Video: Dhamma Chakra Day: Buddhism and Emancipation of Marginalized Classes in India
The Center for the Study of World Religions was thrilled to host, along with HDS Buddhist Ministry Initiative, Dhamma Chakra Day: Buddhism and Emancipation of Marginalized Classes in India. This event was initiated by CSWR resident, Dr. Santosh Raut. This special event commemorated Dhamma Chakra Day and celebrated the enduring legacy of Dr. Ambedkar. His peaceful, egalitarian, grassroots movement has left an indelible mark on Indian society and politics.
The event showcased three speakers whose research has deepened our understanding of Buddhism's impact and potential in fostering equality and social justice in India.
- Prof S. K. Thorat, Chairman, Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, "Buddhism and Dr Ambedkar: Restructuring of Indian Society towards Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality"
- Dr. Raja Sekhar Vundru, Author, Gandhi, Ambedkar and Patel.Chief Secretary, Haryana State, India, "Buddhism and Emancipation of oppressed classes in India"
- Dr. William Edelglass, Director, Barre Centre for Buddhist Studies, "Equality, Solidarity, and Religion: On Ambedkar’s Conversion"
SPEAKER 1: Harvard Divinity School.
SPEAKER 2: Dharma Chakra Day, Buddhism and emancipation of marginalized classes in India, October 19, 2023.
SANTOSH RAUT: I heartily welcome everyone to this beautiful evening. And we would like to dedicate a few minutes for building up peace in the world. The event was also try to do in India. So we'll dedicating few minutes for peace building in the times we all are experiencing and passing through. So traditionally, on this day, three refuges and five precepts chanted on the day by one Burmese monk.
So here we got Sumita. So I would like to invite him to chant three repossession five precepts for us.
SUMITA: So distinguished professors, colleagues, and friends, as my friend Dr. Santosh said, I'm going to present going for refuges and five precepts in Pali. So you can be part of that just being silent, because I'm not going to ask everyone to repeat after me as it happens traditionally. So I'm going to just present it in Pali.
[CHANTING IN PALI]
Thank you.
SANTOSH RAUT: [INAUDIBLE] recited five precepts in Pali. And in India, we recite in call and response in Hindi or local languages. But I'll just recite them in English. In call and response, those who want to join, they can join. Otherwise, you can just listen.
With deeds of loving kindness, I purify my body. With open-handed generosity, I purify my body. With stillness, simplicity, and contentment, I purify my body. With truthful communication, I purify my speech. With mindfulness, clear and radiant, I purify my mind.
So I'm extremely grateful and thankful. First of all, I would like to begin our evening with the director, Professor Stang, and team of CSWR, and the coordinator and team, and Professor [INAUDIBLE], Jonathan for really a great support, for organizing such a event, which is needed for the message of the Buddha to spread in the world.
At the same time, it's a very unique evening, in the sense for a unique event that has happened in 1956. Dr. Ambedkar embraced Buddhism against all caste violences or any kind of oppressions or discrimination against women or minorities or upper, lower. So he wanted to dismantle the structure to establish the equal, just, peaceful society. And by denying all means of violence, he went to the feet of the Buddha.
So I'm just going to play a 7-minutes clip, so that you can have a feel how it was looked like in 1956. There was a great movie, which won the national award, and made recently, 10 years back. So I'm just going to play that clip, just for Buddhist conversion part.
So that was the mood in 1956 after 10 years of independence. What happened after his conversion to Buddhism, they inspired by the spiritual values. But they left unattended by the guidance. And that's the process and researches are happening across the Indian society, what they should follow. So that's what we are going to hear from a panelist.
Now, I would humbly request director of CSWR, Professor Stang, to come on the dais.
[APPLAUSE]
CHARLES M. STANG: Good evening, and welcome. My name is Charles Stang. I have the privilege of serving as the director here at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. Since its founding in the late 1950s, the CSWR has been at the forefront of promoting the sympathetic study and understanding of the world's religions and spiritual traditions.
It has supported academic inquiry and international understanding in this field through its involvement with the study of religion at Harvard, its research efforts and funding, and its public programs and publications. And from the very start, the study of Buddhism has been one of the center's priorities. Another priority of the center has been the promotion of religion, peace, and social justice, which is the specific theme of our annual Greeley Lecture.
