Viṣnujāna Swāmi
ISKCON'S first Kirtan legend
Vishnujana Swami was one of the first sannyasi disciples of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada within the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. He is a famously known figure within ISKCON through his ecstatic singing voice and pure kirtans and his historical position as a preacher in the early days of the movement. He is also particularly well known for his intense unflinching enthusiasm in performing Harinama Sankirtan, often up to 8 hours or more a day and is also known as an important figure of the successful Radha Damodar Travelling Sankirtan Party (RDTSP) which was very pleasing to Srila Prabhupada.
His preaching efforts were very succesful and managed to convert many to Krishna Consciousness. Srila Prabhupada was said he sung like a "gandharva" (celestial musician), and that "he can make the whole world chant Hare Krishna". Srila Prabhupada loved his kirtans and often expressed appreciation for their purity and also his musical skill.
Vishnujana Swami left our mortal vision in 1976.


Born on June 2, 1948, in San Jose, California. At the age of seventeen he moved to San Francisco along with his long-term girlfriend, who he married in 1966. It was also in 1966 that Vishnujana first came into contact with the Hare Krishnas, and by 1968 he had received initiation from Srila Prabhupada and was a full-time member of the movement. On July 20, 1970, Srila Prabhupada had awarded Vishujana the order of sannyasa.

Vishnujana was especially well known within ISKCON for his singing voice, and skill at playing instruments, such as the Harmonium and Mrdanga. Musical recordings of Vishunjana would later be released in 1995 and are still popularly distributed within ISKCON today. Recordings of his lectures and singing are included in the official audio archive collection of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

In 1973, Vishnujana Swami headed up a team of devotees traveling on a bus across the USA which became famous within ISKCON as one of its most successful preaching parties. The team was named after the deities which travelled with them in the bus, called Radha-Damodara. This bus, filled with ISKCON devotees, would travel from city to city, performing sankirtan, and distributing Srila Prabhupada's books. Vishujana Swami continued, last year with his close associate Tamal Krishna Goswami travelling with the Sankirtan Party in this way until 1976.

In 1976, during the Gaura Purnima festival in India, Vishnujana Swami mysteriously disappeared. Some believe that he chose to leave his body at the confluence of several sacred rivers at the Ganges. During a walk some days earlier it is believed he had mis-heard a general statement by Prabhupada concerning the duty of a sannyasi which could have led to him taking his own life, but as Vishnujana is not recorded to have disclosed his thoughts to anyone before disappearing it is not known for certain if this was the case.


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