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TheDalit Buddhist movement[a] is a religious as well as a socio-political movement amongDalits in India which was started byB. R. Ambedkar. He re-interpretedBuddhism and created a newschool of Buddhism calledNavayana. The movement has sought to be asocially and politically engaged form of Buddhism.[2][3]
The movement was launched in 1956 by Ambedkar when nearly half a million Dalits – formerlyuntouchables – joined him and converted to Navayana Buddhism.[4] It rejected Hinduism, challenged thecaste system in India and promoted the rights of the Dalit community.[5][4] The movement also rejected the teachings ofMahayana,Theravada andVajrayana traditions of Buddhism; instead, the movement claims to be a form ofengaged Buddhism as taught by Ambedkar.[6][7][5]
Buddhism originated in ancient India and grew afterAshoka adopted it. By the 2nd century CE, Buddhism was widespread in India and had expanded outside of India into Central Asia, East Asia and parts of Southeast Asia.[8][9] During the Middle Ages, Buddhism slowly declined in India,[10] while it vanished from Persia and Central Asia as Islam became the state religion.[11][12]
According to Randall Collins, Buddhism was already declining in India by the 12th century, but with the pillage by Muslim invaders it nearly became extinct in India.[13] In the 13th century, states Craig Lockard, Buddhist monks in India fled to Tibet to escape Islamic persecution,[14] while the monks in western India, states Peter Harvey, escaped persecution by moving to south Indian Hindu kingdoms that were able to resist the Muslim power.[15]
Efforts to revive Buddhism in India began in the 19th century, such as with the efforts ofSri Lankan Buddhist leaderAnagarika Dharmapala who founded theMaha Bodhi Society.[16] The Maha Bodhi Society, according to Bhagwan Das, was not a Dalit movement however, because it mainly attracted upper-caste Hindus to Buddhism.[17]
The two Adi Dharma movements[18] – those that rejectedHinduism in favor ofBuddhism – were launched by theSwami Achhutanand Harihar inUttar Pradesh andBabu Mangu Ram inPunjab.
Born in an untouchable family, Achhutanand joined theArya Samajsuddhi reform movement and worked there for about eight years (1905–1912). He felt Arya Samaj practiced untouchability in subtle ways,[clarification needed] and subsequently left it to launch the socio-political Bharitiya Achhut Mahasabha movement.[18] Achhutanand published the Adi-Hindu magazine, wherein he called on Dalits to return toAdi-Dharma as the "original religion of Indians." Achhutanand formulated his philosophy on the basis of a shared cultural and ethnic identity. He presented it to an audience beyond just Dalits, including tribal societies as well. He opposedMahatma Gandhi's non-cooperation movement and fasts as well as theIndian National Congress, stating thatBrahmins were "as foreign to India as were the British", according toAnand Teltumbde.[18]
Babu Mangu Ram was also born in an untouchable family ofPunjab with a flourishing leather trade. Mangu Ram arrived in theUnited States in 1909 at the age of 23 and worked inCalifornia. There, he joined theGhadar Party and smuggled weapons from California to India in order to oppose British rule.[18] In 1925, he shifted his focus onto Dalit freedom, launching the "Ad Dharm" movement as well as a weekly newspaper titled Adi-Danka to spread his ideas. According to Teltumbde, Mandu Ram's religious movement failed to materialize, and Mangu Ram later joined the Ambedkarite movement.[18]
In 1914, Prakash was ordained as a Bodhanand Mahastavir inCalcutta, and began preaching Buddhism inLucknow. He founded theBharatiye Buddh Samiti in 1916, and set up a vihara in 1928.[19]
In 1898, PanditIyothee Thass founded the Sakya Buddhist Society also known as Indian Buddhist Association inTamil Nadu.[20] He presented Buddhism as a religious alternative to Hinduism for Dalits. Thass's efforts led to the creation of a broader movement amongst Tamil Dalits in South India until the 1950s.[19] The first president of the Indian Buddhist Association wasPaul Carus.[19] Unlike theAmbedkarite movement, the Indian Buddhist Association adopted theTheravada Buddhism tradition founded inSri Lanka (where Thass had received his training and initiation in Buddhism).[20]
Ambedkar was an Indian leader, influential during the colonial era andpost-independence period of India. He belonged to aDalit community, traditionally the most oppressed and marginalized group in Indian society. He was the fourteenth child in an impoverishedMaharashtra Dalit family, who studied abroad, returned to India in the 1920s and joined the political movement. His focus was social and political rights of the Dalits.[21]