Beyond promoting research and programming, the center also serves as a residential community. Each year we bring together students and scholars from across the country and across the globe from diverse religious and spiritual backgrounds in order to create an open, supportive space that nurtures academic exploration and collaboration. This year we are privileged to have Dr. Santosh Raut as part of our residential community.
Dr. Raut has come to us from Hyderabad, India, where he is a faculty member in the Department of Aesthetics and Philosophy at the English and Foreign Languages Institute. His publications focus on the interconnected themes of democracy, Buddhist aesthetics, and women's empowerment and education in India. Here at HDS, he is one of the Buddhist Ministry Initiative's international fellows.
Dr. Raut was the first of the center's residents this year to present his work to the community as part of our regular residential research talks. We're grateful to him. I am grateful to him for introducing us to the legacy of Dr. Ambedkar and his efforts to emancipate marginalized populations in India through large-scale conversions to Buddhism, just as we saw, and to promote social equity throughout India.
We are pleased and proud to partner with the Buddhist Ministry Initiative in hosting tonight's event and to be able to bring these important topics to the attention of the broader Harvard Divinity School community. We also want to give special thanks to Dr. Raut for his leadership in envisioning and executing this event and for inviting leading scholars and writers in the field to share with us their research and perspectives.
So I extend a very warm welcome to Dr. Edelglass, Professor Thorat, and Dr. Vundru. I'll now pass the baton or the mic, as it were, to my colleague Jonathan Makransky from the Buddhist Ministry Initiative, and then to Dr. Raut who will introduce each of our distinguished speakers. Thank you, and welcome once again.
JONATHAN MAKRANSKY: Well, good evening, everyone. It's so wonderful to see such a great turnout for this event. My name is Jonathan Makransky. And I'm the multireligious ministry initiatives coordinator in the Office of Ministry Studies here at Harvard Divinity School. And in this capacity, I have the privilege of managing the activities of the Buddhist Ministry Initiative here at HDS.
I'd first like to thank our generous hosts and co-sponsors for this evening, the faculty and staff of the CSWR, many of whom are here. And you've been our constant partners and friends in many of our programs. And so we really thank you for your continuing friendship on that front. And I'd of course, also, like to thank our convener, Dr. Santosh Raut. And it's an honor to have you with us at HDS.
The Buddhist Ministry Initiative at Harvard Divinity School was the first of its kind at a Divinity School within a research university in the United States. And it trains future Buddhist religious professionals in terms appropriate to modern global conditions, drawing on the strengths of Harvard's faculty resources in the academic study of religion and Buddhist studies, as well as spiritual care.
The BMI coordinates a range of courses on the history thought and practice of Buddhism and in Buddhist arts of ministry. The Initiative also supports the field education of Buddhist Ministry students in hospitals and other sites of pastoral care and leadership and offers the insights of Buddhist textual traditions and practices to students from all religious traditions who study ministry at HDS.
And as part of the Buddhist Ministry Initiative's efforts to build connections to Buddhist ministerial movements in Asia, the Initiative offers a limited number of special scholarships each year to individuals who are deeply engaged in Buddhist communities in Asia to come join us as BMI international fellows for the year. And Dr. Santosh Raut is one of those fellows this year. And we're most honored to have him with us.
And we're extraordinarily fortunate to have him here. I've already learned so much from him in my capacity with the Initiative. And I know all of our students have as well and our faculty. And so we just really want to thank you, again, for organizing this program and for your leadership here in the community. And yes, please. Yes.
[APPLAUSE]
And I'll also just note that the topic for this evening, Buddhism and the emancipation of marginalized classes in India, is a very timely and important one for the BMI and indeed, for Buddhists and non-Buddhists around the world. And the work of the Buddhist movement started by Dr. Ambedkar in India is a model for all of us in standing in solidarity with those on society's margins, particularly as we seek to integrate a commitment to emancipation and justice in all contexts and in all forms into our work and deeper in greater ways.
And so we look forward to learning from our speakers this evening and from Santosh over the rest of his year with us. And so without further ado, let's continue with the program. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
SANTOSH RAUT: Dear friends, most of the scholars on Dr. Ambedkar, those who are deeply studied him understands his political career, social career, educational career. He was in Colombia, studied in London School of Economics, wrote Indian Constitution. Both Buddhist and non-Buddhist, everyone appreciates him, with the sympathy, the struggle he has gone through his life, including those who are in power and those who are not in power.
