The Radha Krsna Temple | |
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Studio album by | |
Released | 21 May 1971 |
Recorded | July 1969, January–March 1970 |
Studio | EMI, Apple and Trident, London |
Genre | Indian devotional music |
Length | 42:44 |
Label | Apple |
Producer | George Harrison |
Alternative cover | |
The Radha Krsna Temple is a 1971 album of Hindu devotional songs recorded by the UK branch of the Hare Krishna movement – more formally, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) – who received the artist credit of "Radha Krishna Temple (London)". The album was produced by George Harrison and released on the Beatles' Apple record label. It compiles two hit singles, "Hare Krishna Mantra" and "Govinda", with other Sanskrit-worded mantras and prayers that the Temple devotees recorded with Harrison from July 1969 onwards.
The recordings reflected Harrison's commitment to the Gaudiya Vaishnava teachings of the movement's leader, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who had sent devotees from San Francisco to London in 1968. The success of the Temple's first single, "Hare Krishna Mantra", helped popularise the Hare Krishna movement in the West, and inspired Harrison's more overtly religious songs on his 1970 triple album All Things Must Pass. Among the Temple members, former jazz musician and future ISKCON leader Mukunda Goswami provided the musical arrangements on the recordings.
After its initial release, the album was reissued on the Spiritual Sky label and by Prabhupada's Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. For these releases, the album was retitled Goddess of Fortune and then, with added dialogue from a conversation between Prabhupada, Harrison and John Lennon in 1969, Chant and Be Happy! Apple officially reissued The Radha Krsna Temple on CD in 1993, and again in 2010, with the addition of two bonus tracks.