Abhay Charanavinda Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (Sanskrit: अभयचरणारविन्द भक्तिवेदान्त स्वामीप्रभुपाद, also known as Srila Prabhupada; September 1, 1896, Calcutta – November 14, 1977, Vrindavan); Vaishnava religious leader; author, translator and commentator of Hindu sacred scriptures; acharya and founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.

Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, born Abhay Charan De, was born in Calcutta, where he also received his education at the prestigious Scottish Church College. In 1918 he married, and in 1922 he first met the renowned Vaishnava religious leader Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, who asked him to preach Gaudiya Vaishnavism in English. In 1933, Abhay received spiritual initiation from Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati and the name Abhay Charanavinda. Abhay had several children and to support his family he engaged in pharmaceutical business. In 1950 he retired from family affairs, and in 1959 he took the vow of renunciation from the world, sannyasa, from Bhaktipragyana Keshava Goswami, receiving the name Bhaktivedanta Swami. After this he settled in the sacred Hindu city of Vrindavan and began translating Vaishnava scriptures from Sanskrit into English.

Already in his advanced years, in 1965, fulfilling the will of his spiritual teacher, Bhaktivedanta Swami traveled by cargo ship to the USA, where in 1966 he founded the Vaishnava religious organization International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). According to K. Klostermaier, Bhaktivedanta Swami manifested himself as one of the main figures of Western counterculture, giving spiritual initiation to thousands of young Americans. American disciples gave Bhaktivedanta Swami the respectful title Srila Prabhupada – the name by which he is most known today.

In his preaching, Srila Prabhupada spread the teachings of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and revealed to the whole world bhakti-yoga – the yoga leading to perfection of human personality. Srila Prabhupada traveled around the world fourteen times, giving lectures on six continents. He founded more than one hundred temples and communities, as well as the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust publishing house, which is currently the world's largest publisher of Vedic literature. Thanks to Srila Prabhupada's educational activities, the Vedic mantra "Hare Krishna" gained worldwide fame, became accessible to all humanity, and today millions of people living outside India have the opportunity, by chanting this great mantra, to achieve the highest perfection of human life.

Srila Prabhupada is considered a saint in India; streets in Calcutta, Mumbai, in the sacred Hindu cities of Mayapur and Vrindavan are named after him, as well as various institutions: schools, hospitals, shelters, charitable foundations. Many Indians, including such prominent statesmen as Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Shankar Dayal Sharma, regard Srila Prabhupada as their country's spiritual ambassador who made the ancient message of the Vedas accessible to the entire world. In honor of the centennial of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in 1996, the Government of India issued a postage stamp bearing his image.

Being a true Spiritual Teacher belonging to the parampara, Srila Prabhupada continued the activities of his predecessors, dedicating his life to spreading Vedic knowledge throughout the world. Commenting on the texts of "Srimad-Bhagavatam," Srila Prabhupada wrote: "People living in the material world are ready to do anything in order to find happiness and enjoy life. But unfortunately, most of them do not know how one can become happy." Srila Prabhupada's greatest merit is that the Most Confidential Knowledge contained in the Vedic scriptures and capable of relieving suffering and making any person happy has today become accessible to all inhabitants of our planet – on all continents, in all cities and villages.