Everyone appreciates him for what he has brought to India, what he has done to India to hold the largest democracy of India in the world. And everyone is proud of that. But most of them could not understand at times, even on his scholarship, the last days of his life, that the real democracy comes out of spiritual values or on the basis of Dharma.
That angle is missed. And recently, the scholarship and research fellows are working on this. And in fact, when he said that use the word liberty, equality, and fraternity, he said in BBC interview in 1954, that I did not borrow this word from French Revolution, but I borrowed from my master, the Buddha. And he said that fraternity is another name of "maitri," the meta, the friendship. That's what he uses.
And fraternity is not a equipped word for the democracy that I wanted to define. I have to borrow the word from the Buddha's dictionary, he says. And immediately after this event, he went to Nepal, invited by the king of Nepal. And he was addressing not to the untouchables. He was addressing to the traditional Buddhist Communist and what we call the left-wing activist.
The king asked him to deliver a message to them. And Dr. Ambedkar said, violence is not a means to bring change. It is only the peace that can conquer the enemies. If you kill the enemies, you are killing the arguments also, which will be pertinent for longer time. So we have to kill the wrong views, the [INAUDIBLE]. That's what he said.
And he said that may Buddha's path appears to be long and tedious but is the surest way. That's the message he has given. So I think this is something that is fascinates the cultural, civilizational, and historical, and religious history. I'm studying theology and try to learn and try to understand what all those projects are and how to navigate that, because religion is such a thing.
It's very delicate and sensitive to fall either side. Dr. Ambedkar was very peacefully treading path without a bloodshed in his revolution he launched in 1956. For that, we have a wonderful speakers, very accomplished speakers and panel we have today. So I will introduce, first of all, Dr. William Edelglass.
He's a director to Barre Buddhist Center. William is a director of studies at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, director of the five colleges, college Tibetan studies in India, and adjacent professor at the Central University of Higher Tibetan Studies in Sarnath. William received his PhD in philosophy from Emory University, working on Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, as well as contemporary Western thinkers.
His writings and teachings engaged Buddhist studies, environmental humanities, philosophy. William's recent publications have addressed mindfulness and ethics, meditation and well-being, the ethics of difference and climate change, BR Ambedkar's Buddhist political thought, nonviolence and justice, the spread of Buddhism and the contribution of Buddhist landscapes, the role of faith in Indian Buddhist literature on the path.
William's most recent book, The Routledge Handbook of Indian Buddhist Philosophy is published in 2020. He is also a co-editor of Buddhist Philosophy Essential Readings published from Oxford and the Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy that was in 2011. Apart from his academic accomplishment and the expertise, he is a great-hearted man, very gentle.
And I think what we study, what we practice that has an effect on our person. So that really resembles in his personality. I would like to invite Professor William to come on the dais and take a seat, please. I will introduce panelist, and then I will leave and will hand it over to everyone.
Next on the list, we got Professor S.K. Thorat. I was not his direct student, but I am his student. While I was doing my masters, I was in the same university. And he's very well-known economist and policymaker in India. He is a former chairman to University Grant Commission, which holds all the universities together in India.
He got Padma Shri award, which is the highest citizen award from government of India in 2008 for contribution in social science and education, the most prestigious award of government of India. His research focuses on agriculture development, rural poverty, institution and economic growth problems of marginalized group, economics of caste, caste discrimination and poverty, human development, thoughts of Dr. Ambedkar, educational policies among marginalized group.
And also to some extent, now, he picked up interest in the philosophy of exclusion. So here I would like to invite Professor Thorat to come and take his seat, please. We got third speaker or panelist on the board, Dr. Raja Sekhar Vundru. He's the author of Gandhi, Ambedkar and Patel. He serves as a chief secretary in Haryana state, government of India.
Raja Sekhar Vundru, his book is translated into Marathi, Hindi, Telugu, and they are in processes many Indian languages. It's a very popular book and best seller book in India, is critically engages with the electoral system in India, and therefore, the democracies. He has written extensively on Ambedkar caste, untouchability, Dalit history, literature in APW, New Indian Express, The Hindu, Business Line Times of India, Hindustan Times, Economics Times, The Tribune, and the Outlook magazines, which are very prestigious magazines.
