ISKCON Fiji
Iskcon Fiji has five main centres. The temple Sri Sri Radha Golokbhihari in the capital city Suva is ISKCON’s largest temple outside India. Opened in 2005 the temple has become a hub for many locals to celebrate important festivals in the Vaishnava calendar. One of the temples unique in its name Sri Krishna Kaliya temple of which the foundation laying ceremony was done by Srila Prabhupada himself is in the second largest city in the country- Lautoka. The Sigatoka Centre is located in another district which is currently working on a 2.5 million dollar project to build a four storey temple housing ashrams, halls, museum, etc.On the second largest island in Fiji, Vanua Levu ISKCON temple Sri Radha Vrindhavan Chandra is located in Labasa.The other centre is in the rural community of Fiji, Rakiraki.
Srila Prabhupada first placed his lotus feet on Fiji soil in 1974 as he was passing through on his way to Hawaii. Srila Prabhupada was in transit at Nadi Airport and Vasudev Prabhu, then known as Deoji Punja, had arranged to meet with him in the transit lounge at the airport.
Vasudev Prabhu, during one of his visits to Sydney, had seen ISKCON Australian devotees chanting and dancing in the streets and being very impressed with them wanted to find out who was this great personality who had brought about such positive radical changes in the lives of these Australians. Having established that this great soul was known by his disciples as Srila Prabhupada, Vasudev Prabhu had this intense desire to meet him. Vasudev Prabhu on his return to Fiji found out that Srila Prabhupada was scheduled to pass through Fiji and will spend some time in the transit lounge at the Nadi Airport.
Accompanied by his good wife, he met Srila Prabhupada for a short while at the airport transit lounge. Srila Prabhupada asked if there was a Radha Krishna temple in Fiji and when told there was none, he requested him to build and his own words Vasudev Prabhu had once disclosed to me that when Srila Prabhupada placed his hands on Vasudev Prabhu’s head to bless him, he shivered and felt that all sins had been washed away. The rest is history. Vasudev Prabhu worked tirelessly to build this temple and Sri Sri Krishna Kaliya temple in Lautoka was established and officially opened in 1977. Vasudev Prabhu was residing in Lautoka at that time.
Thereafter the preaching activities escalated in Fiji, and Vasudev Prabhu arranged with Srila Prabhupada to send one of his front liners, Tamal Krishna Goswami Maharaj to come to Fiji to preach on a regular basis. By the strong and effective preaching of Goswami Maharaj, many souls joined and took up Krishna Consciousness seriously but the society was making inroads mainly in Lautoka as a result of the temple. It was then that Goswami Maharaj suggested to Vasudev Prabhu that he should move to capital city Suva and expand the society in Suva with the objective on building an even larger temple to cater for the bigger population. He took Goswami Maharaj’s request to heart and moved to Suva with his family in 1979 leaving behind the comforts of one of the nicest homes in Lautoka. Living very humbly, he got down to the task of spreading Krishna Consciousness in Suva. The fire of Krishna Consciousness started to spread in Suva but to develop funds were required. Being a successful businessman before taking up Krishna Consciousness on a full time basis, he decided to do business on behalf of the Society to accumulate funds to further the objectives of the Society in Suva.
He began with a small takeaway outlet that sold sanctified vegetarian food. The trend got on as the food was tasty and soon a full fledged vegetarian restaurant was established. Hare Krishna natural ice creams followed and became extremely popular and the rest is history. As time passed by the devotee congregation also grew to a point where we needed a temple. Land was purchased in 1997 in Brewster Street and plans were drawn up for the construction of a temple complex in late 2001. Construction began in May 2002 and after almost two and half years we have achieved completion of this project which has cost the society over $3 million.
ISKCON Sigatoka
Off Mission Rd. Sigatoka Town
Ph: (679) 6500369, Fax: (679) 6500369, Mobile: (679) 9373703
Email: drgsmarna@connect.com.fj
Web site: http://iskconsigatoka.com/
ISKCON Suva
166 Brewster Street, Toorak,P.O Box 4229, Samabula
Phone: + (679) 331 8441, Fax:+ (679) 331 8441
Email:iskconsuva@connect.com.fj
Web site: http://radhagolokabihari.com
ISKCON Lautoka
5 Tavewa Ave. (mail: P.O. Box 125)
Tele – +679 666 4112, Email – regprakash@excite.com
ISKCON Labasa
Delailabasa (mail: P.O. Box 133)
Tele – +679 812912, E-mail: fiji@pamho.net
ISKCON Nausori
Hare Krishna Cultural Centre, 2nd Floor, Shop & Save Building
11 Gulam Nadi St., Nausori Town
Tele – +679 9969748 or 3475, Fax – +679 3477436, Email – vdas@frca.org.fj
ISKCON Rakiraki
Rewasa (mail: P.O. Box 204)
Tel. +679 694243, E-mail: fiji@pamho.net