Vanipedia:About

Dedicated to His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda

A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda is a self-realized pure devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa. While physically present amongst us he shared the essence of Vedic knowledge liberally and without prejudice. His only desire was to fulfill his spiritual master's desire – to introduce the process of Kṛṣṇa consciousness to the world. Srila Prabhupāda showed us the importance of living a life according to the directions given in sacred scripture. He spoke and wrote profusely, so that many may have guidance in life, and he wished that every person on the planet could read his books now and into the future.

We humbly offer this attempt to assist Śrīla Prabhupāda in his mission. We pray that by Kṛṣṇa’s mercy and the blessings of Kṛṣṇa’s exalted devotees, Vanipedia will be able to spread his teachings to millions of souls across the globe.

Introduction

Welcome to Vanipedia. We are a small team of devotional web enthusiasts and Vanipedia is the place where we offer our Vaniseva, devotional service to the Lord. Vaniseva is the activities we perform to make this site a dynamic experience connecting millions of souls to the pure teachings of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Śrīla Prabhupāda.

For those of you who don't know who he is, Śrīla Prabhupāda (1896-1977) was a great saint who recently appeared within this world. He came to the USA from India in 1965 at the advanced age of 70. He carried nothing more than his faith in the Holy Names of Kṛṣṇa and three books of sacred scripture, the 1st canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, which he had recently translated and extensively commented on.

Śrīla Prabhupāda continued to translate and comment on over 50 volumes of ancient Vedic literature before his physical demise on November 14th 1977. His authority to write, teach, and train students in the science of God was given to him by his guru Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Mahārāja (1874-1937) who was coming in the disciplic succession from Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu(1486-1534), an incarnation of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Śrīla Prabhupāda also founded the international Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, ISKCON.

Every day for 12 years Śrīla Prabhupāda spoke of the souls' bondage within these material bodies and the transcendental science of how to free our souls from this bondage by reawakening our natural dormant love for God. As he was fixed in spiritual realization of the self, he could very easily explain these truths all the time staying relevant to the modern world of materialism that we are having to encounter on a regular basis.

Our project is to create an online encyclopedia of his teachings so that people can become more aware of Śrīla Prabhupāda's wonderful contribution to the spirituality of our planet. As the subject matter of Kṛṣṇa conscious philosophy is very vast and covers so many angles of vision, we consider it appropriate to compile Śrīla Prabhupāda's teachings into their natural themes to facilitate understanding of the subject matter As It Is.

Vanipedia project details

What is the Vanipedia?

• Vanipedia is an dynamic interactive encyclopedia of all of Śrīla Prabhupāda's teachings
• A dynamic resource for any devotional seeker, and a vast library of Vedic knowledge, it offers a profound experience for anyone who enters
• Due to the nature of it's presentation the reader very quickly experiences the multifarious qualities of the
  • Supreme Lord
  • His Holy Names
  • His Devotional Service
  • And the teachings in His sacred scriptures Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam

• This clearly gives value to the name we have given it: Vanipedia - The Essence of Vedic Knowledge

The vision

• To explore, discover, and compile the teachings of Śrīla Prabhupāda and to make them available in an easily accessable way, thereby offering a platform to Śrīla Prabhupāda to be available in 100% of his Vani glory so that he can give inspiration and shelter to millions

• To achieve this vision we would like to engage a large body of volunteers via our Vaniseva program, thus giving the opportunity for many devotees around the planet to cooperate and collaborate together on this dynamic service . To achieve this we will have a core team of devotees facilitating and coordinating the volunteers’ services

Vanipedia charter

• Our Charter will be developed over the next few months. We expect completion by June 2008

Points to include

• Exclusively dedicated to the teachings of His Divine Grace Śrīla Prabhupāda.

