770726 - Letter to Ramesvara from Tamal Krsna

Vrndavana,

July 26, 1977

From: Tamal Krishna

Los Angeles

My dear Ramesvara Maharaja,

Please accept my humble obeisances at your feet.

Today we have received a letter from Sevananda Prabhu in Hong Kong. He has arranged for the reprinting of the first part Bhagavad-gita As It Is, Chinese edition, as well as for the first printing of volume 2 and 3. Each is to be printed 5,000 copies. The printing has been arranged to be done in Taiwan. The price for 3rd reprinting of the 1st part is less expensive than that arranged by Trivikram Maharaja even though it includes more color pictures, pages, and trilogy jacket. The prices quoted for the 2nd and 3rd volumes also seem reasonable considering the immense amount of work which goes into Chinese typesetting (apparently their type-setter uses one character at a time, which is very slow work). While we were in Mayapur, this printing work was discussed with Buddhimanta Prabhu who took responsibility for the distribution of all of these books (15,000 copies). It was agreed upon at that time that half of the printing would be done with a trilogy jacket which would house all three of the volumes, the other half of the copy to be sold as single pieces. Buddhimanta Prabhu advised that this would be the best arrangement, for while sellng many people will willingly take all three parts as easily as they would one part. As far as I know Buddhimanta Prabhu is now with Guru Krpa Maharaja picking in Japan. The agreement was that as soon as the Chinese books were available, Buddhimanta would return to Hong Kong for distribution of the Chinese volumes. In your conversations with Guru Krpa Maharaja you can discuss Buddhimanta’s going back within a couple of months to Hong Kong, as that is how long it will take to print these volumes. He is dedicated to doing this and other than him I don’t know who would do it. Another added feature of these volumes is that “printed in Taiwan” will not be found in any of the printing. I had asked especially for this so that the books could be distributed at the train station where people board the train to go to Canton, People’s Republic of China (Red China). It would have been very difficult for anyone to bring in any books printed in Taiwan, but now there is every likelihood that our men can distribute books to people going in to China just as we are doing in East European countries.

Sevananda Prabhu is now going on to Fiji, but in his place is Satyasena das Brahmacari (a devotee from Australia) who is familiar with the negotiations with the printer. Sevananda writes that the terms for payment as “by irrevocable letter of credit as sight.” The printer will begin the printing as soon as we approve the price, and the letter of credit can come later. When His Divine Grace heard that soon the entire Bhagavad-gita would be in Chinese print He said, “Arrange for this immediately. It is very important. Write Ramesvara Maharaja to immediately make the necessary arrangements for payment.” In the mean time I have written to Satyasena Prabhu telling him to go ahead and begin the printing. As previously we had discussed that it was only practical to print this book in such small quantities in Hong Kong or Taiwan (Dai Nippon would not do such a small printing), I felt there was no question we should get a better price anywhere else considering that Sevananda Prabhu has checked out many different printers and found this price to be surprisingly low. Please therefore make all the further arrangements so that Srila Prabhupada can be presented with the complete Bhagavad-gita As It Is in Chinese.

Hoping this meets you well.

Your servant,

Tamal Krishna Gosvami

Secretary to Srila Prabhupada

c.c. His Grace Satyasena das Brahmacari

c/o ISKCON Hong Kong

His Holiness Ramesvara Swami c/o ISKCON LA

/tkg