He is a recipient of the Dr. Ambedkar Ratna award in 2016 from Delhi government. He received India International Excellence Award in 2019, UAE, and Dr. Ambedkar Prabuddha Bharata Peace Prize Award in Nagpur, 2019. Vundru belongs to India's premier civil services, the administrative services since 1990, and held very high administrative position in federal and state governments.
Currently, he holds a position as a chief secretary to government of Haryana in the Department of Housing and Civil Aviation. So here I would like to invite Dr. Raja Sekhar Vundru. [INAUDIBLE]
WILLIAM EDELGLASS: Thank you so much, Santosh, for your warm introduction and for organizing this. And Professor Thorat and Dr. Vundru, I'm really honored. Do you need to close the door? I'm really honored to be here with you, and honored to be at Harvard Divinity School and the Center for the Study of World Religions, which has such a great history, and that the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies is connected with.
[INAUDIBLE] is doing their field education placement at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. They are our fourth student, and everyone has been absolutely fantastic. And we have a number of teachers from HDS and some board members. And I am very grateful to be in relationship with HDS.
Charles, when you were talking about sympathetic interpretations of other traditions, I just wanted to note, you probably noticed in that clip that we saw that Ambedkar has some hard things to say about Hinduism. And if you study Ambedkar's work, and maybe some of what will come up here, if you are a Hindu, it might land in ways that are challenging.
And I just want to acknowledge that at the beginning. And having just seen that clip, that might land for us in different ways for different people. And in the tradition of sympathetic interpretations of world religions, I just wanted to mark that and express that sympathetically.
Santosh and I talked about me just giving a little bit of historical background. There are people in this room who know an enormous amount about Ambedkar, and there are some people for whom a little bit of situating Ambedkar's conversion might be helpful. And so I'm going to do that. And as Nietzsche says, I'd never trust a thought that I don't get while walking, and I am going to stand while I talk.
So Ambedkar was born in 1891, the 14th child of a family, who belonged to the Mahar caste or the Mahar jati. Jati is an endogamous group that is typically associated with a occupation and is regional, as opposed to castes, which are transregional. And they are regarded as an outcast, what used to be called untouchable, but now, we refer to as Dalit, most of us.
Dalit from the Sanskrit root, "dal," meaning broken. And what that meant is for him when he was in school, he sat in a burlap sack that he brought home every night. He wasn't allowed to sit in a chair. His teachers didn't touch his papers. He wasn't allowed to touch the chalkboard. He wasn't allowed to touch the chalk. He wasn't allowed to touch the water fountain.
And so for him to drink, the peon, the servant needed to pour water into his mouth, because he wasn't allowed to touch the cup. And if the peon wasn't there, as he says in his autobiography, Waiting for a Visa, he didn't drink. He went thirsty. So remarkably, he made it to Elphinstone College at the University of Bombay, where he graduated with a degree in politics and economics and may have been the very first member of the Mahar jati to graduate from college.
And remarkably, through the goodwill of a very progressive leader in Maroda, he was given a scholarship to study at Columbia, where he went in 1913, and worked really, really hard with some remarkable people. He studied sociology, philosophy with John Dewey, especially economics and also history. And he managed to do a couple of masters and eventually a PhD.
He didn't finish the PhD until the 1920s. And in 1916, he went to London where he lived at Gray's Inn, became a barrister, and also did a master's and eventually a PhD at the London School of Economics. His initial dissertation was rejected, because he showed that British colonialism had a detrimental impact on the Indian economy, which his professors did not appreciate. So he had to rewrite much of it.
But it is a remarkable amount of work in those years. He studied really, really hard. And honestly, as somebody who's now spent a bunch of time thinking about Ambedkar and thinking about what scholarship can do, especially as we're in an academic institution right now, he is a remarkably inspiring and humbling figure for what the motivation to study and what scholarship can contribute, not just to one individual, but to the world.
But when he came back to India and took up service in Baroda, his staff wouldn't eat with him. They give him papers, they would throw it at him across the desk. And he actually wasn't even able to find a place to stay. And so he had to leave service in Baroda. And he then devotes himself to a number of activities to uplift and support the lowest, most marginalized, and exploited people.
And that involves starting schools, political parties. As a jurist, as a barrister, he takes up Dalit rights. And most importantly, perhaps, for the telling of the story that I am offering, he got very involved in Satyagraha movements, movements that were non-violent to get access for Dalits to public water tanks and to Hindu temples. So this was especially in the late '20s and into the mid '30s.