During 1931–32, theMahatma Gandhi led Indian independence movement held discussions with the British government over theRound Table Conferences. They sought constitutional reforms as a preparation to the end of colonial British rule, and begin the self-rule by Indians.[22] The British side sought reforms that would keep the Indian subcontinent as a colony. The British negotiators proposed constitutional reforms on a British Dominion model that established separate electorates based on religious and social divisions.[23] They invited Indian religious leaders, such asMuslims andSikhs, to press their demands along religious lines, as well asB. R. Ambedkar as the representative leader of theuntouchables.[22] Gandhi vehemently opposed a constitution that enshrined rights or representations based on communal divisions, because he feared that such a constitution would not bring people together but divide them, perpetuate their status and divert the attention from India's struggle to end the colonial rule.[24][25]
After Gandhi returned from Second Round Table conference, he started a newsatyagraha. He was immediately arrested and imprisoned at theYerwada Jail, Pune. While he was in prison, the British government enacted a new law that granted untouchables a separate electorate. It came to be known as theCommunal Award.[26] In protest, Gandhi started fast-unto-death, while he was held in prison.[27] The resulting public outcry forced the government, in consultations with Ambedkar, to replace the Communal Award with a compromisePoona Pact.[28][29]
Ambedkar accepted the Poona Pact under public pressure, but disagreed with Gandhi and his political methods. He dismissed Gandhi's ideas as loved by "blind Hindu devotees", primitive, influenced by spurious brew of Tolstoy and Ruskin, and "there is always some simpleton to preach them".[30][31]
Ambedkar concluded that Dalits must leave Hinduism and convert to another religion, and announced his intent to leave Hinduism in 1935. He considered Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism.[21][32][33][34] Ambedkar was approached by various leaders of different denominations and faiths. On 22 May 1936, an "All Religious Conference" was held atLucknow. It was attended by prominent Dalit leaders includingJagjivan Ram, though Ambedkar could not attend it. At the conference, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, and Buddhist representatives presented the tenets of their respective religions in an effort to win over Dalits.[19] Ambedkar rejected the other religions and chose Buddhism.[21] However, Ambedkar remained a Hindu for the next 20 years, studied then re-interpreted Buddhism, and adopted Neo-Buddhism or Navayana few weeks before his death.[7][21]
The Italian Buddhist monkLokanatha visited Ambedkar's residence atDadar on 10 June 1936. Later in an interview to the press, Lokanatha said that Ambedkar was impressed with Buddhism.[35]
According to Ambedkar, several of the core beliefs and doctrines of traditional Buddhist traditions such as theFour Noble Truths andAnatta were flawed and pessimistic, and may have been inserted into the Buddhist scriptures by wrong-headed Buddhist monks of a later era. These should not be considered asBuddha's teachings in Ambedkar's view.[32][36] Other foundational concepts of Buddhism such asKarma and Rebirth were considered by Ambedkar as superstitions.[32]
Navayana as formulated by Ambedkar and at the root of Dalit Buddhist movement abandons mainstream traditional Buddhist practices and precepts such as the institution of monk after renunciation, ideas such as karma, rebirth in afterlife, samsara, meditation,nirvana and Four Noble Truths.[37] Ambedkar's new sect of Buddhism rejected these ideas and re-interpreted the Buddha's religion in terms ofclass struggle and social equality.[36][32][38]
Ambedkar called his version of BuddhismNavayana or Neo-Buddhism.[39] His book,The Buddha and His Dhamma, is the holy book of Navayana or Dalit Buddhists.[40] According to Junghare, for the followers of Navyana, Ambedkar has become a deity and he is worshipped in its practice.[41]
After publishing a series of books and articles arguing that Buddhism was the only way for the Untouchables to gain equality, Ambedkar publicly converted on 14 October 1956, atDeekshabhoomi,Nagpur, over 20 years after he declared his intent to convert. Around 365,000 of his followers converted to Buddhism at the same ceremony.[7][21] On this occasion, many upper caste Hindus too accepted Buddhism. After Nagpur, on 16 October 1956, Ambedkar again gave Buddhism to more than 300,000 of his followers atChandrapur, since the place is also known as Deekshabhoomi. Inspired by this Ambedkar's conversion, 5,000Tamils ofMyanmar had accepted Buddhism inRangoon under the leadership ofChan Htoon, the justice of theSupreme Court of the Union of Burma on 28 October 1956.[42] As a result of Ambedkar’s movement, nearly three million Dalits converted to Buddhism, increasing the Buddhist population by 1,697% according to the 1961 census.
