Vrindavan (Hindi: वृन्दावन)( pronunciation (help·info)) (alternatively spelled Vrindaban, Brindavan, Brindavana, or Brundavan) also known as Vraj (as it lies in the Braj region) is a town in the Mathura district of Uttar Pradesh, India. It is the site of an ancient forest which is the region where according to the Mahabharata, a grand Epic of Sanskrit literature dating back to the 3000BC, the deity Krishna spent his childhood days.

The town is about 10 km away from Mathura, the city of Lord Krishna's birthplace, near the Agra-Delhi highway. The town hosts hundreds of temples dedicated to the worship of Radha and Krishna and is considered sacred by a number of religious traditions such as Gaudiya Vaishnavism, Vaishnavism, and Hinduism in general.

The ancient name of the city, Brindavana, comes from its groves of 'Brinda' Ocimum tenuiflorum (Holy Basil or tulsi) with vana (Sanskrit: वन) meaning a grove or a forest. Two small groves still exist at Nidhivan and Seva Kunj

Vrindavan has an ancient past, associated with Hindu history, and is an important Hindu pilgrimage site. One of its oldest surviving temples is the Govinda Deo temple, built in 1590, with the town founded earlier in the same century.

Indradyumna Swami is an ISKCON Guru and a sannyasi for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (popularly known as ISKCON or the Hare Krishnas). He is a disciple of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and is known for his traveling and preaching activities around the world, especially in Poland. Indradyumna Swami shares his experiences and realizations as a traveling preacher in his journal The Diary of a Traveling Monk.

Born as Brian Tibbitts on May 20, 1949 in Palo Alto, California. He eventually joined the US Marines to stop the spread of communism in Vietnam; but a year later he was discharged as a conscientious objector. In December 1971 he was initiated by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, and given the name Indradyumna Dasa.^{[citation needed]}

Indradyumna left the United States in 1972 journeying to Europe where he helped open new centers in France. In 1979 when he was 29, he took a vow of lifelong dedication to missionary activities as a celibate monk, entering the renounced order of sannyasa as Indradyumna Swami. In the early 1980s he served as the temple president at the New Mayapur château temple and farm near Châteauroux in France.^{[citation needed]}