Those movements were not supported by Gandhi and the Congress party. Gandhi explicitly spoke against these movements. And they failed. A lot of years of non-violent protest to get access to public water tanks and to get access to Hindu temples did not work. And those years of unsuccessful, non-violent protests, ultimately led Ambedkar to the conclusion that reforming the caste system was not possible.
So there were a lot of reformers like Ambedkar who wanted to do away with untouchability. There were many, many, many progressive Hindus and many people in the Congress party who wanted to do away with untouchability. Ambedkar came to the view that you couldn't do away with untouchability without doing away with caste, which is articulated in his famous book, The Annihilation of Caste.
And just for a little bit of a sympathetic moment from Ambedkar himself, in that book, even as he is deeply critical of caste and of Hinduism, he argues there that caste is at the heart of Hinduism, that the caste system is a system of graded inequality in which you have resentment and hatred of the ones who are above, contempt for the ones who are below, and the ones who are at the lowest levels do not have access to education or alms, and therefore, can't improve their situation.
The ones who are in the middle resent the ones who are above, but they are too attached to their privileges to try to change the system. This, he thinks, is at the heart of Hinduism. He also makes very clear that he doesn't think that Hindus who participate in the structural violence, even some of the direct violence, what today we might also talk about as epistemic violence, cultural violence, that Hindus who participate in that are not themselves bad people.
This is a good thing to keep in mind as all of us think about things like white privilege and hierarchical situations in our context here more locally. It's not that Hindus are bad people.
But they, he says, are caught up in a set of cultural, religious practices, which lead them to think that acting in these ways that end up causing exploitation, subordination, violence, that end up marginalizing large groups of people to the edges of village life so that they cannot participate in communal life and live dependent upon caste Hindus in the village.
But that has to do with a cultural, spiritual, social arrangement, and not with anybody actually being bad necessarily. So very famously, at a conference at Yeola, he says, as was referenced in the clip, I had the misfortune of being born a Hindu, but I have the choice. And I will not die a Hindu.
And he then has come to the point that reforming the caste system, reforming Hinduism, he thinks is a lost cause. And he looks around, and a lot of people are looking at him, Sikhs, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, who want him to convert to their religion. And eventually, he chooses Buddhism.
But even though we're celebrating the conversion that happened in October of 1956, in my mind, the conversion is already happening in the 1950s. I mean, the 1930s at this time. Because he articulates the conversion and the move to Buddhism in such clearly political terms.
Ambedkar's Buddhism is often thought of as instrumental, as instrumentally political. And sometimes, therefore, thought of as not really Buddhist. And that is particularly true because certainly in the West, and also to some degree in India, he's often thought of as a constitutionalist, because he became the first law minister under an independent India. And then Nehru appointed him as chair of the drafting committee for the Constitution.
How many more minutes do I have? A few. He was chair of the drafting committee. He's often regarded as the main architect of the Indian Constitution. He's often thought of as primarily a political thinker.
But one of the things that he comes to really emphasize is that even as universal rights are articulated in the Constitution, without a spiritual, moral, religious transformation, those rights mean nothing. In a democracy, he says, the majority could commit crimes. The majority could commit atrocities. The majority could practice subordinating behaviors.
But it's only really a crime that is punished if one person does it. If one person commits a crime, they're punished. But if everybody is doing it-- he gets this from Edmund Burke. What he says is that what we need really to make this democracy work, our maitri, our benevolence, compassion, karuna, transformation of the mind, training of the mind.
His argument is that what democracy really is, is a system where when we fight with others, we don't bloody them so bad that we remain antagonists. We engage with them so that we can continue to build community. We engage with them so that we can continue to eat together, to live together, to share a communal life. And that he thinks is what Buddhist practice is largely about.
It sounds as if it could be primarily instrumental and political. And in many ways, it is political. But it is not a rejection of many of the classical orientations to practice whereby one cultivates a mind, one cultivates the brahmaviharas, such as maitri and karuna.
So the conversion then, as I want to think about it, really starts in the 1930s, culminates in 1956. But already the years leading up to that conversion in 1956, he is becoming a deeply spiritually-oriented man, a man who sees spiritual practice as the very condition for a healthy democracy.