The conversion ceremony was attended by Medharathi, his main disciple Bhoj Dev Mudit, and Mahastvir Bodhanand's Sri Lankan successor, Bhante Pragyanand.[19] Ambedkar asked Dalits not to get entangled in the existing branches of Buddhism (Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana), and called his versionNavayana or 'Neo-Buddhism'. Ambedkar would die less than two months later, just after finishing his definitive work on Buddhism.
Many Dalits employ the term "Ambedkar(ite) Buddhism" to designate the Buddhist movement, which started with Ambedkar's conversion.[19] Many converted people call themselves "-Bauddha" i.e. Buddhists.
TheTwenty-two vows or twenty-two pledges are the 22 Buddhist vows administered by Dr.B. R. Ambedkar, the revivalist of Buddhism in India, to his followers. On converting toBuddhism, Ambedkar made 22 vows, and asked his 400,000 supporters to do the same.[43] After receivinglay ordination, Ambedkar gavedhamma diksha to his followers. This ceremony organised on 14 October 1956 inNagpur included 22 vows administered to all new converts afterThree Jewels andFive Precepts. On 16 October 1956, Ambedkar performed another mass religious conversion ceremony atChandrapur.[44]
It is believed byAmbedkarite Buddhists that these vows are the guidelines of the social revolution that motivates human instincts. These vows demonstrate both thesocial movement aspect ofNavayana Buddhism, and demonstrate its core deviation from earliersects of Buddhism. In India, these vows are taken as an oath by individuals or groups of people when they convert to Buddhism.[45][46]The Buddhist movement was somewhat hindered by Ambedkar's death in 1956 so shortly after his conversion. It did not receive the immediate mass support from the Untouchable population that Ambedkar had hoped for. Division and lack of direction among the leaders of the Ambedkarite movement have been an additional impediment. However, in 1990,Scheduled Caste status was extended to individuals converted to Buddhism,[47] which contributed to a 35.3% increase in the total Buddhist population from 4,719,796 in 1981 to 6,387,500 in 1991. According to the 2011 census, there are currently 8.44 million Buddhists in India among which 5.76 million areSCs, at least 6.5 million of whom areMarathi Buddhists in Maharashtra.[48] This makes Buddhism the fifth-largestreligion in India and 6% of the population ofMaharashtra, but less than 1% of the overall population of India.
The Buddhist revival remains concentrated in twostates: Ambedkar's nativeMaharashtra, andUttar Pradesh – the land of Bodhanand Mahastavir, Acharya Medharthi and their associates.
Acharya Medharthi retired from his Buddhapuri school in 1960, and shifted to anashram inHaridwar. He turned to theArya Samaj and conductedVedicyajnas all over India. After his death, he was cremated according to Arya Samaj rites.[19] His Buddhpuri school became embroiled in property disputes. His follower, Bhoj Dev Mudit, converted to Buddhism in 1968 and set up a school of his own.[citation needed]
Rajendranath Aherwar appeared as an important Dalit leader in Kanpur. He joined the Republican Party of India and converted to Buddhism along with his whole family in 1961. In 1967, he founded the Kanpur branch of "Bharatiya Buddh Mahasabha". He held regular meetings where he preached Buddhism, officiated at Buddhist weddings and life cycle ceremonies, and organised festivals on Ambedkar's Jayanti (birth day),Sambuddhatva jayanthi, Diksha Divas (the day Ambedkar converted), and Ambedkar Paranirvan Divas (the day Ambedkar died).[19]
The Dalit Buddhist movement in Kanpur gained impetus with the arrival of Dipankar, aChamar bhikkhu, in 1980. Dipankar had come to Kanpur on a Buddhist mission and his first public appearance was scheduled at a mass conversion drive in 1981. The event was organised by Rahulan Ambawadekar, an RPI Dalit leader. In April 1981, Ambawadekar founded the Dalit Panthers (U.P. Branch) inspired by the Maharashtrian Dalit Panthers. The event met with severe criticism and opposition fromVishva Hindu Parishad and was banned.[19]