• Independently operated

• Editorial policies

• Organizational structure

• Relationship with members

Characteristics of Vanipedia

A unique resource

• Bringing together in one place all of Śrīla Prabhupāda's teachings

Authentic

• All the teachings of Śrīla Prabhupāda, as he delivered them from the disciplic succession

Comprehensive

• The thematic process of compiling guarantees a deeper understanding of each subject

Accessible

• Accessible to all via the web
• Software makes navigation very easy

An educational experience

• The learning opportunities are immense for any sincere seeker as the truths being expressed will be easy to grasp due to the nature of the presentation of Vanipedia

• Terminologies that have become common usage will take on a more significant meaning

• The understanding of Śrīla Prabhupāda usage of the English, Sanskrit and Bengali languages will become clearer

• Difficult or contentious subjects can be addressed with better informed discussion due to the increased knowledge available

• The resource that Vanipedia offers can be used by devotees to greatly improve the quality of their teaching and preaching the proper conclusions of Kṛṣṇa conscious philosophy.

Never out of Context

Four reasons as to why the quotes are never presented out of context

Reason One

• The whole process of compiling in Vaniquotes gives the reader the opportunity at all times to reference the full text of any compiled material as each quote is linked to our Vanisouce database of all Śrīla Prabhupāda's books, lectures, conversations and letters.

• We will also include both the pre 1977 and post 1977 editions of his books. At a click of the button the reader can see all editions

Reason Two

• Due to the comprehensive nature of the compiling process, all quotes on a specific subject will be available and also in their natural sections and subsections

Reason Three

• Vanipedia offers interlinking with other related subjects. Thus there is a check and balance resource being developed

Reason Four

• As the time and facility allows we will compile the Lectures and Conversations with the audio versions from our Vanimedia database.
• This will enable the reader to read and also hear at the same time
• The reader will be able to hear the tone of Śrīla Prabhupāda as he makes different statements, greatly enhancing the capacity to understand

Definitions

Vani

Śrīla Prabhupāda has translated vāṇī in the following ways;

• vāṇī—a voice
• vāṇī—injunction
• vāṇī—message
• vāṇī—talking
• vāṇī—teachings
• vāṇī—the organ of speech
• vāṇī—transcendental words
• vāṇī—vibration
• vāṇī—words
• vāṇī—words, the power of speech

and here we see the translations when connected to other words;

• kṛṣṇa-vāṇī-the word of Kṛṣṇa, Bhagavad-gītā
• rādhikā-vāṇī—the statement of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī
• gaura-vāṇī-the message of Lord Caitanya
• caitanyera vāṇī—the words of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu
• śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya-vāṇī—the message of Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu
• kāvya-vāṇī—poetic language
• mātuḥ vāṇī—the instructions of the mother
• śāstra-vāṇī—the indication of revealed scriptures
• śukadeva-vāṇī—the words of Śukadeva Gosvāmī
• ājñā-vāṇī—orders and injunctions
• artha-vāṇī—the aim of life, the aim of profit
• kahi satya-vāṇī—I am speaking the truth
• veda-vāṇī—hymns of the Vedas
• priya-vāṇī—pleasing words
• śrī-mukha-vāṇī—words from his mouth
• mithyā vāṇī—false stories

so we can see that vāṇī means the words, the instructions, the message, the teachings

In the concluding words of the Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta Śrīla Prabhupāda states that;

CC Antya 20.157, Concluding Words: "Although according to material vision His Divine Grace Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda passed away from this material world on the last day of December, 1936, I still consider His Divine Grace to be always present with me by his vāṇī, his words. There are two ways of association-by vāṇī and by vapuḥ.Vāṇī means words, and vapuḥ means physical presence. Physical presence is sometimes appreciable and sometimes not, but vāṇī continues to exist eternally. Therefore we must take advantage of the vāṇī, not the physical presence. The Bhagavad-gītā, for example, is the vāṇī of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Although Kṛṣṇa was personally present five thousand years ago and is no longer physically present from the materialistic point of view, the Bhagavad-gītā continues."

