Our Greatest Milestone - A Real Victory for the Voice of Vanipedia
Dated 1st October 2016.
- ✨Our Greatest Milestone - A Real Victory for the Voice of Vanipedia
- ✨25,013 subtitles on YouTube
- ✨plus 1,080 Vaniquote pages in English
- ✨and 22,911 Vanipedia pages in 86 languages
- ✨with an audio & video file linked to each page
- ✨a tremendous offering of collaborative love
- ✨performed by 509 devotees over a period of 3 1/2 years
- ✨totaling over 50,000 hours of vaniseva
Dear Srila Prabhupada,
Please accept our humble obeisances. All glories to your enthused and dedicated vaniservants.
Today we celebrate an achievement that is so glorious that it merits a full expose. A book can most surely be written. For now, I will simply remember how it all unfolded!
I remember working hard to build your thematic presence within Vaniquotes and while finding so much nectar within your lectures and conversations, dreaming for the day, when we could start to work with your voice and for the day when Vanipedia would be in many different languages.
I remember Sahadeva and myself taking the decision in December of 2012 that we could no longer wait. We must start to work with your voice.
I remember coming to Mayapur in February of 2013 and working out with Alexander our first project. "Let's make it easy." Simply take a small audio clip of you and get it translated and then subtitled in a YouTube video. That would be an achievable way to start.
I remember choosing Expand to 10 Million as the perfect clip, to begin with. Around that time I came across this bold statement from you, Srila Prabhupada, expressing a vision of a future with 10 million acaryas making it very easy for people to become Krsna conscious throughout the world. I remember running around the dhama asking devotees to be part of this historic project. "Please translate these few words of Srila Prabhupada in your own language"
I remember Vasudeva kindly coming forward to create the video images of the first file, and I remember Alexander working on a solid interface to create subtitles from the translations.
And most blissfully, I remember offering to you on Gaura Purnima the completed video with 32 languages subtitled. We did not know then what an enthused baby we had given birth to.
I remember coming back to Radhadesh and saying "Saha we have a new mission, let us create 50 videos and get them subtitled in many languages" Saha looks me in the eyes and says "sure, you say 50 now, but I know you will push for more" 🙂
I remember Saha working out in his perfectionist way how to streamline a process to create videos, and how we went back and forth with Alexander for the first 10 subtitles.
I remember the fateful day when Rasikananda sent us a Dotsub video. While looking at it, we came to know that Dotsub was a platform for translating. Little did we know then, just how much Dotsub would serve your mission Srila Prabhupada. A perfect platform for doing just what we wanted to do and wow have we rocked that platform.
Today, Vanipedia remains the project with the most results within Dotsub. There are over 200,000 videos within Dotsub. Of the top 100 most translated videos, 55 of them are yours Srila Prabhupada. And of the top 10, eight of them are yours. I always say to the devotees. "Do not underestimate what we are part of. It is truly revolutionary."
I remember how Saha and Rishab teamed up to create such a dynamic process to produce videos and subtitle them in English and upload them into Dotsub. They stuck with it for 23 months - it took from May 2013 till February 2015 to complete. Saha created 1079 videos and Rishab subtitled 1070 of them.
I remember Lalita Gopika being such a force of inspiration for us. She pushed Saha more than I did, and in a much sweeter way 🙂. This young lady from Latvia lead all the translators forward, showing them what it was to have taste to translate. All by herself, she completed 1080 videos - setting the bar so high for others to try and jump to and equal. This can not be beaten, only equaled. And there are not many who live in that realm of possibility. I think Maha Prasad has a serious chance to do it, and maybe Prahlad Bhakta and Gaura Prema. Lets see!
I remember how the Turkish team of 11 devotees evolved under the enthused services of Amala Prema & Devayani and how the Persian team of 16 devotees evolved under the dynamic services of Siddhesvari, Nityangi, Nasrin & Najva.
And how they gloriously became the first two languages to complete the 1080 - doing so - on the same day. That was so cool, collaboration and cooperation at its best. Devotees were racing Srila Prabhupada, only to give you pleasure.
I remember the sweet sweet team of 12 devotees from Bulgaria lead by Manohari, Sarvabhauma and Mahabhava and how they inspired each other to go on to completion.
I remember the outstanding offering of Jagannath Gopal and Syama Kumari as they enthusiastically built up a team of 21 devotees to complete French.
I remember how the Hungarian team grew from the lone solider - Tattva Darshana prabhu - to a totally inspired team of 28 devotees encouraged by Akrura and Syama Mohita to build Vanipedia. This gave birth to inspired leadership coming from Peter, Kadama Kanana, Gyorgyi, and Richard.
