ISKCON New VrindabanISKCON ਨਿਊ ਵਰਿੰਦਾਬਨ

In the northern hills of West Virginia, near the town of Moundsville, a golden palace stands over a valley of farms, peacocks and temple gardens. New Vrindaban is an ISKCON Hare Krishna intentional community founded in 1968, named for Vrindavan in India, the land of Krishna's childhood. It grew from a battered farmhouse with no electricity or running water into the largest ISKCON rural community in the United States, centred on the Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra Temple and on Prabhupada's Palace of Gold, a memorial shrine of marble, gold leaf and carved teakwood built by devotees and added to the United States National Register of Historic Places in 2019. Its history holds both devotion and hard lessons, and the community that remains, readmitted to ISKCON in 1998, now welcomes pilgrims and tourists through the year.

What is New Vrindaban?

New Vrindaban is an unincorporated community and ISKCON temple settlement in Marshall County, West Virginia, United States, near Moundsville, at 3759 McCrearys Ridge Road. The settlement covers 1,204 acres and includes homes, apartment buildings, farms, businesses and its religious heart, the Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra Temple, whose deities are Radha and Krishna. Beside it stands Prabhupada's Palace of Gold, the memorial to A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), who founded the society in New York in 1966. The community follows the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition of devotion to Krishna, keeps a strictly vegetarian life around its holy sites, and supports itself through tourism, agriculture and cottage industries. Its sister Krishna pages on Jugti include the birthplace complex at Krishna Janmasthan in Mathura, the Indian city whose name New Vrindaban echoes.

How did a West Virginia farm become a holy town?

New Vrindaban was founded in 1968 by Kirtanananda Swami and Hayagriva Das, two early disciples of Prabhupada, under Prabhupada's direct guidance. The first property was modest in the extreme: a battered shack, no electricity, no running water and no easy access. Devotees built cottages, farm buildings and a temple, and the live in population passed 100 by the mid 1970s and more than 500 by the 1980s; a community census in October 1986 counted 377 adults. Land accumulated around the first farm until the settlement reached its present 1,204 acres, of which ISKCON New Vrindaban is the largest single holder. Pilgrims and curious visitors made it one of West Virginia's leading tourist attractions as well as a religious site, and at its height it supported a school, farms with protected cattle, gardens and a publishing and crafts economy alongside the temple.

Prabhupada's Palace of Gold: a house that became a shrine

The Palace of Gold began in 1972 as a planned residence where Prabhupada could stay on his visits. After his death in November 1977 the plan grew: the house became an ornate memorial shrine of marble, gold and carved teakwood, designed and built chiefly under Kirtanananda Swami and the community's architect and sculptor Bhagavatananda Das. It was dedicated on 2 September 1979. Contemporary reports put the materials cost at about 600,000 dollars, with the labour donated by devotees, many of them untrained, who learned building crafts on the job. National magazines and newspapers marvelled at a gilded Indian palace in the Appalachian hills. The palace listing on the National Register of Historic Places, added on 28 August 2019, dates the building work to 1973 to 1985 and covers 50.1 acres. Maintenance suffered in the early 1990s when money ran short, yet about 50,000 tourists and Hindu pilgrims a year were still reported visiting in 2008, and in 2011 a five year restoration programme of 4.27 million dollars began to renew the palace.

What happened when the community was expelled from ISKCON?

An honest history has to include the fall. On 16 March 1987 ISKCON's Governing Body Commission expelled Kirtanananda Swami, the community's leader, citing moral and theological deviations, and a year later the New Vrindaban community itself was expelled from ISKCON. The years around the split brought scandal and criminal cases that damaged the community's name and shrank its population sharply from its 1980s peak. Kirtanananda eventually left New Vrindaban, new leadership stabilised the settlement, and in 1998 the community was readmitted to ISKCON, the status it holds today. The smaller community that emerged turned back to the founding purposes Prabhupada had set out in his letters: cow protection, simple living, holy pilgrimage and spiritual education, centred on loving Krishna. Visitors today meet that quieter New Vrindaban, a working farm temple rather than the commune of the headlines.

The temple today: Radha Vrindaban Chandra

Daily life turns on the Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra Temple, which the community's own site describes as open to the public 365 days a year. Worship begins with Mangala Arati at 5 in the morning and runs through the day to the last darshan, Shayana Arati, at 8:30 in the evening, with classes on the Srimad Bhagavatam and the Bhagavad Gita, cow milking at the barn that visitors may watch, and vegetarian prasadam meals. Inside the temple room, twenty four pillars topped with wood carved lions lead toward a four storey stained glass atrium ceiling, and the central golden altar is considered by many visitors one of the most beautiful of its kind. A hand carved teakwood festival chariot and a ceremonial golden swing are also on display. Around the temple stand the Palace of Gold and its rose garden, a guest lodge and restaurant, peacocks on the lawns, and the community's protected herd of cattle, the living centre of its farm tradition.

Visiting New Vrindaban and the Palace of Gold

New Vrindaban stands at 3759 McCrearys Ridge Road, Moundsville, West Virginia 26041, in the state's northern panhandle, about an hour and a half by road from Pittsburgh. Most visitors come by car, following the community's published directions, since the hill roads are winding and public transport is limited. The temple is open every day of the year, and the community asks visitors to respect the holy sites: the settlement is strictly vegetarian, and alcohol and illegal substances are prohibited around the main temple area. Allow a full day if you can: darshan at the temple, a tour of the Palace of Gold, the rose garden in season, a vegetarian meal and the farm and cow barn make the visit. Pilgrims tracing America's Krishna trail can read this page with Jugti's entries on Krishna Janmasthan, Mathura and the neighbouring state temples at Pittsburgh and Lemont, Chicago.