Jayadvaita Swami

Who is Jayadvaita Swami?

Jayadvaita Swami, a Gaudiya Vaishnava swami and a Hare Krishna guru, is an editor, publisher, and teacher and a disciple of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder of ISKCON. He has been the seniormost editor for the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust for more than forty years and now serves as its trustee for publishing in Africa. He has been described as "one of ISKCON's most independent-minded and respected thinkers."

Jayadvaita Swami was born Jay Israel to a Reform Jewish family. He spent his childhood in Englewood, New Jersey. In 1968 in New York City he was first introduced to Krishna Consciousness and received initiation from Srila Prabhupada. Jay shaved his head, received the spiritual name Jayadvaita, and began to study the teachings of Krishna. Practically the first task assigned to him in ISKCON was to staple booklets. Later he went on to become the editor of dozens of books and magazines. He was engaged in transcribing Srila Prabhupada's dictation for books, and then typesetting, proofreading, managing book production, and editing. Although before joining ISKCON Jayadvaita attended some college classes at Carnegie Institute of Technology, "he is in the most general sense self-educated and taught himself everything he needed to know in order to become a literary editor".