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Gauranga Das was born into a pious South Indian family based in Bhilai. A high-performing and ambitious student in school, he graduated from the prestigious IIT Bombay with a B. Tech in Metallurgy.
Besides honing his engineering/tech skills, his tenure at IIT Bombay gave wings to the spiritual seeker in him. He found his calling in a few years and turned full-time monk at ISKCON after a short corporate stint in 1993. He was keen to be 'A Monk for Action', one who remains relevant and thus pursues services that make a tangible difference to society. Gauranga Das is a Governing Body Commissioner (GBC) for ISKCON, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness which was founded by Grace Srila AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada which has 1100 temples, 120 sattvik vegetarian Govindas restaurants and 70 plus farm communities in 120 countries globally and has distributed 550 million copies of Bhagavat Gita and allied literature in more than 80 languages through its publishing arm the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. Acting upon the vision of the founder of the Govardhan ecovillage(GEV), Radhanath Swami Maharaja, Gauranga Das as the Director of Govardhan Ecovillage (GEV) located in Palghar district of India implemented several sustainable green initiatives there including Organic Farming, Waste Management, Water Conservation, Green Buildings, Alternative Energy, Goshala etc. He is facilitating transformation in the lives of tribal villagers around GEV by assisting the Govardhan Rural Development initiatives through various social and economic interventions in over 200 tribal villages including farmer's empowerment, rural education, women empowerment, skill development, rural education, water resource development, etc. Under the guidance of Radhanath Swami Maharaja, Gauranga Das along with his team has created a replica of the Vrindavan forest along with stone temples showcasing the preservation of cultural heritage. GEV is accredited to the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA), United Nations Convention for Combating Desertification (UNCCD), United Nations Council for Bio-Diversity (UNCBD), and United Nations Economic and Social Council (UN ECOSOC). Under his guidance, GEV has won more than 36 awards including the United Nations Award for Excellence and Innovation in Sustainable Tourism. Gauranga Das is a Mentor of the Govardhan School of Yoga (GSY) and the Govardhan Ayurvedic Centre at GEV. GSY offers a 200-hours, 300-hours and 500-hours Yoga Teachers' Training Program while the Ayurvedic Centre at GEV offers a full-fledged Kerala Ayurveda Panchakarma and disease management in a spiritual ambience. As Trustee and Director (Administration) of the Bhaktivedanta Research Centre, India (BRC), and with branches in Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, and Vrindavan, he leads the mission for providing accredited academic programs including Ph.D, MA, Diploma, and Certificate courses, in the fields of Philosophy and Sanskrit. BRC houses a manuscripts library containing approximately 20,000 works on a vast variety of India's ancient religions and cultures. Gauranga Das has organized self-sufficient, low-cost, high-quality kitchens (up to 125000 sq. ft. area) and sanctified food in the annual yatras of ISKCON Chowpatty. This Kitchen was featured on the National Geographic Channel as one of India's Mega Kitchens. He has personally cooked more than 3.5 Million plates of sanctified vegetarian meals (prasadam) since 2007 in the temple and Yatra kitchen. Gauranga Das as the Chairman of ISKCON Govardhan Annakshetra, led efforts to serve over 4.78 million meals to the tribal villagers in the Palghar region and visiting pilgrims since Dec 2018. Gauranga Das draws inspiration from the Vedic scriptures and has a unique knack for narrating them in a manner relevant to the modern audience. He has delivered talks at reputed global educational institutions in renowned global corporates and is a visiting faculty at IIM Nagpur for an IKS based course titled 'Life Management Skills' for PGDM students. He has also authored three popular books - The Art of Resilience, The Art of Focus and The Art of Habits. Brought up in a richly diverse setup, the accomplishments of Gauranga Das are as diverse: spanning Vedic scholarship to being a climate change warrior to driving social inclusion to being satvik masterchef to prototyping a global model for self-sufficient sustainable living to being a storyteller-author par excellence. At the core of such a diverse personality is the focus to be spiritually grounded, politically alert and socially relevant and thus be a 'Monk for Action'. (ANI)
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