Śrīmad-Bhāgavata Vidyāpīṭham

As far back as history can be traced in India, brāhmaṇa teachers have been expected to adhere—even as teaching methods varied among schools and individuals—to certain basic principles of education: Real knowledge is a gift of enlightment from the Supreme. It should not considered a commodity to be purchased. Students should approach teachers with respect and readiness to serve. A teacher who is truly brahminical should not charge for his teaching, nor be a paid employee of an institution; by teaching for free, he retains the integrity that allows him to accept or dismiss students as he chooses; a paid teacher, however, is normally obliged to teach whoever pays the fees. When a student has heard and assimilated properly from a real brahminical teacher, the satisfied teacher can bless him, and that blessing, rather than test grades or job offers, guarantees the fructification of what has been learned. Then, at the end of learning from a teacher, the student may voluntarily donate something in gratitude. Such education is personal and noncommercial.

We are trying in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavata Vidyāpīṭham to offer this kind of traditional teaching as an alternative for ISKCON devotees and also others who might be interested in it. Our teachers do not pretend to be perfect brāhmaṇas, know everything eminent paṇḍitas know, or be familiar with all the details of the paṇḍitas' ways of training. But we do have the mercy on our heads of Śrīla Prabhupāda and his disciples, which includes within it the mercy of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s great predecessors. And we do have among our teaching staff taken together a half-century of practical experience serving Prabhupāda’s words by publishing work in various branches of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.

The Vidyāpīṭham, now in its third year of operation, already has in place a working system for its participants to learn as brāhmaṇas and learn to function in ISKCON as brāhmaṇas. In line with the traditional principle, we charge no tuition fees and maintain our students for free for the duration of their stay in our school. All that we require is going through our regular admissions process, which is selective, and after joining us attending with reasonable strictness our morning sādhana programs and academic classes. There is some testing, but the grading is noncompetitive. We recognize that devotees coming from various backgrounds will not all be able to follow our program with the same ease, but we do expect a serious commitment to attending all the programs and ability learn the material adequately. Our courses are conducted in English, although we also train our students to converse in Sanskrit, and Sanskrit is often spoken in the classes.

Our main school is located in Govardhana (not far from Vṛndāvana in north India), and recently five and a half acres of land have been acquired nearby Govardhana Hill, on which development of our permanent main campus will begin soon, hopefully to be completed by fall 2010. We also have a branch operation at the ISKCON spiritual city in Śrīdhāma Māyāpura, West Bengal. You can find pages with further information about both these facilities in our main menu.