• Vanipedia is designed to help anyone who so desires to take full shelter of Śrīla Prabhupāda's vāṇī and by doing so, also associate with the vāṇī of Lord Krsna, the vāṇī Lord Caitanya, the vāṇī of Their various incarnations and the vāṇī of the many saints and sages who have purely represented Their teachings throughout the ages.

Pedia

Pedia is an abbreviation for encyclopedia which is defined as;

• a comprehensive reference work containing articles on a wide range of subjects or on numerous aspects of a particular field.

The specific nature of Vanipedia is that it is uniquely web based and specifically dedicated to the teachings of Śrīla Prabhupāda

The Essence of Vedic Knowledge

In Vaniquotes we have gathered together Śrīla Prabhupāda's explanations of the essence of Vedic knowledge

Śrīla Prabhupāda explains the different essences' of Vedic knowledge to be;

• Bhagavad-gītā As It Is
• Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
• Lord Kṛṣṇa
• The holy names of Lord Kṛṣṇa
• Devotional service to Lord Kṛṣṇa

Śrīla Prabhupāda spent his whole life bringing to light these essences for the well being of all

• He tirelessly translated the texts of Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam from Sanskrit to English
• He continuously explained throughout his purports and lectures the deep meanings of Lord Kṛṣṇa appearance and activities, the nature of His devotional service and the potencies of His holy names.
• And he constantly chanted the holy names of Kṛṣṇa and also inspired millions of people to as well

We consider the subtitle of Vanipedia the essence of Vedic knowledge to be very appropriate to give clarity to what Vanipedia actually is.

Our analogy that keeps us afloat

• Śrīla Prabhupāda's teachings are an ocean of Vedic knowledge

• Vanipedia is a boat that is launching a voyage into that great ocean

• As we traverse this ocean, we will explore it's depths, discover it's shores, encounter the transcendental personalities that reside within it's waters, and churn it's waters to salvage the lost treasures of the essence of Vedic knowledge

• We will bring these lost treasures to the surface, construct Vanibooks, and then place them in glorious Vani temples. There they will be worshiped. These Vanibooks will give us shelter and guidance to help us cross our own individual oceans of nescience that keeps us bobbing up and down in this ocean of material existence

• These Vani temples will also give shelter to all souls who after swimming endlessly in the ocean of birth and death have come to realize that it is not in the ocean of material existence that they will find the happiness they seek

• These souls will realize that if they dive into the ocean of mercy coming from the Supreme Lord and His pure devotees, they will be able to swim in the ocean of transcendental bliss and will again be inspired to regain their constitutional position as eternal servants of the Lord

• The Vanipedia boat is not limited to only a few crew members or passengers. Many a person can come on this voyage and the facility that our collaboration program offers will allow hundreds of devotees to take this voyage together.

• In a spirit of humble service we can all co-operate together to perform the varieties of services that are needed to succeed in our voyage. This service we name vaniseva

• Visually we see Vanipedia as a lotus with a base and 6 petals appearing from the ocean of Vani
  • Each petal is a unique section and Vanipedia is the base that keeps them all connected
  • Vanipedia is also the name of the lotus

Layout of the site

File:Vanipedia-lotus.png

Vanipedia

• A wide variety of Krsna conscious articles
• Written collaboratively by devoted volunteers
• Guiding the reader into Vaniquotes, Vanibooks, etc.

Vanisource

• All of Śrīla Prabhupāda's written teachings
• Is the source of Vaniquotes and Vanibooks
• Links references to Vaniquotes, Vanibooks, etc.
• Automatic lookup of words from Vanictionary

Vaniquotes

• Prabhupāda's teachings, categorized by subject
• Introducing the personalities in the teachings
• Encountering Śrīla Prabhupāda's usage of language
• Easy browsing of content by topics and themes
• Quotes linked to Vanisource, Vanimedia, Vanibooks etc

Vanibooks

• Online compendiums with index and chapters
• Built from Vaniquotes and Vanisource
• Possibility for printing hard copies

Vaniversity

• Interactive learning experience
• Variety of courses - simplified to advanced
• Curriculum developed from Vaniquotes, Vanibooks and Vanisource