Oh, and how I remember that fateful meeting with Anandini in Istanbul. Looking for a mission, she connected so wonderfully with Yugala Priti - also on a mission - and Paulius & Modestas to lead a team of 11 Lithuanian devotees to completion.
Now I am remembering how the Nepali team of 21 devotees developed and how, after Visvajit took up the leadership, the team went from a sleeping mountaineering outpost to the most dynamic team we have had. Picking themselves up from being smashed to the ground by a deadly earthquake under the inspiration of Kantish, Samiran, Rajesh and Yogendra they translated 916 videos in two months. Now that is a record to be beaten!
And I remember our dear team of 18 Russian cats, who although it took time, due to the determined offerings of Timur, Sofiya, Karuna Vani, and Irina they actually completed all 1080 videos. YippY.
I am now remembering the powerful lone quiet soldiers - working without the support of a team, undauntedly sitting and translating very serious amounts of videos. Suvilasi Madhavi for Hindi, Gandhara for Spanish, Mahatseva for Italian, Yamuna Jivan for Yoruba & French, Jakob for Slovak & Czech, Gunamani & Torben for Danish, Revati & Patrick for German, Erik & Tom for Dutch, Bahulasva for Swedish, Madana Mohana Mohini for Polish, Rukmini Govind for Gujarati, Maha Prasad for Amharic, Gauri Gopika, Marina & Ratnavali for Portuguese (Brazil), Tulasi Maharani for Mongolian, Prahlada Bhakta for Akan, Sumangala Laksmi for Tamil, Vijaya Baladeva for Czech, Gaura Prema for Azerbaijani and Nityananda for Portuguese.
It brings tears to my eyes to think of their sacrifices. They have been pushing on with such resolve, self-supported by the experiences they were having of being so deeply connected with you Srila Prabhupada. That is their driving force. Unsung heroes mercifully sacrificing their time so that others could benefit from hearing you.
Actually above is not at all an exhaustive list. There are many many more glorious vaniservants who have offered their services.
This journey down memory lane is getting long but I find it difficult to stop. Appreciating all of this sacrifice made by so many devotees purifies us immensely and gives us the determination to continue on with building your Vani-temple.
Now I am remembering our first one-day non-stop marathon, Yamuna Jivan and Devayani - wow that was fun, to see two lions determined to win, and how the brahmana-tejas of Yamuna could take him ultimately to victory. In 24 hours Yamuna translated 47 videos and the then bhaktin Zeyneb (Devayani) 37. Wow! Then this brings to my mind how Sarvabhauma wanted to also push his limits to beat this and how he sliced through time and space to translate 51 videos in 24 hours. And how in true warrior spirit Yamuna took the new challenge to beat that - translating 54 videos in 24 hours just a couple of months later. - These are such happy memories.
Oh and while we are remembering - what about our - out of this world - December Vanifun of December 2014 when 101 devotees, subtitled 2688 videos in 51 languages. Can we believe that actually happened!
I remember being very concerned that all the glorious services of the devotees were a little hidden within the subtitles of YouTube and how ecstatic it was to come up with the idea to create Vanipedia pages for all the translated videos - oh and how Rishab worked so tirelessly to create over 12,000 pages all by himself. Now with 23,000 pages of translations, we can safely say that this was a very strategic step forward in building Vanipedia and giving access to your teachings in so many languages.
I remember Bhagavat prabhu spontaneously creating the tutorial video to create pages and how helpful this has been.
I remember launching our Introductory Bhagavad-gita project and how we aimed high for 108 languages, something that is still evading us. We do not forget our mission and will not stop until we get there. Sriram just started last week in Oriya so that is one step more closer.
Dear Srila Prabhupada these are some of my memories. Please give us the faculties to always remember your sankirtana pastimes so that we can always be blissful in serving the real mission of giving volume to your voice so that you can pierce away the ignorance around our consciousness.
I hope that these memories will inspire all of us to not only look back at the good old times but to perform our present services in a dynamic way that our actions continue to develop a very bright and glorious future for us all.
I also want to warmly welcome our three new translators from Croatia. It looks like a nice new team is developing in Croatia. Yashoda started a few days ago and Hvoje & Lea joined us only yesterday to help us reach our milestone.
Srila Prabhupada we are your happy vaniservants, thank you for engaging us. We now set our hearts on the next milestone - 50,000 subtitles and beg you to enter into the hearts of many more devotees to inspire them to come forward to participate in this glorious appearance of your Vani in so many languages. The Christians's achievement of translating the Bible in over 500 languages and parts of the Bible in 2800 languages show us just how much vaniseva still lies ahead for us.
Please give us the strength, the vision, and the resolve to always sincerely work for your Vani's glory.
your grateful servants
at Vanipedia