Vision
To help people access deep realizations of great souls and explore the rich historical lessons during the time of Srila Bhaktisidhdanta Saraswati Thakur by providing the Dainik Nadiya Prakash in the English language in the most presentable format.
Mission
To translate the 47000 pages of the daily bengali newspaper Dainik Nadiya Prakash from Bengali to English and present it digitally for the whole world.
Introduction
Registered on 5 February 1919, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur’s missionary movement was initially called Vishva Vaishnava Raj Sabha, in the name of the society founded by Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur. However, it soon became eponymously known as the Gaudiya Math after the Calcutta branch and his weekly Bengali magazine Gaudiya. The Gaudiya Math rapidly gained a reputation as an outspoken voice on religious, philosophical and social issues via its wide range of periodical publications, targeting educated audiences in English, Bengali, Assamese, Odia, and Hindi. These publications included a daily Bengali newspaper Nadiya Prakash, a weekly magazine Gaudiya, and a monthly magazine in English and Sanskrit The Harmonist (Shri Sajjana-toshani)
About Nadia Prakash:
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura Prabhupada started ‘The Daily Nadia Prakash’ daily newspaper in 1928 which ran for over 20 years till 1947. It announced itself as ‘viśve ekmātra dainik pāramarthik patra’ (the only daily spiritual newspaper in the world). Each issue typically consisted of eight pages. The front and back page provided current news of Nadia district in Bengal as well as that of India and the rest of the world. The middle pages contained spiritual teachings from the shastras and Acharyas’ writings.
Dainik Nadiyā Prakāśa published both secular news, and commentary on contemporary events through the lens of devotional Hindu literatures of the Bengali Vaiṣṇava tradition in the early twentieth century.
- 1st page – world news – about Gandhi, Nehru etc.
- 2nd page – spiritual articles
- 3rd page – preaching news – festivals,
- 4th page – recent publications
- 8th page Last page – advertisements
- In Nadia district
- All those are in Bengali
A few anecdotes
When asked why he printed a daily spiritual newspaper entitled Nadia Prakash, Srila Sarasvati Thakura replied, “If an insignificant city can produce five daily newspapers, then why can’t we publish a newspaper every ‘Second about the eternal, ever-fresh transcendental activities of the Supreme Personality of Godhead in His unlimited spiritual planet, Goloka Vrindavana?”
Sarasvati Thakura was publishing magazines in various language, including English, Assamese, Hindi, Bengali, Oriyan, and one Bengali daily – Nadia Prakash. Sometimes people would not send in their subscriptions and the devotees would complain to Sarasvati Thakura, asking whether to stop supplying them or not. He would then become very angry and ask them, “Are you commercially hired fools? No! Supply them free.”
He also said that, “We must start a daily newspaper, to present our points of view”, and from that time on he started Nadia Prakash, the daily spiritual newspaper. One of the main purposes of Nadia Prakash was to answer such challenges as these, which were put to his mission. Sarasvati Thakura said, “There are floods in Mednapur, but you are already in a much worse flood – bhava sagar, or the ocean of material existence. Your soul is drowned in this bhava sagar. So my mission is to stop the flood of the bhava sagar, to stop that flood, a much bigger flood than these small floods which you consider devastating in Mednapur. “
HDG AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder Acharya of ISKCON, speaking about Nadiya Prakash
“Our Guru Maharaja, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Gosvami, he was publishing one small paper, Dainika Nadiya Prakash in Bengali. And if a brahmacari would go and sell a few copies, he would be very, very glad. He would be very, very glad. And similarly, he advised me also that “If you get some money, publish book.” And he used to say that “This press propaganda, the publication propaganda, is brhad-mrdanga.” So just to satisfy him we are trying to publish this Srimad-Bhagavatam, Bhagavad-gita, Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu, Caitanya-caritamrta, very, very authoritative books, in English.” (Lecture in Vrindavan, April 24, 1975 on SB 1.7.7)
My Guru Maharaja was questioned by one big politician. He came to see him. So my Guru Maharaja… He was asking, “What are your activities?” So at that time he was publishing one paper. I think it is still published in Mayapura. It is called… What is called, Dainik? Daily news, it was a daily newspaper, small. Navadvipa Prakash, like that. Nadiya Prakash. Nadiya Prakash. So daily. So this politician inquired from Guru Maharaja, “You are publishing a daily paper about God consciousness?” “Yes.” “No, what you are writing?” He was surprised. The politicians think that newspaper can be filled up with rubbish political news only. That’s all. They cannot think that newspaper can be filled up by news from spiritual world. Yes. They have no idea. They have no idea there is spiritual world. So my Guru Maharaja explained that “Why you are thinking of only one small newspaper? You do not know what is spiritual world. This material world is one-fourth portion of the whole creation of the Lord. And the three-fourths’ portion is the spiritual world. And in this one fourth portion there are innumerable universes. And in one of the universes… This is one of the universe. And in each universe there are millions of planets. And this planet, earthly planets, is only a small planet in that universe. And on this earthly planet, there are so many cities. And in each city, there are so many newspapers. And each newspaper has got so many editions. This is the position of the material world. Now, think over the spiritual world. It is… The spiritual world is three fourths, three times bigger than this material… And there are so many planets, so many universes, and so many activities. So we can produce not one newspaper daily, but every minute a newspaper. We can produce. Unfortunately, there is no customer. You see? This is the difficulty. For material news, there are so many customers, but when we put something, spiritual news, no customer. This is the difficulty. Otherwise… You are thinking of one newspaper daily. We could issue every second a newspaper about spiritual news.” (Lecture in LA, December 25, 1973 on SB 1.15.47-48)
In my Guru Maharaja’s day there was a paper, Dainika Nadiya Prakash. It was being published daily, a piece of paper, just like I was publishing Back to Godhead. And if a small brahmacari would go to Navadvipa and would sell a few copies, one paisa a copy, that would be taken as a great preaching by Guru Maharaja: “Oh, you have sold five copies? Very good.” Because people are so reluctant—they are not at all interested in Krishna consciousness—therefore we become very much engladdened when we see that some of our books and literatures are sold. (Lecture in Delhi, March 26, 1976 on SB 7.9.44)
Advertisement about Nadia Prakash in The Harmonist
A bilingual weekly iti Bengali and English. It supplies information of every description about agriculture, trade, industry, health, education, religion, Society, proceedings of Nadia District and Union Boards etc. besides news of the outside world. Articles or any information relating to the villages or sub-divisions of Nadia District that come under any of the above heads will be thankfully accepted for publication. Annual subscription is Rs. 2-8 only.
The Manager, Sree Bhagabata Press, Krishnagar (Nadia)
We have physically preserved with lamination and indexed over 5000 issues of this daily newspaper published over 20 years and bound them in 62 volumes. We have also digitized the entire collection totalling 40,000 digital images