Shaunaka Rishi Das (born 18 February 1961) is the Director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies (OCHS), a position he has held since the Centre’s foundation in 1997. He is a Hindu cleric, a lecturer, a broadcaster, and Hindu Chaplain to Oxford University. Education, comparative theology, communication, and leadership are his main fields of interest. Born an Irish Catholic, and expressing an early interest in the priesthood, Rishi Das joined a Hare Krishna ashram, in Dublin, in 1979. In 1982 he was given Brahmanical initiation – ordained as a priest – in the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition.