Ambedkar and Buddhism

On the morning of 14 October 1956, at a mass rally in the Indian town of Nagpur, four hundred men and women turned their backs on a millennium of degradation and slavery. Finally renouncing Hinduism, with its cruel system of 'graded inequality, they turned instead to Buddhism, in search of dignity, hope and a path to self-improvement. Over the coming months, Hindu India shook as hundreds of thousands more followed their example, and as the Buddha Dhamma came back to life in the land of its birth. The man solely responsible for this historic revival was Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar; politician, and educationalist; India's first law Minister, chief architect of her constitution- and lifelong champion of her downtrodden million.

About The Author

Vishnu SITARAM SUKTHANKAR (4 May 1887-21 January 1943) was an eminent Indologist and a scholar of Sanskrit. He was educated at the Maratha High School and later at St. Xavier's College in Bombay. After passing his Intermediate Examination, he left for En