The early writings of Prabhupada

Gargamuni Dasa: He tried to get Bhagavad-gita finished, and it took him ten years, because he started in the middle '50s to write the manuscript. I saw it. One manuscript he started on Bhagavad-gita. And I found many articles for Back to Godhead he wrote. I typed them, because I had a little typewriter like Prabhupada did that I brought with me, when I stayed there for two months to watch over his rooms. So I had to sit in those rooms with another sannyasi, Subala.  There was nothing to do, but I always carried a typewriter with me. And I found this trunk of manuscripts, so I started to learn Prabhupada's writing.

His script writing is very difficult to read. If you look at his signature, it's the most wonderful signature you could ever imagine. Very artistic. But his writing was also the same way. So I had to really concentrate on learning how Prabhupada wrote words, the English words, and typed them onto paper. And I sent them to ISKCON press by special delivery air mail. So I think they still have those original manuscripts, because I put in the typed version, and there's one I did call 'Message of Godhead.' I typed that, and they reprinted it later in Back to Godhead. So I was the first to type those old manuscripts of Prabhupada from the 50s. Those were very old. And the paper was yellow. 

So little did we know that Prabhupada in 1971, six years later, would visit Russia, because he used the Russian newsletters which were ten, fifteen pages long with the international news. And so Prabhupada used that for his Back to Godhead, and he wrote on the back of it, his manuscripts. And so that was an interesting occupation for me. To be in those rooms, and to experience how Prabhupada was writing his manuscript.

So I know he was trying to do the Bhagavad-gita for ten years. It actually didn't get published till 1968. So you can say thirteen years that took, because Prabhupada had to restart that manuscript many times, because he had one in Vrindavana which was maybe the first chapter, I'm not, I can't remember. He also started Caitanya-caritamrita, and there were so many Back to Godhead articles that he wrote.