EVERY TOWN AND VILLAGE

EVERY TOWN AND VILLAGE — A TRAVELLING PREACHER'S DIARY

Most devotees have heard the phrase "every town and village" the famous prophecy of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu that the chanting of the holy names would spread to every corner of the world. It gets quoted often. It appears on banners and in lectures. But what does it actually look like, in practice, on the ground, day after day, year after year to live that prophecy instead of just quoting it?

Every Town and Village — A Travelling Preacher's Diary answers that question from the inside. Written by His Holiness Jayapataka Swami and published by Victory Flag Publications, this book is exactly what the subtitle promises: a diary. Not a polished theological treatise. Not a formal institutional history. A personal, honest, day-by-day record of what a life dedicated entirely to traveling and preaching actually feels like.

And it feels, as this book shows, like something very few people would choose and something Jayapataka Swami would choose again without a moment's hesitation.

A Voice You Won't Find in Any Other Book

The back cover of Every Town and Village carries a passage that tells you immediately what kind of book this is. Jayapataka Swami writes about how, as a child, he loved swimming, and when his mother called him in for lunch, he would dive underwater and pretend he couldn't hear her. Now, he says, he feels the same way about preaching. He would rather dive into the ocean of preaching than take prasada or sleep. His body needs rest and prasada to continue he understands that. But in the middle of preaching, it is very difficult to stop.

That voice—self-aware, warm, completely absorbed in service, and gently humorous about the body's inconvenient needs runs through the entire book. This is not writing designed to impress. It is writing designed to share. Jayapataka Swami is not performing saintliness on these pages. He is simply reporting what his life looks like from the inside — and that honesty is what makes the diary so valuable.

The Road as a Spiritual Practice

Jayapataka Swami has spent decades travelling across Bengal, India, and the world, establishing preaching programs, meeting devotees, visiting temples, and carrying the message of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to places that had never encountered it before. Every Town and Village captures that life in motion: the buses and village roads, the impromptu kirtans, the conversations with seekers and skeptics alike, the small breakthroughs, and the logistical challenges that come with a life permanently in motion.

What the diary reveals is that preaching at this level is not glamorous. It is demanding, repetitive, physically exhausting, and logistically complicated. What keeps it going is not willpower alone — it is the experience, described again and again in these pages, of something genuinely happening when Krishna consciousness reaches a new person or a new place. That experience is the fuel. And Jayapataka Swami documents it with the freshness of someone who has never quite gotten used to it, no matter how many times it has occurred.

What This Book Gives the Reader

For devotees who are themselves involved in outreach and preaching, Every Town and Village is the kind of book that refuels you. Not through motivational language or grand statements, but through the simple, grounding effect of watching someone live this mission completely and describe it without dramatizing it.

For those who are newer to ISKCON or have not yet been deeply involved in preaching, the diary offers a window into a dimension of devotional life that is not always visible from the outside: the travelling, the uncertainty, the exhaustion, and the unmistakable joy of doing the work Lord Chaitanya sent His devotees to do.

Published by Victory Flag Publications — Available at ISKCON Mayapur

Written by His Holiness Jayapataka Swami and published by Victory Flag Publications, Every Town and Village: A Travelling Preacher's Diary is a hardcover edition, ISBN: 9789391040225, weighing 400 grams. Priced at ₹200 and available through the official ISKCON Mayapur store.

Dive into the ocean of preaching. This book will make you want to stay underwater.

Hare Krishna.