Vanictionary

• Dictionary of sanskrit and bengali synonyms
• Quick glossary of all the personalities from Vanisource
• Automatic lookup from Vanisource

Vanimedia

• Images, audio and video
• Categorized for easy browsing
• Works across Vani projects
• Source for Vaniquotes and Vanibooks

How Vanipedia develops

There are different phases to the development of the whole Vanipedia site and they unfold step by step as the vaniseva is realized, bringing to full bloom all of the petals

In Vanisource

• Place all of Śrīla Prabhupāda's teachings in text form into Vanisource
• Create an attractive Navigation for these teachings
• Interlink Vanisource back to Vaniquotes

In Vanictionary

• Create the Sanskrit and Bengali dictionaries from the synonyms in Śrīla Prabhupāda's books
• Create a glossary of all the key words
• Create a brief description of each personality found in Śrīla Prabhupāda's teachings

In Vanimedia

• Place all of Śrīla Prabhupāda's photos in Vanimedia and populate them throughout the whole site
• Place all of Śrīla Prabhupāda's audio and video files in Vanimedia
• Link the Lecture and Conversation compilations in Vaniquotes to Vanimedia
• Create Vaniradio
• Create VaniTV

In Vaniquotes

• Exploring the depth of the ocean - finding all the synonyms of a particular subject so that the compilation can be comprehensive
• Discovering the shores of the ocean - compiling all of the quotes together in scriptural order
• Churning the shores of the ocean - finding all the natural subsections of the subject and compiling the quotes in theme order
• Each Vaniquote is linked to Vanisource

In Vanipedia

• Write Articles that introduce the reader into the different aspects of the Vanipedia site
• Act as a portal to link to the other petals of Vanipedia from these articles

In Vanibooks

• A Vanibook is created only after the extensive research and compiling has been done in Vaniquotes
• Using as a resource all the compiled quotes from the discovering and churning articles in Vaniquotes a compiler creates a Vanibook
• A Vanibook is a clear and conclusive compendium of a particular subject, covering all the angles of vision
• A Vanibook has all of the natural elements of a book, introduction, chapters, index and glossary
• Compilers of a Vanibook can write their brief commentaries to help the flow of the quotes
• Every quote in a Vanibook is linked to Vanisource or Vanimedia

In Vaniversity

Teaching the science of Unity and Diversity

• Create the curriculum for on line courses that educate the students in the essence of the conclusions found in Vaniquotes and Vanibooks

• Courses are divided into three categories
  • Vanifun - simplified
  • Vanischool - average
  • Vaniversity - advanced

Development

Development of Vanipedia is being done by the Prabhupada Vani Research Academy.

Core team activities

• To offer inspiration and practical support
• To invoke and sustain participation from volunteers
• To coordinate the infrastructural development of the site
• To research and compile
• To act as content reviewers and editors
• To give online site support
• To develop fund raising

Location of core team

• The core team will be based in BLS at the Prabhupada Vani Research Academy
• Core team members will be maintained in simple but comfortable facilities
• Each core team member receives a maintenance allowance of 200 euro per month in addition to prasadam (meals) and a place to live
• Facilitating a core team of 9 members requires a 120 square meter extension to be constructed

Time frame for releases

• Version 0.1 up and running on the 21st of March 2008
• Final version completed by October 2015 (celebrating the first 50 years of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s mission in the west)

• We envision that Vanipedia will greatly influence the second 50 years of the mission to be more representative of the principles established by Śrīla Prabhupāda in his teachings

About version 0.1

• Only a fraction of the project is ready for release with this version. Two of the seven petals are open. Vanisource and Vaniquotes

• Vanisource is still in development with fine tuning and presentation, the content has to be completed and extra elements put in place to enhance the performance. Still as it is, it offers a great opportunity to read online Śrīla Prabhupāda's books

• Of the 100,000 articles that are aimed for in Vaniquotes only 4,000 are started

• Our intent to release this version is to simply inspire people with our vision and to offer awareness so as to invoke blessings and practical participation to achieve this herculean task of completing the Vanipedia site by October 2015.

