Author – Dr. Eleanor Zelliott

(This paper has been taken from Dr. Eleanor Zelliott’s book, “From Untouchable to Dalit. Dr.Zelliott holds a Ph.D from the University of Pennsylvania, which is one of the early Ph.Ds on Dr.Ambedkar’s movement. Her findings of this paper are based on her field work in India till 1976. Though the movement with regard to Dr.Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism has spread steadily to other states in the last 25 years, this paper gives an insight into the growth of Buddhism in the 20 years after Dr.Ambedkar’s Mahaparinirvana – Editor )

The contemporary Buddhist conversion movement in India arose neither from a missionary enterprise which carried its own organizational structure and leadership nor from the Buddha-ization of a highly developed existent religious structure. Unlike any other mass conversion in history, this new religious movement was almost completely on its own. The massive conversion which began in 1956 largely affected low castes, particularly Mahars of Maharashtra, who had been involved for decades in battle for political, social and religious rights. Buddhism was chosen as the religion of conversion because of its qualities of rationality, equality and intellectual creativity—because it offered a way out of the psychological imprisonment of the Hindu caste system. Buddhism as an organized religion, however, was almost non-existent in India at that time, and the ex-untouchables who chose to convert had to create leadership, structure, religious observances and activities from very indirect models and what they created had to be a religion that would fit their own needs.

The leader of this conversion movement, Dr.B.R.Ambedkar, had been interested in Buddhism most of his adult life. He had read books on Buddhism which had become a minor part of India’s discovery of her own past in the twentieth century; he had met some of the men who had, as individuals, become interested in Buddhism; he had traveled to Ceylon and Burma to see living Buddhist countries; and he had written The Buddha and His Dhamma, a rationalized life of the Buddha and a selection of texts, chiefly from Pali sources. Moreover, he had prepared his followers psychologically for a conversion from Hinduism from 1935 on, beginning with his own statement that he ‘would not die a Hindu’. But the conversion was held suddenly, dramatically and without much organizational preparation on 14 October 1956, and within two months of it Ambedkar was dead. He had died a Buddhist, and he had set in motion a movement that soon involved over three million people. But although the inspiration of Ambedkar’s own example and his invitation to others to follow him were powerful directives, the organization of the new religion was at a bare minimum.

The structural and leadership elements developed during the long struggle for social and political rights and for educational opportunities were pressed into service to provide the thrust and direction of the religious movement. Without the living example of a Buddhist society before them, the ‘new Buddhists’ had to create a meaningful religious life from the sources available to them: Dr.Ambedkar’s precepts, traditional Buddhism with whom they came in contact. Most importantly, they had to build that Buddhist society in the light of the needs of the Buddhist converts, most of them from formerly Untouchable castes, in the context of a dominant society.

Now twenty years after the conversion, the movement has slowed in garnering numbers. There were 180,823 Buddhists in India in 1951, before the conversion; 3,250,227 Buddhists in 1961, and 3,812,325 Buddhist in 1971, according to the Indian Census. The great bulk of the Buddhists are in Maharashtra, 3,264,000 Buddhists, but there are sizable numbers in urban centres outside that state: 10,000 in Andhra Pradesh, 81,800 in Madhya Pradesh, 14,100 in Karnataka, 87,000 in the city of Delhi, 8,400 in Orissa, 1,300 in the Punjab, 3,500 in Rajasthan, 1,100 in Tamilnadu, 42,200 in Uttar Pradesh and 39,600 in West Bengal. There is no single leader, there is no overall organization, but there is flourishing, creative, controversial Buddhist society which has evolved patterns of Buddhism both innovative and traditional.

My purpose in this paper is to look at some of the visible elements of contemporary Buddhist society in India, i.e. the place of Dr.Ambedkar in their activities and observances; the buildings that house Buddhist activities; the leadership which teaches, preaches and conducts ritual; the sorts of public holidays and festivals which are observed. The Buddhist tradition, the Mahar tradition and the surrounding Indian tradition all have marked the practices of the Buddhist converts. Much that seems innovative to the Buddhist tradition will be found to be a necessary carry-over from the convert’s past or an almost unconscious response to the prevailing Indian (largely Hindu) present. My observations were made in three separate year-long visits to India, 1964-5, 1971and 1975-6. My perspective is limited to Maharashtra, although much of what I observed would also be found among Buddhist groups in number of cities outside that state.