The number of Buddhists in the Lucknow district increased from 73 in 1951 to 4327 in 2001.[49] According to the 2001 census, almost 70% of the Buddhist population in Uttar Pradesh is from the scheduled castes background.[50]
In 2002,Kanshi Ram, a popular political leader from aSikh religious background, announced his intention to convert to Buddhism on 14 October 2006, the fiftieth anniversary of Ambedkar's conversion. He intended for 20,000,000 of his supporters to convert at the same time.[citation needed] Part of the significance of this plan was that Ram's followers include not only Untouchables, but persons from a variety of castes, who could significantly broaden Buddhism's support. But, he died 9 October 2006[51] after a lengthy illness; he was cremated as per Buddhist tradition.[52]
Another popular Dalit leader, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister andBahujan Samaj Party leaderMayawati, has said that she and her followers will embrace Buddhism after the BSP forms a government at the Centre.[53]
Japanese-bornSurai Sasai emerged as an important Buddhist leader in India. Sasai came to India in 1966 and metNichidatsu Fujii, whom he helped with the Peace Pagoda atRajgir. He fell out with Fuji, however, and started home, but, by his own account, was stopped by a dream in which a figure resemblingNagarjuna appeared and said, "Go to Nagpur". In Nagpur, he met Wamanrao Godbole, the person who had organised the conversion ceremony for Ambedkar in 1956. Sasai claims that when he saw a photograph of Ambedkar at Godbole's home, he realised that it was Ambedkar who had appeared in his dream. At first, Nagpur folk considered Surai Sasai very strange. Then he began to greet them with "Jai Bhim" (victory to Ambedkar) and to build viharas. In 1987 a court case to deport him on the grounds that he had overstayed hisvisa was dismissed, and he was granted Indian citizenship. Sasai and Bhante Anand Agra are two of main leaders of the campaign to free theMahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya from Hindu control.[54]
A movement originating in Maharashtra but also active in Uttar Pradesh, and spread out over quite a few other pockets where Neo Buddhists live, is Triratna Bauddha Mahāsaṅgha (formerly called TBMSG for Trailokya Bauddha Mahasangha Sahayaka Gana). It is the Indian wing of the UK-basedTriratna Buddhist Community founded bySangharakshita. Its roots lie in the scattered contacts thatSangharakshita had in the 1950s with Ambedkar. Sangharakshita, then still a bhikshu, participated in the conversion movement from 1956 until his departure to the UK in 1963.
When his new ecumenical movement had gained enough ground in the West, Sangharakshita worked with Ambedkarites in India and the UK to develop Indian Buddhism further. After visits in the late 1970s by Dharmachari Lokamitra from UK, supporters developed a two-pronged approach: social work through the Bahujan Hitaj (also spelled as Bahujan Hitay) trust, mainly sponsored from the general public by the British Buddhist-inspiredKaruna Trust (UK), and direct Dharma work. Currently the movement has viharas and groups in at least 20 major areas, a couple of retreat centres, and hundreds of Indian Dharmacharis and Dharmacharinis.[55]
Funding for movement's social and dharma work has come from foreign countries, including the Western countries andTaiwan. Some of the foreign-funded organisations include Trailokya Bauddha Mahasangha Sahayaka Gana[56] and Triratna (Europe and India). Triratna has links with the 'Ambedkarite' BuddhistRomanis in Hungary.[57]
Since Ambedkar's conversion, several thousand people from different castes have converted to Buddhism in ceremonies including the twenty-two vows.
