The evening of June 3rd, our first saint of ISKCON HG Jayananda Prabhu was honored with the establishment of a memorial in his honor. Jayananda Prabhu was a a sincere and dedicated devotee of Srila Prabhupada's movement while he was physically present here, and we can be sure that he has continued his dedication and service in the spiritual world.

The program was sweet and simple, the first function was a fire yajna to establish the samadhi, followed by various senior devotees, including HG Jananivas Prabhu, glorifying the immense inspiration that Jayananda Prabhu had been to all devotees of their time. His unflinching services to the mission and to the Lord.

Following the class was the official opening of the Samadhi, inside a beautiful picture of Jayananda Prabhu, along with a jacket of his that had been donated by a Prahalad-priya Prabhu, a dear god-brother. Devotees then brought Maha-Prasadam from Lord Jagannath and other offerings for HG Jayananda Prabhu. After the offerings of prasadam, devotees offered flowers of love at his lotus feet. The function ended with a maha-arati for HG Jayananda Prabhu.

Following the memorial opening the devotees ventured over to the Jagannath Mandir for the adi-vas of the Snana Yatra festival which would be held the next day. The evening concluded with a beautiful Odissi dance by a dance school from Kolkata.

To view more photos, please visit our gallery: HG Jayananda Prabhu Memorial Opening