INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR KRISHNA CONSCIOUSNESS (ISKCON) is the missionary form of devotional Hinduism brought to the United States in 1965 by a pious devotee of Kṛṣṇa who wanted to convert the English-speaking world to "God-consciousness." By 2003, ISKCON had become an international movement with more than 350 temples and centers worldwide (approximately fifty in the United States).

Established as Charismatic Movement

The founding guru of ISKCON, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, was born Abhay Charan De in 1896 in Calcutta. Educated in a Vaiṣṇava school and later in Scottish Church College, he was a sporadically successful businessman in the pharmaceutical industry. However, after he was initiated in 1922 by Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, a Gauḍiya (Bengali) Vaiṣṇava, in the line of the sixteenth-century saint and reformer Caitanya, he began increasingly to invest time and money in his religious interests. In 1944 Prabhupada established the...