to honour prasada. As it was a highway there was no locality or school where we could have stopped for prasada. Finally we stopped near a small river. After prasada we again started walking and Vitthaal, our padayatra ox was walking behind the ratha. One padayatri was holding his rein. B

By Rasutsava dasa

On September 6, the auspicious occasion of Radhastami, the Uttar Pradesh Padayatra began under the inspiration of Lokanath Maharaja and the guidance of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan zonal secretary Devakinandan dasa. ISKCON Kanpur temple president Premhari dasa glorified the padayatra and offered his best wishes to the padayatris. Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar, brought from Bakuda, are the Uttar Pradesh Padayatra deities.

The padayatra currently has one rath, four oxen, one bus, one