The Role of Babasaheb Ambedkar

The presence of a picture of Dr.Ambedkar in all Buddhist viharas and at all Buddhist functions seems to set the Indian Buddhists apart from the main Buddhist tradition. The inclusion of ‘Babasaheb’ Ambedkar as an object of reverence is the most visible innovation in the practice of contemporary Buddhists in India. The Buddha and Babasaheb in plaster, stone, poster-art and painting, in song and drama and story, seemingly of near-equal importance, rarely one without the other, are continual evidence that contemporary Indian Buddhism proudly combines its own tradition with that of the main Buddhist tradition. Ambedkar is neither worshipped nor prayed to nor, of course, is the Buddha. No puja is performed, no navas (vows) are made to either figure, so their functions are not those of a Hindu god. But at every occasion, both figures are garlanded, the Buddha first; incense is lit; and Bhagwan Gautam Buddha and Parampujya Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar are addressed before the speaker acknowledges the Chairman of the function and ‘Brothers and Sisters’.

Efforts have been made to place Dr.Ambedkar in the traditional Buddhist framework. Some Buddhists acknowledge Dr.Ambedkar as Boddhisatva in recognition of his role in bringing modern Indian converts into Buddhism, i.e. as a saviour. This use has been justified by, at least, one traditionally trained Thervada Buddhist bhikshu. Other Buddhists reject the Bodhisatva concept as Mahayana Buddhism, which they see as inferior to the rational, non-supernatural, humanity-centered religion they believe the Buddha taught. Another broadly accepted way of honoring Ambedkar is to add the diminutive of his first name, Bhimrao, to the list of refuges, i.e Bhimam sarnam gachchami, so that the ‘Three Jewels’ become four:

I go for refuge to the Buddha

I go to refuge to the Dhamma (doctrine)

I go to refuge to the Sangha (order of monks)

I go for refuge to Ambedkar.

These efforts to honor Dr.Ambedkar within the framework of the Buddhist tradition are an affront to some outside the conversion movement. Those who understand the importance of Dr.Ambedkar in the earlier struggle for political, social and religious rights are more charitable in accepting the continuing homage paid to him. That homage can best be understood by reference to the Indian tradition of the Guru (teacher or master) a concept most explicit in Hinduism but also found in heterodox sects and in secular life in India. The use of the term ‘Bodhisatva’, the inclusion of Ambedkar as a refuge, is an attempt to use Buddhist concepts for the basic Indian idea of the need for a teacher to show the way to religious insight and personal freedom. The old practice of guru-shishya (master-pupil) is often expanded in modern India to a generalized acceptance of the importance of one special person—parent, teacher, ideal, hero— as a chief inspiration in life. The key is that the guru figure is the one who brings his disciple into self-realization, into freedom, i.e. the man who ‘saves’ him.

Ambedkar himself claimed that he had three gurus: The Buddha, the fifteenth century iconoclastic saint-poet Kabir, and the nineteenth century radical social reformer, Mahatma Jotiba Phule. In turn, his followers feel that he has been responsible for almost all the educational, social and political progress in their lives and in addition has shown them the way to a religion which is both honorable and honored, a religion which negates the religious concepts that made them untouchables in the eyes of society. Many feel that Ambedkar has quite literally saved them, and often highly educated Buddhists feel more strongly about Ambedkar as guru than those who have not benefited so much from the movement.

Ambedkar is by no means a guru in the way that Maharshi Mahesh Yogi or Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh or any of the many contemporary cult figures are gurus. He is a guru in a less specific but totally Indian way. One’s guru does not need to be saintly in character or religious in profession; he needs only to be the one who points towards enlightenment. The picture of Dr.Ambedkar, usually clad in a blue business suit, a book in his hand, a fountain pen in his pocket, placed beside the picture of the yellow-robed Buddha, makes clear the very human sort of guru he was.

