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Saturday, 29 June 1974 - Ratha-yatra

Srila Prabhupada's work of translation and commentary on Krsna dasa Kaviraja Goswami's Sri Caitanya-caritamrta was well over three-quarters completed. While in Melbourne, he worked on the concluding chapter of Madhya-lila: "How all the residents of Varanasi became Vaisnavas".

Prabhupada had developed a routine of translating wherever he went, for at least a few hours a day. At around 1.30am, he would rise, open the large Bengali volume, and switch on the small desk light. He translated the synonyms one by one, clicking the Grundig reel-to-reel dictaphone "hold" button while he paused briefly for thoughts. Occasionally he worked with a small Oxford dictionary.

Although his busy travelling and translating schedules were maintained side by side, it was no small task.

Satsvarupa Goswami: That Prabhupada could concentrate on translating while travelling almost constantly was a remarkable achievement. Perhaps only a writer can appreciate how extremely difficult it is to expect to make a serious literary contribution while at the same time moving continually from room to room, country to country, climate to climate -- one week after the next. But Prabhupada had been doing it for years. And he was able to do it because he was completely surrendered to the task and because Krsna was directly collaborating with him. Devotees had come to expect that Srila Prabhupada would live a very busy life all day, dealing with internal management, with devotees, guests, letters, lectures, travels -- and then at night, instead of collapsing for eight hours of hard-earned rest, that he would lie down for a couple of hours and then rise, unaided, when almost everyone else was asleep, and execute the most demanding task of his entire day, translating and commenting upon the Bengali verses of Caitanya-caritamrta.

The translation work went on sometimes for two or three hours, sometimes less. From around 3am to 5am, Prabhupada sat and chanted on his beads. His chanting was almost silent, although the moving beads could sometimes be heard in the next room and occasionally "Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna".

At around 5am, Prabhupada would get up to go to the bathroom. At that time Satsvarupa Goswami would enter his room and put out Prabhupada's tilaka and mirror, put away his books and spectacles and ready things for his morning walk.

After he had finished in the bathroom, Srila Prabhupada would put on tilaka and say his morning Gayatri mantra. Then he was ready for his walk.


- From "The Great Transcendental Adventure" by HG Kurma Prabhu

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