JapMarg was never meant to be a product. It started as a devotee's personal tool — a simple way to count Radha Naam without losing count. What it became is a story of faith, code, and community.
I grew up in a small home in Mathura — the city where the air itself smells like incense and the sound of naam jap never really stops.
My grandmother had a wooden jap mala, worn smooth from decades of use. Every morning before sunrise she would sit by the window, close her eyes, and slowly move each bead through her fingers — lips moving silently, face completely at peace. I was maybe seven years old, and I remember thinking: I want what she has.
Years later, I moved for software engineering studies. The mala I carried in my bag kept breaking — beads scattering on metro floors and hostel corridors. I tried using a basic counter app, but it was soulless — just a number ticking up. No mala. No mantra. No feeling. I would lose count halfway and get frustrated, which felt like the opposite of devotion.
"I wanted something that felt like a mala — that vibrated like a real bead between my fingers, that showed me the Holy Name floating upward with each tap. Something that understood what Naam Jap is."
So in the summer of 2022, between internship rejections and exam prep, I built the first version of JapMarg in my hostel room. It had one screen, one button, and counted to 108. I showed it to three friends. One of them — a devotee of Krishna — cried a little when he used it. That was the moment I knew this was something real.
Within months, a few close friends and fellow devotees joined — one handling the backend, another reimagining the entire design over a single Diwali holiday. We never paid ourselves a rupee. We still haven't.
By 2023, devotees from Vrindavan, Nathdwara, and ISKCON temples across India had downloaded JapMarg. A Vaishnavite grandmother in Gujarat wrote to us saying she switched from her old plastic counter machine to JapMarg because the vibration "feels like a real bead." That email is still pinned above our desk.
JapMarg is not a app. It is a seva — a service offered at the feet of the Divine, through the hands of every devotee who taps that screen and chants.
Our Founder
JapMarg · Mathura, UP
🙏 Radhe Radhe
Our founder builds version 0.1 in a hostel room — a single-screen app with one button and a bead counter. Shows it to 3 friends. One cries. JapMarg is born.
A small circle of devotee friends comes together — one takes the backend, another redesigns the UI over the Diwali break. JapMarg v1.0 launches on Google Play with haptic feedback, mala counter, and Radha Naam mode. 200 downloads in the first week, almost entirely from Mathura and Vrindavan.
A WhatsApp forward from an ISKCON temple group sends us from 500 to 5,000 downloads in a single week. Hare Krishna and Om Namah Shivaya modes are added. Our Spiritual Diary feature launches, letting devotees log offline mala rounds alongside digital ones.
Families can now create private groups, see each other's counts, and celebrate milestones together. Our Global Leaderboard goes live. We cross 1 million total naam japs tracked.
AMOLED dark mode launches for Brahma Muhurta chanting. JapMarg is now fully available in Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, and Telugu. A Gujarati devotee grandma writes to us — she switched from her plastic naam jap counter machine to our app because the vibration feels just like a real bead.
JapMarg is still free. Still built by devotees in their spare time. Our web counter launches so anyone can chant from any browser, anywhere. The mission hasn't changed: make it easier for every person on earth to chant the Holy Name. 🙏
Three convictions that guide every decision we make at JapMarg.
The Holy Name is the destination, not the app. We build every feature to disappear into the background — to make you forget you're using technology at all. If you finish your mala and don't remember how many times you tapped, we succeeded.
JapMarg will always be free to use. We believe bhakti — devotion — should never be gated behind a paywall. We are a small team that builds this in our spare time as a spiritual offering. Every download is an act of grace, not a transaction.
Individual chanting is powerful. Group chanting is transformative. Every feature we build — groups, leaderboards, the Spiritual Diary — is designed to deepen human connection through the shared practice of Naam Jap.
We don't add features to compete. We add them only when they genuinely help a devotee go deeper into their practice.
We spent weeks tuning the vibration timing so it fires after your tap registers — not before — mimicking the physical resistance of sliding a real bead. Most counter apps get this backwards.
We built this because devotees told us they felt guilty when their physical mala rounds didn't appear in their count. The Diary honours both digital and traditional practice equally.
Added specifically for Brahma Muhurta. Our dark palette uses true black so AMOLED screens don't glow in a dark room and disturb others around you during morning jap.
This feature came from a single email: a family separated across four countries who wanted to do sandhya together. We built it in three weeks. It's now one of our most-used features.
Many of our users are elderly devotees in smaller towns with unreliable data. We designed offline-first from day one. Your niyam should never depend on a network tower.
Our translations are reviewed by native-speaking devotees — not machine-translated. Language carries sacred vibration. We took time to get every word spiritually accurate, not just linguistically correct.
We made promises when we started. We've kept every one of them.
Your spiritual journey belongs to you. We collect only what is necessary to run the app — nothing more. We do not sell, share, or monetize your personal information. Full details in our Privacy Policy.
Naam Jap counting, mala tracking, daily goals, the Spiritual Diary, and Sangat Groups — these will always be free. Bhakti should never be gated behind a payment screen.
The Divine is always accessible. So is JapMarg. Whether you're in a remote ashram, on a flight, or in a network dead zone — your naam jap counter works perfectly without internet.
JapMarg is intentionally small and fast. We don't install unnecessary trackers, analytics SDKs, or background processes. Your phone's battery and storage belong to your sadhana, not our app.
Our Sangat shapes our roadmap. Here's what's already shipped — and what's coming.
Full bead ring with haptic feedback and mala-by-mala tracking.
Private family groups and global daily/weekly rankings.
Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Telugu — fully localised.
Count Naam Jap directly in any browser — no install needed.
Gentle divine-tone notifications at your chosen time to begin your niyam.
JapMarg is coming to Apple devices. We've heard every request — it's in progress.
Ambient sacred music with breath-sync prompts to deepen your jap session.
Tamil, Kannada, Odia, and Punjabi are on our list. Every devotee in their mother tongue.
Some of our best features came from devotee suggestions. What would help your practice?
Share your idea →The messages that remind us why we build.
"I have been doing Radha Naam for 30 years on my physical mala. When my hands started hurting from arthritis, I was heartbroken. JapMarg gave me back my niyam. The vibration feels so real. I cry every time a mala completes."
Shantaben, 68
Surat, Gujarat · Google Play Review
"Our ISKCON centre recommended JapMarg to all new devotees as the best way to track their 16 rounds on the go. The Hare Krishna mode is perfect. We've had 200 devotees switch from basic counter apps — never going back."
A Temple Sevak
ISKCON, Pune · Email
"The Groups feature changed our family's spiritual life. My parents in Mathura, my sister in London, and I in Dubai — we all see each other's mala count every morning. It's like doing sandhya together even when we're apart."
A Devotee
Dubai, UAE · Instagram DM
"I searched for a naam jap counter near me in every religious store in Nathdwara. They all sold plastic machines for ₹500–₹1500. Then a sevak at the Shrinathji temple showed me JapMarg. Free. Beautiful. Perfect."
A Devotee
Nathdwara, Rajasthan · Google Play
10,000+ devotees are counting their Naam Jap with JapMarg right now. Download the app or try the online counter — both are free.
🙏 Radhe Radhe · Jai Shree Krishna · Om Namah Shivaya