One of the many contemporary songs to folk tunes or film music by Buddhist singing groups illustrates the combination of social and religious enlightenment Ambedkar represents:He gave us the conversion at Nagpur

He threw his light in the darkness

He never was the slave of anyone

He showed us the way of Buddha

He gave us salvation

The importance of this concept is also expressed in a more sophisticated way by Namdev Dhasal, a political radical and a poet of the new Dalit school of literature, which is briefly composed of educated Buddhists. In this context from one of Dhasal’s poems, ‘they’ refers to the forefathers of today’s ex-untouchables; ‘fakir’ is used in Marathi for a Muslim saint and Dhasal has used it here probably to avoid a reference to Hinduism:

Turning their backs to the sun, they journeyed through centuries;

Now, now, we must refuse to be pilgrims of darkness

After a thousand years we were blessed

with a sunflower-giving fakir;

Now, now, we must like sunflowers turn our face to the sun.

Whether he is called Bodhisatva, a refuge, a guru or a fakir, Ambedkar is honored as the one who in his lifetime showed the way and who continues after his death to be seen as the wisest and most inspiring of men.

The Vihara—Meeting place for Buddhists

The new buildings dedicated to the Buddhist religion in Maharashtra as well as the old buildings converted to Buddhist use are called Viharas, the technical term for the residence of the Buddhist monks. The words for temple in Marathi, deul and mandir are studiously avoided, and the only term for a gathering place in the old Buddhist tradition seemed to be vihara. The need of today’s Buddhists, however, is not so much living quarters for bhikshus as a meeting place for the laity, a place where the image of the Buddha can be kept, the community can gather for lectures on Buddhism or for vandana and children can be instructed. As in the case of other lay elements in Buddhist structure, there was no living model for the place of gathering of the Buddhist community available in India, and so the multipurpose vihara came into being.

The vihara is most often a plain rectangular structure, embellished, where possible, with architectural detail from the most accessible models of Buddhist structures: the caves of Ajanta and the Stupa of Sanchi. These buildings are newly built whenever the Buddhists of some locality have the money and the cooperative spirit to create a symbol of their newly accepted faith. In many villages, the caudi (community hall) of the old Maharwada (the quarters of the Mahar, somewhat removed from the village proper), does double service as community meeting room and center for Buddhist activities. I have seen few Hindu temples converted to Buddhist use, probably because few were completely in the hands of those Mahars who converted.

No one has undertaken the immense amount of travelling over Maharashtra and in the cities of the Buddhist conversion elsewhere to record the presence of viharas, nor is there any organizational record, since the building of a Buddhist center is an entirely local matter. The ones I have seen range from a small community shrine, large enough only to accommodate a statue of the Buddha, in the slums of Delhi, to a large building with an elaborate stupa on top in Pulgaon, Maharashtra, where Buddhists constitute a large, economically secure, factory-worker community. Most viharas serve the Buddhist community in several ways, Daily or weekly vandana, memorial services and meetings for religious observances are held in the viharas, although few are large enough to accommodate all Buddhists in the locality and great occasions require that a pavillion be erected near the vihara. Many viharas are used for educational and social as well as religious purposes. In some, there are rooms for visiting or resident bhikshus. Others combine a room for the image of the Buddha with a room for a pre-school or a kindergarten. Such a vihara was dedicated in Wardha in May 1976. Residents of the area, many of them casual labor on the railway, collected money for some twenty years and then built a small building. The lower room is a balwadi (children’s school) dedicated to Mahatma Phule; above, underneath a Sanchi like dome, is a small room dominated by a Buddha image brought from Thailand and a photograph of Dr.Ambedkar, with quotations from both the Pali scripture and Dr.Ambedkar painted on the walls.

The vihara of Buddhists today is not an imitation of a Hindu temple. There is no pujari or ritual priest, there is no stream of individual worshippers paying homage to the image. The vihara serves chiefly as a symbol of the community’s faith and as a center for the community to gather as Buddhists. And since knowledge is seen as a Buddhist virtue, both Buddhist and secular education can easily be combined with its religious function.

