An Irish Catholic turned Hindu scholar explains how ancient wisdom speaks to modern challenges—and why loving your neighbour means truly knowing them.

Shaunaka Rishi Das never converted to Hinduism. At least, that is how he sees it.

The Director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies was born an Irish Catholic, served as an altar boy, and once dreamed of becoming a priest. Today, he leads the world’s first academic centre dedicated to Hindu studies at the university level, yet describes himself as “an Irish Catholic Hindu”—an identity that perfectly embodies the pluralistic philosophy he has spent decades studying.

“I never felt at any point that I converted from one thing to the other,” Rishi Das explains, his Irish accent still unmistakable. “I’m just on a journey.”

It is a sentiment I understand intimately, sitting across from him as an Irish Catholic Indian—though I took the less committed route of studying the subject, rather than living it.

An Unexpected Beginning

Rishi Das’s path to Hindu philosophy began at age 18, when he encountered a Hare Krishna devotee outside Trinity College in Dublin—or rather, while walking past after cheekily sneaking into the common room for tea. “We had no right to be there,” he admits. “We were just Irish chancers.”

When visiting the devotee’s temple, what struck him was not the exotic Indian tradition—there were no Indians at all—but the intensity of devotion. “These guys were taking it more seriously than anyone I’d met, but they didn’t call themselves Christian.”

He joined the ashram and lived there for 12 years—precisely the time it took to earn a bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate. He emerged with no formal qualifications whatsoever. Today, he directs an Oxford research centre and is regularly introduced as “Dr. Rishi Das,” a title he gently corrects, though Oxford seems to have decided that technicalities like “formal education” are beside the point.

From Corner Shops to Philosophy Degrees

When Rishi Das first engaged with Hindu communities in the 1970s, waves of Hindu families had arrived from East Africa after expulsion, despite holding British passports. In conducting 350 interviews with first-generation immigrants, Rishi Das found a pattern: “None of them wanted to say there was racism. But it was inherent in what they said.”

Their strategy was pragmatic: keep your head down, avoid politics, focus on business. They opened corner shops and restaurants. And this approach worked. Today, Hindus are one of the wealthiest and most highly educated ethnic communities in the UK.

This success transformed generational aspirations. Rishi Das remembers when the first British-born Indian wanted to study theology. The mother called in distress: “If he gets a theology degree, I will be feeding him for all of his life.” Acceptable careers were pharmacy, dentistry, and accounting. However, by the third generation, young British Hindus were studying theology, philosophy, and politics—subjects that would have horrified their grandparents.

Negotiating Tradition

Perhaps most striking is how Hindu communities maintained traditions while adapting. Rishi Das describes it as “a strange mixture of assimilation and integration. It’s both”.

When Rishi Das arrived, Hindu families only intermarried within specific groups—Patels and Shahs. Now, mixed marriages with Caucasian partners and same-sex marriages occur, and “somehow everyone’s okay with it.” A Brahmin friend declared himself “a non-practising vegetarian”—the kind of negotiation that would make a Jesuit proud.

This adaptability has always been intrinsic to Hinduism. “It is both-and, always both-and,” Rishi Das notes. Now, 50,000 people celebrate Diwali in Trafalgar Square—Number 10 hosts Diwali celebrations. Everyone does yoga. There is undoubtedly an incorporation of Hindu traditions into non-Hindu cultures. 

Ancient Wisdom for Modern Problems

Can Hindu philosophy address contemporary dilemmas, such as climate change? Rishi Das believes it offers crucial missing perspectives.

Unlike Western ethics, which is based on universal rules, Hindu dharma operates according to “desha kala patra”—time, place, and circumstance. There is no rulebook.

In the Ramayana, when Hanuman needs a healing herb but cannot identify it, he carries the entire mountaintop back. After retrieving the herb, the text states that he returns to the mountaintop to its original place. “In a hero story, you never hear anything like that,” Rishi Das notes. “That is an environmental statement par excellence.”

On gender identity, Hindu theology offers nuanced perspectives. Vishnu manifests in both male and female forms. One form of Shiva is half-male, half-female. “If God is only male, and you’re female, then you’re more than God,” Rishi Das explains. “That doesn’t make sense either.”

The Idol Worship Misconception

Perhaps the most persistent Western misconception about Hinduism is “idol worship.” Rishi Das explains that in Hindu practice, a priest can create a form from sand, invite the deity to enter, conduct worship, and then invite the deity to leave. It is a “pop-up temple”—inviting God into our presence. “God is everywhere, so He is also in the stone.”

The Western allergic reaction probably stems from Moses and the golden calf, combined with the Reformation’s rejection of Catholic imagery. However, Rishi Das points out the inconsistency. In Salamanca, he witnessed a Marian procession—a bedecked Virgin Mary statue carried through the streets, people chanting, offering incense. “I could be in South India. The same procession with a murti of Vishnu.” Yet Catholics insist they are not worshipping the statue.

As a Catholic child, Rishi Das had his own special statue of Jesus that he felt connected to. “I was not talking to a statue. I was talking to Jesus.” The intellectual resistance, he suggests, reveals more about Western theology than Hindu practice. “Intellectually, we can’t handle it. We’re allergic.”

This theological flexibility extends beyond ritual into daily life, Rishi Das argues, and offers something vital for contemporary questions of identity and coexistence.

Equal Vision

If Rishi Das could share one concept with Oxford students, it would be “sama darshana”—equal vision. If we are spiritual beings in material bodies, then the spark within each of us is the same spiritual energy. Your body, religion, and nationality—these are temporary designations.

“At the time of death, you leave it all behind, and then you get born again, and you become a female Maoist in Bhutan,” he explains. Our life’s story is more than what we can see in one episode.

This means seeing a dog as another person in a dog’s body and seeing a tree as a living being worthy of personal treatment. “No other religious tradition has that philosophical basis,” Rishi Das argues.

When I mention “love thy neighbour” as my guiding principle, Rishi Das jumps on it: “That’s huge. How do you love your neighbour?” He fires questions—how do you define love? Is it transactional or selfless? “That’s a lifetime’s work.”

The implication is clear: theology without practice is empty. You cannot love what you do not understand. You cannot understand what you refuse to see as equal.

The Long View

Rishi Das compares the development of Hindu studies at Oxford to growing an oak tree. “Even if you plant it when you are one year old, you won’t see the mature fruit in your lifetime.”

When asked what motivates him, Rishi Das thinks of his father, who died when he was 15. “I was the last person who spoke with him. His words have guided me my whole life.” Now, when Rishi Das does something significant: “That’ll make him smile.”

It is fitting for someone whose life’s work honours ancient wisdom while planting seeds for future understanding—an Irish Catholic Hindu who never converted but continues his journey, showing that the path of faith, like Hinduism itself, is both deeply rooted and remarkably flexible.

Sitting across from Rishi Das, I think about journeys that don’t require conversion, identities that hold contradictions comfortably, and traditions flexible enough to bend without breaking. Perhaps that is what faith looks like when it is not defended but lived: an ongoing conversation between where you came from and where you are going, between loving your neighbour and learning who your neighbour actually is.

The oak tree grows slowly. But it grows.