Prerna Singh Bindra argued a mass-conversion of Hindus to Ambedkarite Buddhism underUdit Raj to be a political stunt.[71]
According toGail Omvedt, an American-born and naturalised Indian sociologist and human rights activist:
Ambedkar's Buddhism seemingly differs from that of those who accepted by faith, who 'go forrefuge' and accept the canon. This much is clear from its basis: it does not accept in totality the scriptures of the Theravada, the Mahayana, or the Vajrayana. The question that is then clearly put forth: is a fourth yana, aNavayana, a kind of modernistic Enlightenment version of the Dhamma really possible within the framework of Buddhism?[72]
According to Omvedt, Ambedkar and his Buddhist movement deny many of the core doctrines of Buddhism.[4] All the elements of religious modernism, state Christopher Queen and Sallie King, may be found in Ambedkar Buddhism where hisThe Buddha and His Dhamma abandons the traditional precepts and practices, then adopts science, activism and social reforms as a form ofEngaged Buddhism.[73] Ambedkar's formulation of Buddhism is different from Western modernism, states Skaria, given his synthesis of the ideas of modernKarl Marx into the structure of ideas by the ancient Buddha.[74]
Critics have argued that Neo-Buddhism does not have a strong influence, especially after the death of Ambedkar.[75]
Some critics also argue that Neo-Buddhism deviates too much from traditional Buddhism.[76] Even though traditional Buddhism emphasizes equality among people, it does not deny the caste system.[76] In addition, its emphasis on people's liberation in the religious sense does not deny social distinctions as the norm of organizations in society, as the Buddha himself was the founder of a monastic order.[76] A number of critics also argue that there is no moral foundation for the political practices that are based on Neo-Buddhist notions, since religion is totally voluntary, and Neo-Buddhism may thus violate democratic principles by restricting its followers to abide to certain non-religious rules.[76]
The mass conversions to Buddhism are also seen as a political stunt rather than a genuine spiritual movement.[77] Politicians such as Udit Raj, Ramdas Athawale,Kanshi Ram and Mayawati have also been involved in staging or planning to stage mass conversions—these politicians are members of either theBahujan Samaj Party or theRepublican Party of India.[78][79]
According to Janet Contursi, Ambedkar re-interprets Buddhist religion and with Navayana "speaks through Gautama and politicizes the Buddha philosophy as he theologizes his own political views".[80]
Ambedkar not only rejected Hinduism but also the most popularBuddhist schools. Ambedkar considered all ideas in Theravada, Vajrayana and Mahayana Buddhism that relate to an individual's merit and spiritual development as insertions into Buddhism, and something that "cannot be accepted to be the word of the Buddha". Buddhism, to Ambedkar, must have been a social reform movement.[38][81] Ambedkar's radical reinterpretations of the faith rejected many of the main tenets of mainstream Buddhism such asrenunciation,meditation,Samsara,Karma,reincarnation and even theFour Noble Truths, which Ambedkar claims to have been invented by wrong-headed monks.
Ambedkar reinvents the traditional story ofThe Buddha and theGreat Renunciation in order to try and gain mass appeal from Dalits by giving the impression that The Buddha founded Buddhism as a social reform movement rather than a spiritual movement. Virginia Hancock writes about Ambedkar's reinterpretations as turning the Buddha into a politician.
According to Ambedkar, the Buddha advocated a rational and peaceful resolution of an inter-tribe water conflict but was unable to gain the necessary political leverage because he lacked majority vote. He then went into exile and became a renunciant because it was the only way to prevent his tribe from going to war with their neighbors. Ambedkar omits any mention of old age, sickness, and death (the forms of suffering the Buddha is usually understood to have encountered). In this way the Buddha’s renunciation is motivated more by political exigencies rather than a desire to find the ultimate truth, and he becomes a figure not unlike a minority politician in contemporary India. The discussion of water rights was also a familiar topic after the Mahad Satyagraha. These changes, though unorthodox, create a character for the Buddha that might be easily understood by oppressed communities, specifically Dalits.[76]
Scholars broadly accept that the depictions of the Buddha as a social reformer are inaccurate.[38][82][b]Gombrich (2012),[83] states that there is no evidence that the Buddha began or pursued social reforms, rather his aim was at the salvation of those who joined his monastic order.[83][84][85] Modernist interpreters of Buddhism, states Gombrich, keep picking up this "mistake from western authors", a view that initially came into vogue during the colonial era.[83][86][87]
Richard Gombrich adds that Buddha should not be seen as a social reformer: "his concern was to reform individuals and help them leave society forever, not to reform the world... He never preached against social inequality, only declared its irrelevance to salvation. He never tried to abolish the caste system nor to do away with slavery"[88]
Empirical evidence outside of India, such as in the Theravada Buddhist monasteries of the Sinhalese society, suggests that class ideas have been prevalent among thesangha monks, and between the Buddhist monks and the laity. In all canonical Buddhist texts, thekhattiyas (warrior class) are always mentioned first and never other classes such asbrahmans,vessas,suddas.[89]
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