The Leadership of the Buddhists

At the time of the conversion in 1956, there were few Buddhist bhikshus in India and none who spoke Marathi as their native tongue. The oldest Buddhist bhikshu then in India, Mahasthaveer Chandramani of Burma, came to Nagpur for the initial conversion ceremony and gave Dr.Ambedkar diksha. From then on, anyone who had converted to Buddhism during mass conversion at Nagpur could convert others, and the stress was on the individual’s commitment in a public ceremony. Another huge ceremony was held in Bombay ten days after the death of Dr.Ambedkar in December 1956 and here Bhikshu Anand Kausalyayan, a Hindi- speaking monk, initiated thousands into the new religion through the use of the Three Jewels (or three refuges) and the oaths of declaration of acceptance of Buddhism. There were few trained bhikshus available for diksha and teaching, however, and the burden of leadership in the early days of the movement fell upon the political leadership from Ambedkar’s Republican Party. Religious conversion from the hands of political leaders may have seemed strange to outsiders, but for those in the movement, these were the men who knew them, who had worked with Ambedkar, who had long ago given up Hinduism as a religion of inequality and superstition.

Another group of leaders soon rose at the local level. These were the students—young men and a few women trained in the colleges that Ambedkar had founded. Some had studied Pali, and had sought out some knowledge of Buddhism in the intense and joyful early days of the conversion. They conducted marriages and memorial services in a simple ritual devised by Ambedkar, founded classes for children and study groups for adults, joined in Young Men’s Buddhist Association and women’s service groups. They published pamphlets on Buddhism in Marathi, wrote songs to be sung in community meetings, and, whenever they could, found a travelling Buddhist bhikshu or an educated symphathetic Hindu to speak on Buddhist idealogy at public meetings.

The overall organization of the Buddhists in India was less effective than that at the local level. The Buddhist Society of India, centered in Bombay and led by Dr.Ambedkar’s son, Yeshwant Ambedkar, was established by Dr.Ambedkar in 1955. Theoretically the center of Buddhist activities, the Buddhist Society of India has given little direction to the movement, and the ties between the center and its local branches are very loose. The center was dominated by political leaders, and as factions began to appear in Ambedkar’s party, they affected the religious organizations also. The non-political leadership which arose on the local level could not effect a strong central leadership, but neither could the lack of a center affect the vitality of the new movement. The Buddist Society of India has now completed the Dr.Ambedkar Memorial Shrine, a multipurpose vihara on the seashore at Shivaji Park in Bombay, the site where Dr.Ambedkar was cremated. The viharas in the towns and the villages of Maharashtra, however, reflect local commitment and local leadership.

Now, after twenty years, it seems clear that Buddhism in India will continue its strong emphasis on the laity and lay leadership. It is still the lay leadership that performs most of the teaching and preaching, writes most of the religious material which continues to flow from the movement, collects the money and plans the vihara. But there are increasing numbers of Marathi-speaking bhikshus, appearing it seems not so much from the need of the community as out of their own individual commitment to Buddhism. Some go to Bodh Gaya or some other Buddhist center in North India for training, a few to Thailand and a few others to Ceylon. One young man is now in Japan with the Nichiren sect. Most of the Marathi-speaking bhikshus are young and highly educated; many are working on doctoral degrees in Pali, archaeology or some other field related to the Buddhist past. The only Maharashtrian center for the training of bhikshus is that at Nagpur under the care of Bhadanta Anand Kausalyayan, a former Punjabi Hindu who became a bhikshu in Ceylon in 1930. The Ven. Kausalyayan moved to Nagpur in 1970, has built a home and training center on the grounds where the 1956 conversion took place, and has educated dozens of young men, about fifteen of whom have been ordained as bhikshus.

