Dhamma Deeksha Day Celebrations,
Ambedkar Centre, Southall, Middlesex
Federation of Ambedkarite and
Buddhist Organisations
A Legacy of Revival and Revolution
Speech delivered on 5 October 2025
By Sat Pal Muman
Distinguished honoured guests, and
dear friends,
I am deeply honoured to have been
asked to say a few words today.
The world, as you are aware, is
embroiled in religious and racial hatred. Politicians, to hold onto power, are
prepared to say anything to divide and polarise communities by appealing to the
baser instincts of humanity.
Climate change, the world over, has
brought environmental disaster impacting millions due to unfettered capitalism
and corporate greed.
Humanity has yet to find an effective
method to control its wilder instincts, despite warnings from great thinkers,
philosophers, and religious founders throughout the centuries.
Dhananjay Keer, in Dr Ambedkar: Life
and Mission, quotes Rabindranath Tagore.
Bring to this country once again
The blessed name
Which made the land of thy birth sacred
to all distant lands
Let thy great awakening under the Bodhi
tree
Be filled …
Let open the doors that are barred
And the resounding conch shell
Proclaim thy arrival at Bharat’s gate
Let, through innumerable voice,
The gospel of an unmeasurable love
Announce thy call
Keer also quotes Sir William Hunter
from his book on Ancient India, who, as early as 1881, said that the revival
of Buddhism is, I repeat, one of the possibilities in India.
Consider India today: a significant
global player, the second-largest economy in Asia, and home to almost 1.4
billion people. Due to this stature, Buddhist Revivalism in India has profound
consequences for the spread of world peace and prosperity.
We need only look back to the great
Ashokan Empire in the 3rd century BC to remember a time when global diplomacy,
peace, and harmony were the very cornerstones of India.
Swapan Biswas, Buddhism the
Religion of Mohenjo-Daro, on page 340, writes
History shows that, following the
Mauryan rule and continuing for centuries until the beginning of the Sen
Dynasty in Bengal in the 12th Century AD, the nation was mainly under the
influence of Buddhist consciousness. During this period, India flourished in
industry, science, commerce, arts, and wisdom. This golden age later declined
due to various factors, and a prolonged period of darkness descended upon
Buddhism in India.
DC Ahir, in Pioneers of Buddhist
Revival, writes that
After a long period of darkness, the
dawn of a new era began with the work of British Civil Servants and scholars,
who started to unearth hidden treasures from beneath the dust and debris.
Starting in the 18th century, figures
such as Padre Tieffenthaler, Captain Polier, and the pivotal James Prinsep, who
deciphered the ancient Prakrit inscriptions, began to unveil our lost heritage.
I will take a few minutes as a
reminder to recall some of the great discoveries made by Western scholars.
In 1750, Padre Tiefenthaler
rediscovered the Delhi-Meerut pillar.
By 1836, several Rock and Pillar
inscriptions had been discovered in various parts of India.
No Indian scholar was competent
enough to decipher the most ancient inscriptions of India, which were found not
only on rocks and pillars but also on coins. In 1837, James Prinsep, a high
official of the Indian Mint and Secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,
deciphered inscriptions written in Brahmi (Prakrit).
The advent of Alexander Cunningham accelerated
the discovery and restoration of archaeological sites in India.
In 1837, he excavated Sarnath at his
own expense.
In 1851, while employed as an
engineer in Gwalior State, Cunningham opened the mighty stupas of Sanchi and discovered
the sacred relics of the two chief disciples of Lord Buddha, namely, Venerable Sariputta
and Venerable Moggallana.
In 1871, Cunningham became the first
Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India. He followed in the
footsteps of the travel accounts of the famous Chinese Pilgrim Hiuen Tsang and
visited all the sites described by him, successfully identifying most of the
Buddhist Shrines.
In 1870, he excavated in the vicinity
of the Maha Bodhi Temple and discovered Vajrasana, the most sacred place
where the Buddha sat and attained supreme enlightenment.
In 1877, Cunningham published all the
known inscriptions in one volume.
He also published 24 volumes as
‘Reports of the Archaeological Survey of India’. Of these, half the reports
were written by Cunningham himself and the rest by his assistants, J.D. Belgar
and A C L Carlyle.
Cunningham was succeeded by James
Burgess, who had been working since 1874 as Archaeological Surveyor of Western
and Southern India, made a comprehensive survey of Buddhist Caves and published
his findings in 1883 in his book ‘Buddhist Cave Temples and their Inscriptions’.
Dr Bhagwanlal Indraji was the first
Indian Archaeologist who discovered in 1882 fragments of Ashokan Rock Edict as
well as a Stupa at Sopara near Mumbai.
The literary activities of Western
Scholars gave a further boost to the Renaissance of Buddhism. The pioneering
Indian scholar was Rajendra Lal Mitra (1824-1891). His works, particularly
‘Buddha Gaya’, The Hermitage of the Sakya Age (1877), Sanskrit Buddhist
Literature of Nepal (1882) and Lalitvistara(1887), aroused considerable
interest in Buddhist Studies.
