Mayapur Chandrodaya Travelling Sankirtana Party

Gargamuni Dasa: Sometime in '75, I went back to India to get men for India, to bring them back. Also to collect money for Mayapur because there was nobody collecting really for Mayapur. Prabhupada was doing it himself and I was a chief collector in Calcutta. And we never had any good men. 

Prabhupada wanted at least a hundred old devotees in India and there was only a handful and we were doing all the work, so it was very difficult. So I went back and visited many temples and I formed a traveling sankirtana party called the 'Mayapur Chandrodaya Travelling Sankirtana Party.' 

I was able to get three vans to the help of my wonderful godbrothers during that time in Atlanta, Los Angeles. Everybody helped me, I cannot deny, I did not get any cooperation. I got plenty of cooperation. Sometimes I had to take men in a way that wasn't pleasing to the temple president, but that had to occur for Prabhupada’s pleasure because, as I told you in the 1940s, Prabhupada had a discussion with his Godbrothers on how he would have traveling sankirtana worldwide by having vans carrying the utilities and vans carrying the devotees. 

Somehow Prabhupada transferred that desire into my heart and I wrote Prabhupada a letter, "Can I start a travelling party, collect money from Mayapur and also bring vans to India." And he said, "Do it. Do it immediately." So I did the traveling party in America and we, the first, within a few months, I sent to Jayapataka $20,000 for the Mayapur construction, and I still had money left over to buy vans in Germany.