Buddhism
is one of the oldest religious and spiritual streams of India with a history of
more than 2500 years. Due to several reasons, Buddhism declined and almost
became extinct in India by the advent of the 19th century. But its high-priest
and master, Gautama Buddha, remained a permanent hallmark on the spiritual psyche
of India. The Buddha and his Dhamma, somehow, remained as a living legacy in
the Hindu ethos and philosophy as an integral part of Indian tradition. It will
remain so. Buddhism is evergreen and all-time relevant in these days of
religious bigotry and hatred which is increasing every passing day.
The
incidental provocation to write on the subject of Buddhist
Renaissance in India
is the Diksha Day, October 14, the day Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of the
Indian constitution and one of the greatest social reformers of India, embraced
Buddhism at Diksha Bhoomi at Nagpur in 1956. It was an epoch-making event in
the social and spiritual life of India when along with their leader Babasaheb
Ambedkar almost a million people renounced Hinduism and embraced Buddhism. It
was a big decision with far reaching implications for the society and polity of
India. Babasaheb Ambedkar took this decision to leave Hinduism after
considering all aspects of the issue including the much needed dignity and
respect of his fellow brethren of dalit communities.
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| Diksha Bhoomi |
It
took almost 20 years to come to this stage on October, 1956 after Babasaheb
took the vow to leave Hinduism in October, 1935 after he utterly failed to
reform and transform Hinduism to make it a religion of human dignity and
equality. Babasheb declared that he was born a Hindu but will not die a Hindu.
The mould was cast. The leadership of Muslims, Christians and even Sikhs (who
has its origins in Hinduism) considered it an opportunity to invite and entice
Dr. Ambedkar and his followers to join their respective faiths. But Babasaheb
was not an ordinary human being and was visionary with a gifted foresight. The
Maha Bodhi Society of India and one of the known Buddhist monks Ven. Lokanathan
approached Babasaheb and tried to persuade him to embrace Buddhism. Knowing the
mindset of Babasaheb and his love for and inclination towards the teachings and
philosophy of Lord Buddha, they remained in touch with him. But Babasaheb’s
priorities were different. He purposely decided to go slow. His first priority
was to liberate the poor masses from the “socio-economic thralldom” as stated
by a renowned author D.C. Ahir in his book the Legacy of Dr. Ambedkar. He did
his best to help the suffering masses as a Member of the Viceroy’s Executive
from 1942-46 and later undertaking the first onerous work after India’s
independence in 1947, framing and writing of the Constitution of India. The imprint
of the Buddhist thought and philosophy of which Dr. Ambedkar was a constant but
silent follower, may be seen clearly in the Preamble of the Constitution
itself. The very essence of Buddhism i.e. Equality, Liberty and Fraternity is
the soul of the Indian Constitution. The slow but steady journey towards
Buddhism had already started and was getting visible. By 1950, it was almost
clear that Dr. Ambedkar had decided in his mind to embrace Buddhism, a true
Indian religious and spiritual stream which will liberate him and his followers
from the dogmas of Hinduism, a religion of graded inequality. He asked his
followers to celebrate Buddha Jayanti and himself participated in the
celebrations in Delhi. He wrote an article in the Maha Bodhi, a monthly journal
of the Maha Bodhi Society of India under the caption “Buddha and the future of
his Religion” In this article, he compared Buddha with the masters of other
three big religions namely Jesus of Christians, Mohammed of Muslims and Krishna
of Hindus. Jesus was the son of God. Mohammed was the messenger of God. Krishna
was God himself. Buddha never claimed any such status for himself. In this
elaborative article, Babasaheb concluded that three steps need to be taken if
Buddhism is to be spread in India – i) to produce a Buddhist Bible ii) to make
changes in the organization i.e. aims and objectives of the Buddhist Sangha and
iii) to set up a World Buddhist Mission. He said that Buddhism was the only
religion which suits the world at large because of its rationality, morality,
liberty and fraternity. In May, 1950, Babasaheb went to Kandy (Sri Lanka) to
participate in the First Conference of World Fellowship of Buddhists. Kandy is
a picturesque hill station where the ‘Tooth Relic of Buddha’ is kept at a Buddhist
Temple called Dalda Maligawa. While speaking at the conference, he said, “I am
an interested observer, not a delegate. I came here with some very specific
purpose. You probably know that there are people in India who thought the time
had come when an effort might be made to revive Buddhism in India. I am one of
them.” Babasaheb further said that he was interested in knowing and studying
the Buddhist ceremonies, whether Buddhism is observed in its purity as
stipulated by Lord Buddha or superstitions and hollow rituals have crept in
negating the Buddhist philosophy and to find out to what extent the Sangha work
in the service of community as established by the Master. The intentions of Dr.
Ambedkar were becoming clear by every passing day. He spoke at the Japanese
Buddhist Temple in Bombay on September 29, 1950 and declared that he would
devote the rest of his life to the revival and spread of Buddhism in India.
Again in May, 1951, Buddha Jayanti was celebrated with gusto under the
leadership of Babasaheb. Addressing the congregation at Ambedkar Bhawan in New
Delhi, he said, “change of religion from Hinduism to Buddhism was a sure cure
for India’s numerous ills, social and economic.” as quoted by D.C. Ahir in his
book. Dr. Ambedkar made it clear and said, “If rest of the Hindu Society does
not cooperate, then we, the members of the Schedule Castes, will go on our own
and try once again to bring back Buddhism to its former glory and prestige in
this country.” It may be observed from these uttering’s of Babasaheb that he
did not plan or want only dalits to convert to Buddhism but the whole Hindu
society to transform the entire Indian society in the spirit of “Bahujan Hitai;
Bahujan Sukhai”. Speaking on All India Radio in October, 1954, he said, “Every
man should have a philosophy of life for everyone must have a standard by which
to measure ones conduct.” In the broadcast he negated Hinduism and said that
the Hindu philosophy had made the caste system and the system of graded
inequality the law of Hindu social life. Referring to Buddhism, he said, “My
social philosophy may be said to be enshrined in three words: liberty, equality
and fraternity. My philosophy has roots in religion and not in political
science. I have derived them from the teachings of my Master, the Buddha.”
