Temple History

Our Deities

During the 1970s, our Founder-Acarya Srila Prabhupada regularly visited Melbourne to give lectures and inspire his young followers to deepen their practice of bhakti-yoga. He met the public and influential figures in our community. Importantly, Srila Prabhupada installed the Deity form of Krishna so that his students could learn to worship Krishna personally.

In 1972, when the Temple was in Burnett Street (St Kilda), Srila Prabhupada installed small Radha-Krishna Deities to accept our worship. When he installed the large marble Deities of Sri-Sri Radha-Vallabha at Burnett St in 1973, Radha-Krishna became Radha-Vallabha’s festival Deities. Radha and Krishna leave the altar each year on Janmastami and Jhulana-yatra, and also to preside over initiation ceremonies.

Much to everyone’s delight, in May 1975 Srila Prabhupada opened our current Temple at 197 Danks Street, Albert Park. To mark the occasion, he installed the beautiful Deities of Sri-Sri Gaura Nitai.

Hare Krishna Melbourne is still presided over by the same beautiful Deities of Sri-Sri Gaura-Nitai and Sri-Sri Radha-Vallabha, along with Jagannatha-Baladeva-Subhadra (below).

Prabhupada House

Prabhupada House is the original building on our campus. The House was built by a wealthy nineteenth-century judge and later served as a residence for Christian Brothers. It is registered by Australia’s National Trust.

When ISKCON purchased the Danks St property to house our Temple in 1974, we restored this building and set aside a suite of rooms for Srila Prabhupada’s personal use. He stayed here in 1975 and 1976. Srila Prabhupada’s sitting room has been preserved as a museum. It is one of only a handful of such Prabhupada tirthas (holy places) remaining in ISKCON.