HH Bhanu Swami
Early life and joining ISKCON
HH Bhanu Swami was born in Canada in 1948 to Japanese parents and earned a BA in Oriental fine arts history at the University of British Columbia. He joined the Hare Krishna movement in India in 1970 and was initiated by Srila Prabhupada in 1971. By 1972 Srila Prabhupada had credited him for his exact Sanskrit pronunciation, his cooking and his excellence in Deity worship, and he began translating Srila Prabhupada's books into Japanese. He was personally trained by Srila Prabhupada in Deity worship and has since become an authority on the subject within ISKCON. He took sannyasa in 1984.
Service in ISKCON
HH Bhanu Swami has been a member of ISKCON's Governing Body Commission (GBC) since 2003, with responsibility for South India and as co-GBC for Japan. He has served as regional secretary for South India since 1986, has chaired the GBC in the past, and participates in the Lines of Authority Committee of the Strategic Planning Initiative. He has helped guide the construction of the ISKCON temple in Chennai, which opened at Sholinganallur in 2012, and the establishment of the new temple in Tokyo. He has lived in Chennai for several decades.
Scholar and translator
A scholar of Sanskrit and Bengali, HH Bhanu Swami has devoted himself to translating the commentaries and works of the previous Gaudiya Vaishnava acaryas into English, so that these books are available to readers who cannot study them in the original. His translations include Jiva Gosvami's Krama-sandarbha, Vaisnava-tosani and Gopala-campu; Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura's Sarartha-darsini on the Srimad Bhagavatam and his commentaries on Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu and Ujjvala-nilamani; Hari-bhakti-vilasa; Brhad-bhagavatamrta; and works of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura. This website lists more than 140 titles, available on Amazon Kindle and Google Books.
Teaching and travels
HH Bhanu Swami presents the teachings of Gaudiya Vaishnavism on topics such as karma, reincarnation, yoga, the Bhagavad-gita and the Srimad Bhagavatam, and he travels to teach in India, Japan, Malaysia, Russia and other parts of the world. His lectures and seminars are available on his YouTube channel.
Other interests
HH Bhanu Swami is known as a quiet achiever. He has studied martial arts, Reiki healing and Carnatic music (the vina), and is a reputed astrologer.