Babasaheb went to Rangoon (Myanmar) in December, 1954 to participate in the
Third Conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists. Addressing the
conference, he said, “I have to say this with great anguish that in the land
where the great Buddha was born, His religion has declined. How such a thing happened
is beyond anyone’s comprehension” and gave details of his plans to revive
Buddhism in India. Babasaheb met and
stayed with Dr. R.L. Soni a great Buddhist scholar and founder of World Institute
of Buddhist Culture. D.C. Ahir has written in his book “The Legacy of Dr.
Ambedkar” that “The historic decision to come to Buddhism in 1956 was taken by
Dr. Ambedkar at Mandalay after prolonged discussions with Dr. Soni on the
merits of coming formally to Buddhism.” It is a small co-incident that recently
I reviewed a speech of Dr. R.L. Soni, published in the format of a booklet “Buddhism
and the World Today” in my blog. Meanwhile,
Dr. Ambedkar made all related arrangements for his conversion to Buddhism. He
fixed October 14, 1956 for the big and historical event which would become the
day of the Buddhist Renaissance in India. This day has a special significance
in Buddhist history – The day of Dhamma Vijay, the day on which Ashoka the
Great embraced Buddhism in 262 B.C. Dr. Ambedkar gave final touches to his much
awaited book “The Buddha and his Dhamma” – The Buddhist Bible which he
considered as one of the three important requirements for the spread of
Buddhism in India. On the Buddha Jayanti Day on May 24, 1956, he announced at a
public meeting in Bombay that he would embrace Buddhism in October at Nagpur.
Explaining why he chose Nagpur for embracing Buddhism, he said, “It was the
Nagas who spread the religion of Buddha throughout the world. These people were
predominantly living in and around the ‘Nag’ river of Nagpur. This was mainly
the reason for selecting Nagpur for the great occasion. For this historic
ceremony a vacant plot, near Vaccine Institute at Shardhanand Peth, was
selected which later became “Diksha Bhoomi”.
Venerable U. Chandramani Maha Thera administered to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar
and his wife Savita the Tisarana (Triple Refuses/Jewels) – Buddham Saranam
Gacchami, Dhammam Saranam Gacchami, Sangham Saranam Gacchami and Pachsila (Five
Percepts). With this the conversion ceremony was over. The vow he took 21 years
ago that he will not die a Hindu was fulfilled. Addressing a mammoth gathering
as a Buddhist, Dr. Ambedkar said, “I started the movement of renouncing the Hindu
religion in 1935 and since then I have been continuing the struggle. This
conversion has given me enormous satisfaction and pleasure unimaginable. I feel
as if I have been liberated from hell.”
After that the first step to revive and propagate the gospel of Lord
Buddha in India started in right earnestness. The vast sea of humanity gathered
at the ceremony became Buddhists at one go after taking the Tisarana and
Panchsila after Dr. Ambedkar. In addition, Dr. Ambedkar administered to them
the 22 vows which he had specially prepared to renew and transform Buddhism to
meet the needs of common people. On the next day, yet another conversion
ceremony was conducted with lakhs of people embracing Buddhism. Dr. Ambedkar
made a long and elaborative speech, as summed up by D.C. Ahir, ‘tracing the
history of the suffering of down-trodden people through the ages, his life log
struggle to mitigate their sufferings and as to why he had chosen Buddhism of
all the religions.’
Dr.
Ambedkar was fully committed to propagate and spread of Buddhism as the true
religion of India. Immediately after becoming a Buddhist himself, he went to
Kathmandu (Nepal) in November, 1956 to participate in the Fourth Conference of
World Buddhist Fellowship. The world Buddhist community was eager to listen to
Dr. Ambedkar after the historical events of conversion at Nagpur in October,
1956. Sensing the mood of the delegates at the conference, Dr. Ambedkar spoke
on the theme “Buddhism and Marxism or Communism” with insight and thought
provoking presentation. Concluding the speech, he said, “I am quite confident
that, if we will become one-tenth as enlightened as the Buddha was, we can
bring about good results by the methods of love, of justice and of goodwill.”
In spite of his not so good health, on his way back from Nepal, he visited holy
Buddhist shrines in Bodh Gaya and Sarnath, Kushinagar and addressed many
meetings with a view to spread the message of Buddha.
His
message to follow the Buddha was well taken by the people of India. But his untimely
death on December 6, 1956 changed the pace and course of the journey. Dr.
Ambedkar, as I understand, was not a traditional Buddhist. He was a liberated
Buddhist and desired to make his followers and the suffering masses such
liberated Buddhists. He wrote the Buddhist Bible in form of “The Buddha and His
Dhamma” in a simple and an educative style for the benefit of all. He added 22
vows to the already existing Three Refuges and Five Percepts to meet the
challenges and needs Buddhists of the contemporary times. Dr. Ambedkar desired
to make Buddhism functional and dynamic and asked his followers not to get
entangled in the existing branches of Buddhism i.e. Theravada, Mahayana,
Vajrayana etc. and called his views as
“Navayana” or “Neo-Buddhism”.
The
Buddhist Renaissance in India brought about by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar is a fact which
will be recorded in the annals of history with much appreciation and gratitude.
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