The function of the bhikshu among the Buddhists in Maharashtra seems to be primarily teaching, although it seems also true that the very presence of a bhikshu is an important symbol of the identity of a Buddhist group. I have met many sorts of bhikshus during my visit to India. In the 1960s, the Ven. Sangharakshita of England and Kalingpong devoted half of each year to teaching in Maharashtra and Gujarat. He preached many sermons, his English being interpreted into Marathi by one of the young Buddhist students, and he also conducted samnera, a period of ten days or so in which Buddhist laity lived as monks. A Thai bhikshu, Vivekananda, also traveled widely in Maharashtra, giving simple lectures on Buddhist morality. A number of Thai bhikshus study at the University of Poona or Deccan College in Pune, and some of these establish working relationships with Maharashtrian Buddhists, particularly in Buddhist Sunday schools for children, but none are in India permanently. Some Tibetan monks have moved through Maharashtra, but those I met knew no English, Marathi or Hindi and so served the community by making clay images of the Buddha and reciting some texts in hastily learned Pali. In 1975 a Tamil speaking Bhikshu was teaching meditation and performing some medical service both in Bombay and in the railroad porters colony in Pune. Singhalese, Burmese and Japanese bhikshus have been of service to the community at various times, their effectiveness dependent upon their ability to communicate and their attitude towards the still generally economically and socially depressed community.

The appearance of Marathi-speaking bhikshus with roots in the community may create a situation in which religious leaders become more essential to the community. However, to be effective, they will have to be highly educated, able to preach and teach, totally ethical, willing to be completely identified with the community, and free from any political ambition.

Such a Sangha is now emerging, but there are not enough bhikshus to serve each Buddhist community. And along with the appearance of Marathi- speaking bhikshus, the creative lay leadership continues to function. Three examples will serve to indicate its direction: two dedicated professors teach Pali to over 2000 students at the complex of colleges in Aurangabad established by Ambedkar, and are deeply involved in plans for a Buddhist Center, with a resident bhikshu, which will reach far beyond the student body. Another striking example is that of a young woman in Pune who combines works as a clerk in a government office with study for a law degree. She performed so well in a class taught by Thai Bhikshus in her community that she was sent to a Buddhist conference in Thailand. Since her return she has participated in numerous weddings, funerals and other ritual occasions, leading the vandana and giving talks on Buddhism. A third example of the lay leadership is the most ambitious of all. Waman Godbole, one of the planners of the Nagpur Conversion in 1956, called an All-India Buddhist Dharma Conference in Nagpur in December 1975. Eight bhikshus from many traditions and hundreds of lay leaders participated in the conference, with tens of thousands coming to the public sessions and taking part in processions. Godbole hopes for a structured organization that will unify all Buddhists in India. He recognizes that it took twenty years to plan such a conference, however, and is content to work slowly and patiently to build a functioning umbrella Buddhist organization. Godbole is a well educated Buddhist layman who continues with his railway job to support himself and who has not married in order to devote his life to the movement.

Leadership among Buddhist in Maharashtra has had to emerge out of a vacuum over the last twenty years. The Buddhist leaders are not related to the old Mahar religious leadership, which in any case lost its importance when Ambedkar’s movement became committed to leaving Hinduism in the 1930s. The new Buddhist leader, whether a member of the Sangha or a lay person, is effective only if he or she can share a knowledge of Buddhism and if he or she is committed to the service of the community.

The Holy Days of the Maharashtrian Buddhists

The four great observances of the contemporary Buddhists in India—Dhamma Diksha Day, Buddha Jayanti, Ambedkar’s death memorial day, and Ambedkar Jayanti— reveal their determination to preserve hard-won glory of their past as well as to state their commitment to Buddhism. The anniversary of the day of conversion, 14 October, is celebrated as Dhamma Diksha Day. Those who can, return to the field in Nagpur where the 1956 conversion was held for a great ceremony; others hold local observances of varying sorts. In Aurangabad, the Buddhist caves just outside the city are the focus of a procession, Pali Vandana and later games for the children, while speeches and song services are held in the colleges. Buddha Jayanti, the day of observance of the Buddha’s birth, has been observed since 1950, when Ambedkar arranged for the celebrations as a public occasion in Delhi. The Jayanti is a time for speeches, music drama on Buddhist themes and occasionally a solemn procession.