Vaniseva

All the services performed to keep the boat of Vanipedia on its voyage across the ocean of Vani are named vaniseva

• compiling
• writing
• editing for technical errors
• software programing
• design and layout
• educational development
• promotion
• financing
• administration
• site development
• server maintenance
• etc.

Prabhupada instructs us in many places of the importance to worship the Vani

SB 4.28.51, Purport: When one becomes serious to follow the mission of the spiritual master, his resolution is tantamount to seeing the Supreme Personality of Godhead. As explained before, this means meeting the Supreme Personality of Godhead in the instruction of the spiritual master. This is technically called vāṇī-sevā

Letter to Satsvarupa — Bombay 25 November, 1970: I have received very nice reports from all our centers how they are very much appreciating my books and they are understanding association with the Spiritual Master is the same as association with His vani or teachings. This is a transcendental fact.

Letter to Tusta Krsna — Ahmedabad 14 December, 1972: Next you ask if I am present in my picture and form? Yes. In form as well as in teachings. To carry out the teachings of guru is more important than to worship the form, but none of them should be neglected. Form is called vapu and teachings is called vani. Both should be worshipped. Vani is more important than vapu.

• Vaniseva is the sincere endeavors made by all the vaniservants to bring to life the worship of the glorious teachings of Śrīla Prabhupāda in Vanipedia

• The Vaniseva website coordinates the services of all the vaniservants

Founding members

• Acyutananda Caitanya dasa
• Eivind Morland
• Laksmipriya devi dasi
• Nayan Ruparelia
• Visnu Murti dasa

Related websites

Acaryapedia

• The same vision as Vanipedia but with the books of the previous acaryas.
• A dedicated webservant and a serious team of resourceful devotees will have to come forward for this initiative to be developed

Vaniseva

• Creating a web community for the devotees (vaniservants) who are building Vanipedia
• Creating a working model of co-operation that is sustainable and very pleasing to the vaniservants and to Śrīla Prabhupāda
• Offering inspiration and resources to assist each other in our various forms of vaniseva

Vanistore

• Creating a store where Śrīla Prabhupāda's and the previous acaryas books are presented nicely with efficient purchase facilities

Vanimemories

• Offering the facility for the diksa disciples of Śrīla Prabhupāda and those who physically interacted with him to give their memories of Śrīla Prabhupāda's instructions that have not previously been documented
• Acting as a resource for all the already documented memories
• A dedicated webservant will have to come forward for this initiative to be developed

We would like to thank

Subhananda Dasa

An encyclopedia of Śrīla Prabhupāda's teachings was already conceived of 31 years ago. Subhananda prabhu was given the blessings by Srila Prabhupada to take up this great task in June 1977. His three books Preaching is the Essence, Spiritual Master and Disciple and Sri Namamrta are wonderful comprehensive compilations on these three important subjects. The encyclopedia has yet to be developed by him. We at Vanipedia see ourselves as continuing on with this herculean task. We hope to celebrate the anniversary of the first 50 years of Śrīla Prabhupāda's mission in the West (2015) with the completion of Vanipedia.

Bhaktivedanta Archives and the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust

Many devotees from the Archives have tirelessly served for three decades to produce the Vedabase (a digital rendering of all of Śrīla Prabhupāda's teachings with a powerful search engine). Without Vedabase we would be greatly limited in our ability to compile. Being on the cutting edge of digital technology, the BBT Archives have made Śrīla Prabhupāda's teachings accessible to the current audience.

The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust has very kindly granted us a license to use their copyrighted material in order to build Vanipedia.

Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation has created an extremely versatile open source software. Our Vanipedia uses wiki to enable the task to be achievable in a quick, efficient and dynamically inspiring way. One of the most amazing aspects of the software is the ability to engage thousands of people simultaneously, facilitating the building of web communities in the spirit of collaboration.