Long legacy of Gita Press as world’s largest publisher of Hindu religious books

A visit to the vast tranquil printing and production facility of Gita Press is like roaming around a university campus, roving from one department to another. The facility is built on an area of 1,40,000 sq ft, segmented into different divisions designed for whole pre-press, press and post-press productions. Every division is equipped with lines of high-end machines and technologies.

The installation base

The pre-press division is equipped with Proline CtP system using TechNova violet plates. For text printing, five web offset presses are currently running at the printing division—four of them are from Manugraph (Cityline Express, Newsline and two Starline presses) and one from The Printers House (tph).The sheet-fed printing division is equipped with an Autoprint Dion-45 UV coating machine, an Adast Dominant, a KOMORI Enthrone-26 and eight HMT (single, double and four-colour) machines.

In the post-press division, the machine portfolio consists of a Muller Martini Collibri for gluing and lining thread-sewing books. The division has also adopted a Muller Martini Ventura MC 200, a machine for deep stitching book blocks and correctly positioning each signature, even at maximum production speed. Other advanced machines in the portfolio are AsterPRO, an automatic book sewing machine; fully-automated Ratan folding machines and Wellbound perfect binding systems.

Four Macneill and two Godrej fork lifters continuously roam around the campus of Gita Press for transporting bundles of books from one division to another, then loading into trucks for transportation. Every bit of process in the campus is operated using automated machines, except ‘case making’ in the post-press division. There is a stark reason why only case making is done manually. It is because every case making machine in the world uses animal glue which is not religiously acceptable to Gita Press.

The beginning

Gita Press was founded in 1923 by Jayadayal Goyandka and Ghanshyam Das Jalan, under a core objective of promoting and spreading the principles of Sanatana Dharma among general public. Its range of books and magazines are from the Bhagavat Gita, Ramayana, Upanishads, Puranas, and discourses of eminent saints and others, all available at highly subsidised prices.

Aiming to promote the art of living as propounded in the Bhagavat Gita for peace, happiness and ultimate prosperity of mankind, Gita Press strives for the betterment of life and well-being for all. The founder Jayadayal was a staunch devotee and an exalted soul. He was much given to the Bhagavat Gita as the panacea for mankind’s plight. He began publishing the holy book and other Hindu scriptures to spread good intent and good thought amongst all. The day at Gita Press starts with a morning prayer.

Unique gateway

The main entrance gate of Gita Press is notable for its design and depiction. Every aspect of it represents India’s rich architectural heritage. Each portion of the gate takes inspiration from specific ancient renowned temple styles. In effect, the entrance shows a panorama of Indian temple architecture.

Designs and graphics on the overhead of the gate describe the four dhams (pilgrimage sites) of India. The pillars are based on the pillars of the famous Ellora temple, carved in a circular hollow in the middle portion as a reminiscent of the chariot of Lord Krishna and Arjun. The peak of the entrance is a replica of Meenakshi Temple in Madurai. India’s fist president Dr Rajendra Prasad inaugurated the gate in 1955.

A wide network

So far, Gita Press has produced 66 crore 40 lakh books on diverse Hindu religious titles in different languages viz. Hindi & Sanskrit, English, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Odiya, Bengali, Assamese, Punjabi, Urdu, Malayalam and Nepali. The tally includes around 410 million copies of Bhagavad Gita in different editions and 70.0 million copies of the Ramcharitamanas.

Gita Press has a wide network of distributors based in all major cities and towns across the country. The network spreads over Indore, Rishikesh, Cuttack, Kanpur, Coimbatore, Kolkata, Chennai, Gwalior, Delhi, Nagpur, Patna, Bengaluru, Bhilwara, Mumbai, Ranchi, Raipur, Varanasi, Surat, Haridwar, Hyderabad and Katmandu (Nepal). Katmandu has the only overseas branch of Gita Press operating for overall distribution across Nepal.

In addition to its regional dealers, Gita Press has a chain of outlets dotted in all major railway stations across the country. The railway stations include Old Delhi, New Delhi, Hazrat Nizamuddin, Kota, Bikaner, Gorakhpur, Gonda, Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Mughal Sarai, Allahabad, Haridwar, Mathura, Jhansi, Patna, Ranchi, Dhanbad, Muzaffarpur, Samastipur, Chhapra, Shiban, Howrah, Kolkata, Dum Dum, Bhopal, Sealda Main and Asansol.

Kalyan in Hindi and Kalyana-Kalpataru in English are two widely distributed monthly magazines brought out by Gita Press. Yug Kalyan is the institute’s in-house magazine for information about latest releases and essays.