Nueva Goloka Vrindavan
Cartago, Costa Rica
- Deities
- Radha Krishna
- Traditions
- vaishnava
- Worship status
- active
- Darshan hours
- Varies by season and event; consult the community directly for the current schedule before visiting.
- Best time to visit
- Year-round; Janmashtami is generally the largest annual festival at Krishna-devotional farm communities of this kind.
- How to reach
- On a farm near Cartago, Costa Rica, southeast of the capital San José.
- Festivals
- Janmashtami (August/September)
- Associated saints
- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Location
Search for "Nueva Goloka Vrindavan" on Google MapsThis temple's exact coordinates aren't confirmed yet, so the link above searches by name and city rather than pointing to a verified spot.
Nueva Goloka Vrindavan is a Hare Krishna (Gaudiya Vaishnava) farm community near Cartago, Costa Rica, founded in 1986 after splitting from the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) — the same devotional movement founded by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada that operates rural “Vrindavan”-themed farm communities elsewhere in the Americas, such as Nova Gokula in Brazil. Its name, meaning “New Goloka Vrindavan,” invokes Krishna’s eternal abode in Gaudiya Vaishnava cosmology.
Costa Rica’s Hindu population is unusually small and, per Wikipedia, is composed today mostly of converts connected to the Hare Krishna movement rather than an Indian immigrant diaspora — a pattern distinct from most other entries in this directory’s Central American and Caribbean coverage. Separate ISKCON and Gaudiya Math centers also operate in the capital, San José. This community’s founders, exact address, and current institutional status were not independently confirmed beyond the “split from ISKCON” detail found in available sources.
Sources
- historical record: Sourced from the 'Hinduism in Costa Rica' section of Wikipedia's 'Religion in Costa Rica' article, which states 'the Nueva Goloka Vrindavan located in a Cartago farm founded in 1986 which split from ISKCON' and separately notes an ISKCON-affiliated center in San José and a Gaudiya Math center also in San José (renting space from the Theosophical Society). Per the same article, most Costa Rican Hindu practitioners today are converts affiliated with the wider Hare Krishna (Gaudiya Vaishnava) movement rather than an Indian-diaspora population, with roughly 440 Hindus recorded nationally as of 2020 (ARDA).
For review
- Founding year (1986) and the community's split from ISKCON are documented in Wikipedia's 'Religion in Costa Rica' article, but no dedicated source for this specific community was found; details such as its founder(s), exact address, and current institutional affiliation (if any) beyond 'split from ISKCON' are unconfirmed. Deities are listed as Radha Krishna following the standard convention for Gaudiya Vaishnava/Hare Krishna-tradition farm communities, but this was not explicitly confirmed for this specific site.