Lokanath Maharaj Kirtan With Devotees

This year, ISKCON's annual festival in honor of the appearance of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu was the largest international gathering of Srila Prabhupada's followers ever.
 
LET'S GO BACK SOME four hundred years, to about thirty years after Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu had ended His pastimes on earth. The first Gaura Purnima Festival, honoring the anniversary of Lord Caitanya's appearance, was taking place in Kheturi-gram, now located in Bangladesh. The organizers of the festival, the great acarya, or spiritual teacher, Narottama Dasa Thakura and his cousin Santosh Datta had sent messengers in all directions with invitations. The most important Krsna conscious leaders throughout India, direct associates of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, and devotees of Lord Caitanya from the generation after Him responded to the invitations. Traveling from their towns and villages by foot, palanquins, or bullock carts, these devotees in turn invited everyone they met to come along, so thousands came to attend the festival.
 
Narottama and his cousin bore the entire expense of the festival. They built a beautiful temple, a large storehouse for food, an elaborate kirtana hall, a bathing pond, a colorful flower garden, a residential building for devotees, and guest houses for other visitors.
 
The most respected Vaisnava at that time, Sri Jahnava Mata, who had been the wife of Lord Caitanya's associate Sri Nityananda Prabhu, presided over the festival.
 
On Gaura Purnima day, Narottama unveiled five sets of Radha-Krsna Deities, which Srinivasa Acarya then installed. Expert kirtaniyas (singers) glorified the Lord, while dancers and actors performed intricate classical dances and dramas. The whole of Kheturi-gram roared with the holy name of the Lord.
 
After the installation ceremony, Narottama Dasa Thakura, the embodiment of Lord Nityananda's ecstasy and of Lord Caitanya's teachings, began to lead a moving kirtana in his own style. He and the countless waves of dancing devotees looked like the full moon and the unlimited stars in the sky.
 
Just as the kirtana was reaching its peak, Lord Caitanya and His associates miraculously appeared in their eternal spiritual forms in front of the thousands of assembled devotees. Filled with the unlimited ecstasy of transcendental love, the devotees all danced more and more, completely loosing themselves in the kirtana.
 
Now let's return to 1996. Last February and March, members of the Hare Krsna movement from all over the world, faithfully following in the footsteps of Srila Narottama Dasa Thakura and his associates, once again gathered in India to celebrate the appearance of Lord Caitanya. The event, however, was not a regular Gaura Purnima Festival. It was the Hare Krsna World Convention—one of the major events marking the worldwide celebration of the Srila Prabhupada Centennial. The photos on these pages give you a glimpse of what turned out to be the largest international ISKCON festival ever, with more than two thousand devotees attending programs in Mayapur, Calcutta, Allahabad, Delhi, and Vrndavana.