Ambedkar’s death anniversary, 6 December, is a time for quiet and sorrowful gatherings, and talks or music by one of the many singers or singing groups in the community predominate. Ambedkar’s birth anniversary, 14 April on the other hand, is a noisy and joyful occasion. Here the borrowings from the processions found in Hinduism, Islam, and Jainism are clear. As in the Muslim Moharram or the Hindu Ganapati festival, local groups form committees which plan their contribution to the cityside procession. In Pune, the central point is the statue of Dr.Ambedkar near the railway station, and groups of dancing, shouting youngsters and older men march from their scattered localities to Ambedkar Square. The Maharashtrian dance game legim is often played by the marchers, as in the Ganapati festival, although the Buddhists have at least one girl’s group, which the Hindus do not. One group rented the city zoo’s elephant in 1976 to carry Ambedkar’s photograph in the procession, but generally the marchers try to out-do each other in spirit rather than constructing elaborate floats.

A Jayanti held at the Aundh Road Buddhist locality near Pune illustrates the mood of this day. Dozens of boys and a few older men drummed and danced their way the twenty miles to Ambedkar Square and back. A meeting then began at about 9 o’clock that night, presided over by one of the exhausted participants. Speeches were made by a young Marathi-speaking bhikshu from another slum locality in Pune, a Maratha caste convert to Buddhism who had just attended a Buddhist conference in Thailand and this American scholar who is considered an authority on Ambedkar’s life. The speeches were followed by a local drama group. Every social group, male and female, and every political faction in the locality was invited to participate in an effort to unite the community, and no outside political leaders were asked to attend. The events of the day reached the children, the young people and the adults of the community in one phase or another. The procession was sheer fun, the speeches of the Bhikshus and the Buddhist converts contained heavy doses of ethics and morality, and the drama provided both entertainment and a glimpse of the Buddhist past.

While these observances bear some resemblance to Hindu or other Indian holy days or festivals, particularly in the idea of the public processions and the exhibiting of the photographs of the ‘gurus’, the Buddha and Dr.Ambedkar, they are unlike Hindu occasions in their emphasis on teaching and their rationality. There is no one astrologically timed sacred moment, no one hallowed sacred space. There is no need for a religious figure to give an auspicious presence, blessing or rite. There is no spirit-possession, no religious ecstasy. These four observances are times for community spirit, for education, for remembrance.

The innovations of the contemporary Buddhist movement in India represent those elements in the past of the Buddhists which are important to their present progress; the work of Dr.Ambedkar, their social unity in the face of continued prejudice and occasional violence, their rejection of Hinduism as a religion of inequality, irrationality and superstition. Neverthless, there is also some retention of Hindu or Indian elements among the modern Buddhists—the guru idea, the public processions, the days honoring the birth or death of great men. It must be remembered that the Buddhists of India are a minority in a dominant Hindu society, and as in the case of other minorities— Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Jains—the ways of showing identity, loyalty and group spirit which are a part of Indian culture have colored Buddhist celebrations.

The outward symbols of traditional Buddhism most stressed are those which carry inner meaning of the conversion: honor, equality, rationality, humanism. The image of the Buddha used is a simple one; he is the enlightened one, not a god. The study of Pali is important not only as the language of the Thervada texts but as a symbol of commitment to the Buddhist world. Pali ritual phrases are used in group performance of vandana, partly to produce a moment of group unity and party to show that this is the holy language of Buddhism, as Sanskrit is the holy language of Hinduism. The Buddhist art and holy places of the past are honored by contemporary Buddhists as proof of the past greatness and part of their own heritage. The decorated caves of Ajanta, Elora, Aurangabad, Nasik and Junnar are visited with reverance and awe, and many make pilgrimages to Sanchi Sarnath or Bodh Gaya.

Along with the amalgam of traditional Buddhism, the Mahar past and the socio-religious practices of Hindu society in general, the Buddhists of India seem to have created some new and interesting developments on their own. The multipurpose vihara and the initiative and responsibility of the lay leader are the most striking of these. Wherever it has gone, Buddhism has adapted itself to the needs of the surrounding culture. The contemporary Buddhists of India are not an exact copy of Singhalese, Burmese, Thai, Cambodian or Japanese Buddhists. As in those societies, Buddhism has retained some of its ancient lineaments while allowing those who claim commitment to it to change it in accordance with their own needs.