A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Born Abhay Charan De in 1896, he received an order in his youth from his spiritual teacher: spread Krishna consciousness in English. In 1965 he boarded a cargo ship from Kolkata to New York City, carrying little but texts. He taught that the Absolute is personal, not impersonal - a break from earlier Indian teachers in the West - and that the self is eternal, distinct from the body, meant for devotional service to Krishna. In 1966 he established the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, which grew into a global network. He wrote more than eighty books, including Bhagavad-Gītā As It Is and English translations of the Srimad-Bhagavatam and Chaitanya Charitamrita, making texts celebrated in India available to new audiences. ISKCON drew the label "destructive cult" in America and parts of Europe in the late 1970s and 1980s; courts and scholars rejected brainwashing claims and recognized it as an authentic branch of Hinduism, though the label lingered. He died in 1977, leaving a society that scholars and Indian political leaders have called one of the most successful exports of Hinduism abroad.