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.

[2] With the acharya's blessing, they decided to seek out George Harrison of the Beatles, whose interest in Hindu philosophy, meditation and Indian classical music had done much to promote these causes among Western youth.

[8][9] In addition, Harrison had come to appreciate the positive properties of the Maha or Hare Krishna mantra,[10] after he had chanted it when his plane lost control during a flight back from San Francisco in August 1967.

[13] According to author Joshua Greene, the decision to release recordings by the Radha Krishna Temple came about after one such session of kirtan, held at Harrison's Surrey home, Kinfauns.

[23] Harrison later recalled that he "had someone beat time with a pair of kartals and Indian drums",[nb 1] and that the other devotees were brought in afterwards to overdub the chorus singing and other contributions.

[16] The song again features group vocals, accompanied by harmonium, percussion and an Indian bowed string instrument known as the esraj,[32] which Shyamsundar regularly played during kirtan.

[35][36] Straight after the launch, Harrison drove down to the Isle of Wight to rejoin Bob Dylan,[36] who was due to make his highly publicised return to live performance at the island's music festival.

[39] Harrison biographer Alan Clayson writes of the public's amusement at the appearance of the Temple devotees, dressed in orange robes and with shaved heads;[40] speaking in 2011, Mukunda recalled hearing "Hare Krishna Mantra" played on a London radio station, followed by the announcer's description: "That was a song by a group of bald-headed Americans!

[50][nb 2] In the Gaudiya Vaishnava faith, the international acceptance of the mantra fulfilled a prediction by Lord Chaitanya,[16] who had written: "One day, the chanting of the holy names of God will be heard in every town and village of the world.

[53] Harrison provided the Radha Krishna Temple with financial assistance[50] and acted as a co-signee of their more permanent accommodation[54] – at Bury Place, close to the British Museum in Bloomsbury.

[56][57] While also producing Apple acts such as Preston and Doris Troy,[58][59] Harrison was keen to record further with the Temple devotees and release a full album of their songs.

"[64] Discussing Harrison's role in the studio, Gurudas, Yamuna's husband, has compared him with the Hare Krishna movement's leader, saying: "George was like Prabhupada, he could be a ringmaster – he could just pull everything together.

[68] A student in Paris at the time, and a keyboard player in his university band, Joshua Greene joined the Radha Krishna Temple over the 1969–70 holiday season,[69] taking the devotee name Yogesvara.

[63][nb 4] Over the introduction, Harrison overdubbed esraj, played by Shyamsundar, and lute-like oud, which was performed by Harivilas, a devotee who had recently arrived in London from Iran.

[63] Following this session, Harrison added a lead guitar part[77] and hired members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra to overdub string orchestration, harp and tubular bells onto the track.

[63] The orchestral arrangement for "Govinda" was supplied by John Barham,[26] a regular Harrison collaborator,[82] and similarly dedicated to furthering Western appreciation of Indian classical music.

[27] Prabhupada first heard the recording in Los Angeles; moved to tears, he asked for it to be played every morning while ISKCON devotees offered prayers in honour of the deities.

[91] Soon afterwards, he accommodated families from the expanding London Radha Krishna Temple at his newly purchased estate in Oxfordshire, Friar Park,[92][93] before going on to record his triple album All Things Must Pass.

[108][109] Despite this, The Radha Krsna Temple failed to chart in Britain or America, issued at a time when Apple's promotion of its artists had deteriorated[110] following Allen Klein's cutbacks within the company throughout 1970.

[111][112] After an initial release on CD in 1993,[116] with liner notes provided by Derek Taylor, The Radha Krsna Temple was remastered and reissued in October 2010, as part of the Apple Box Set.

[118][nb 5] Before the Apple reissues, the album was re-released as Goddess of Fortune on the Spiritual Sky label in 1973,[123] and in other editions, including through Prabhupada's Bhaktivedanta Book Trust in 1991.

[125] Another title during the early 1990s was Chant and Be Happy!,[126] a release that combined the original album with a ten-minute recording of Harrison, Lennon and Ono discussing Krishna Consciousness with Prabhupada.

[75] Reviewing the 2010 remastered album, Joe Marchese of The Second Disc writes that The Radha Krsna Temple has "a spellbinding quality, and remains a fascinating artifact of a special place and time for Harrison and Apple Records".

[133] According to David Fricke of Rolling Stone, Harrison viewed the Radha Krishna Temple's presence on Top of the Pops as "one of the greatest thrills of his life".

[135] Although Harrison's former bandmate Paul McCartney had little time for the devotees originally, according to Taylor,[136] he mentioned the Radha Krsna Temple album in a 1973 interview with Rolling Stone, describing it as "great stuff" and an example of the worthwhile projects undertaken by Apple.

[139] Along with Ken Scott, Mukunda provided reminisces of the Radha Krishna Temple recordings in Martin Scorsese's 2011 documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World.

[140] In an article about that film, for The Huffington Post, Religion News Service reporter Steve Rabey refers to the devotees' album as an example of Harrison's status as a "cafeteria Hindu", while commenting that "[although] he failed to convert everyone to his beliefs, he nudged his bandmates – and his listener fans – a bit further to the East, encouraging audiences to open themselves to new (or very old) spiritual influences.