The Amsterdam Adventure: How Hare Krishna came to the Dutch shores
Some books are written; this one was gathered. The Amsterdam Adventure is Bhagavati dasi’s history of the Hare Krishna movement in Amsterdam, and from the start it was a team effort of devotees. Its pages draw on the people who lived the story—those who chanted in the winter rain, slept on wooden doors in a bicycle garage, sewed through the night before an installation and carried books across the Dutch countryside—and on the devotees who helped bring their recollections to print.
Memories were shared, letters and photographs brought out of storage, details checked and checked again. Others gave their time to research, editing, translation, design and this website. Every part of it was offered as service.
The result follows the community across eleven chapters and a little more than a decade: from the first chanting on Dam Square, through a tower-block apartment and a converted garage, to a canal house on the Herengracht and finally a castle in the Belgian Ardennes. At its center stands Srila Prabhupada’s visit in July 1972, three days that the devotees of Amsterdam never forgot.
The story is told as honestly as the team could tell it, with its triumphs and its mistakes, its laughter and its losses. It is offered with gratitude to Srila Prabhupada, to the devotees whose lives fill its pages, and to everyone who will read it and remember.
Help us complete the record
The work is not finished. If you were part of the Amsterdam temple, or have photographs, letters or memories to share, our team would be glad to hear from you.
“Krishna desired you to go to Amsterdam, and therefore, you are not admitted in England.”
— Srila Prabhupada, letter to Sivananda, August 24, 1968