You will be aware that soon after the
Mahaprinibanna of Lord Buddha, 18 separate Buddhist sects existed in India
(Ref. Encyclopaedia Britannica)
Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar was a scholar
of immense depth. He understood that over 2,500 years, the Buddha's original
teachings had accumulated what he called 'dead wood,' splintering into numerous
traditions. He studied the ancient sects—the Theravada,
the Sarvastivada, the Mahasangika, the Vatsiputriya, and the
vast branches of Mahayana and Tantrism that spread to
Tibet, China, Japan, and across Southeast Asia. He saw how Buddhism adapted to
local cults and animist beliefs wherever it went.
Dr Babasaheb’s genius was to synthesise
this vast ocean of knowledge. He cut through the "dead wood" and
captured the essential, rational, and socially liberating core of the Buddha's
Dhamma. This lifelong study culminated in his magnum opus, “The Buddha
and His Dhamma,” published towards the end of his life, with the
explicit hope of setting humanity on a modern, scientific, and humanistic
footing.
He was not alone in this intellectual
struggle. We must bow to the great Indian scholars who lit the torch of revival
before him. DC Ahir reminds us of the many pioneers.
The foundational work
of Dharmananda Kosambi.
- The intrepid explorations of Rahul Sankrityayan.
- The scholarly efforts of Bhadant Anand
Kausalyayan and Ven. Jagdish Kashyap.
- And the dedication of pioneers like C.
Krishnan, Prof. N.K. Bhagwat, and Ayothya Dass.
This collective effort, both intellectual and spiritual, built the momentum for the climactic event we remember today.
The research of all these explorers,
archaeologists, and scholars helped create a new awakening among the people;
however, nobody had yet seriously considered the Buddhist revival in India as a
mass movement. This happened only in 1891 with the arrival of Anagarika
Dhammapala, a young Sinhalese Buddhist.
It was in 1891 that Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar
was born, who was later to change the course of the history of Buddhism in
India.
On 14th October 1956, the
year of the 2500th Buddha Jayanti celebrations, the revival of
Buddhism reached its climax when Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and half a million of
his followers embraced Buddhism at a Historic ceremony at Nagpur, India. It was
the most significant event of peaceful religious conversion on a single day in
human history, achieved without a single drop of blood.
On 15th October, another
300,000 people who had been late arriving for the ceremony held on 14th October
at Nagpur also embraced Buddhism. On 16th October, a third ceremony
took place at Chandrapur. On 15th and 16th October, Dr
Babasaheb Ambedkar again administered his 22 vows at each of these events.
The impact of Buddhist Revivalism in
India, started by Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, was dramatic.
Sangharakshita, Ambedkar and
Buddhism (Page 164), writes that,
When Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar passed
away on 6 December 1956, a hundred thousand people again embraced Buddhism at
the cremation ground. In Delhi, when ashes were taken to the city, 30,000
people embraced Buddhism. In Agra, when a portion of ashes was handed over, a
further 200,00 people initiated into Buddhism.
Between 7 December 1956 and 10
February 1957, the number of Buddhists had risen to 750,000 – the number
converted by Dr Babsaheb Ambedkar himself in Nagpur and Chandrapur – to well
over 4,000,000.
According to the 1961 census, there were
3,250,227 people, of whom 2,789,501 were found in Maharashtra, compared to
2,489, ten years earlier. The increase in the number of Buddhists in
Maharashtra was out of proportion to the rise in the rest of the Country. By
1971, however, the figures had risen only slightly, and there was a total of
3,812,325 registered Buddhists in India.
Furthermore, according to one source,
by March 1959, nearly 15 to 20 million had embraced Buddhism.
However, according to the 2011 Indian
census, there are 8,442,972 registered Buddhists, with Lakshadweep having only
10.
Many in India claim to be Buddhists
in social life but do not register as Buddhists due to social welfare
incentives extended to Scheduled Castes, Tribes and Other Backwards Classes.
Today, there are thousands of Buddha
viharas across India. Estimates suggest that there are indeed over 20 million
Buddhists in India, a number that is increasing every year, a testament to the
enduring power of Dr Babasaheb’s Buddha Dhamma Revolution.
Buddha and his Dhamma, referred to as
Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar’s magnum opus, magnifies the core teachings of Buddhism
in the hope of setting humanity on a modern scientific and humanistic footing.
Before I conclude, I wish to remind
the conference that,
This remarkable mass transition
towards Buddhism, which expanded from the archaeological, intellectual, and
literary interests of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, now has mass
appeal, instigated by Buddhist Revivalism, ushered in by Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar.
Before
I conclude, I wish to share a point of personal reflection and inquiry. I have
found no reference in Dr Ambedkar's writings linking Dhamma Deeksha Day
to Ashoka Vijayadashami. His press statement on 23rd
September 1956 explicitly announced his conversion would
take place on Dussehra day, 14th October
1956. He himself called it Dhamma Deeksha Day. I
have also wondered why it is sometimes described as Dhamma Chakra
Parivartan, which refers to the Buddha's first sermon. I do not
believe Dhamma Chakra Parivartan should be confused with Dhamma Deeksha.
Perhaps someone in this learned gathering can shed light on these historical
nuances.
Finally,
my friends, it is incumbent on the heirs to this great and peaceful revolution
started by Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, to carry the legacy forward with the wisdom,
compassion, and unwavering commitment to equality that Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar
embodied.
Paraphrasing Tagore,
Bring to
this world once again, the blessed name!
Thank
you.
Namo Buddhaye, Jai Bheem
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