And for him, all violence really, all suffering is not as one might think of with the four noble truths. For him, violence is really the violence that comes from social subordination. And so for him, Buddhism is deeply about becoming the kind of people who can be open to others across difference of groups, not be caught up in outgroup antipathy, but rather to find commonality to see in the vulnerable bodies of others, a body with whom one can share food, a body with whom one can marry across caste lines.
So those are a few contextualizing words about what Ambedkar's conversion means to me. And I look forward to hearing my colleagues on this panelist, on this panel say more.
[APPLAUSE]
SANTOSH RAUT: That really contextualizes the situation that he said that reformation of the world cannot be possible unless you reform your own mind. And he said that my battle is not for political gain or for any wealth, but my battle is essentially spiritual. So maybe I would like to then invite Professor thorat after William.
SUKHADEO THORAT: Good evening. Let me begin with the profound thanks and appreciation to Santosh Raut and the director of the Center for Religion at the university that they have given us this excellent opportunity to celebrate and perhaps also discuss the conversion of Dr. Ambedkar, which happened about 67 years before, three days before, the 14th of October, 1956.
Friends, the main theme of this discussion is the role of Dr. Ambedkar through Buddhism in elevating the marginalized section of the Indian society. In this context, therefore I decided to share with you my views on Dr. Ambedkar's perspective on conversion to Buddhism. And I take a position that this conversion to Buddhism was with the intention of restructuring Indian society towards equality, liberty, and fraternity, replacing the Hindu society, which is governed by the rule of inequality, lack of freedom, an antisocial freedom, and antisocial attitude.
Therefore, what I will do is I will confine to the view of Dr. Ambedkar or rather interpretation of Dr. Ambedkar or Buddhism through his writing. A very, very excellent background has been given by Professor William Edelglass. He really captured the early childhood and the education of Dr. Ambedkar.
I will therefore confine to Dr. Ambedkar's views and perspective on Buddhism as an instrument, as an ideology for the transformation of Indian society, taking towards the goal of equity, liberty, brotherhood. Ambedkar, with more than 5,000 depressed class people converted to Buddhism, a 67-year before on October 14, 1956 at Nagpur, Maharashtra, we have seen that documentary. And this was perhaps the largest conversion in India after the spread of Buddhism during Buddha spirit after BC 600, Before Christ 600, and later after the King Ashoka in BC 2053.
And ever since 1956, there has been a conversion of ex-untouchable and other depressed classes also in various provinces in India. Officially, as of today, in 2020, the total population or Buddhists constitute about 1% of India's population. Almost from 0% to 1% is a big achievement, and that all credit goes to Dr. Ambedkar.
Now the issue is what was the goal of Dr. Ambedkar? What was the mission of Dr. Ambedkar for conversion, which has been explained. I will use two documents, two writing of Dr. Ambedkar in order to make the point. Dr. Ambedkar has not written much on Buddhism as much. His outstanding book is, of course, Buddha and His Dhamma, that's the major source to understand what are his views on Buddhism, although he has given lectures.
But the main source is Buddha and His Dhamma, which he wrote. And the 22 Vows administered at the time of conversion, which we have seen here. It seems obvious from these two writings that Dr. Ambedkar goal was to reconstruct and rebuild the Hindu society around the principle of equality, liberty, or individual freedom, fraternity, and brotherhood. Replacing the iniquitous and unfree social order of which the low caste, particularly the untouchables, were the worst victim.
Ambedkar spent considerable academic energy to understand the causes of inequality and the situation of the untouchable deprived situation of the untouchable during the 1920s and the '30s. His search led him to believe that the source of the deprived situation and inequality was the caste system, as has been rightly pointed out, which he mentioned in a lecture, annihilation of caste in 1936. He also understood that the caste system was not a standalone social institution. This is very important. This point has been made by William.
He also understood that the caste system was not a standalone social institution, but it was constituent and integral part of the Brahmanical religion. I won't use the word Hindu religion. Hindu word comes around 1,000 AD. But Dr. Ambedkar, all his writings, he used the Brahmanical religion, or Vedic religion. Ambedkar observed the iniquitous caste system was a divinely prescribed way of life as a religious doctrine. It has become incarnated in Hindu society and is shaped and molded in his thought and in doing. So he is bringing out the connection of caste system and untouchability with Hindu religion, brahmanical religion.
Therefore, Dr. Ambedkar made an appeal. He was convinced by 1930. He made an appeal to Hindus in annihilation of caste, as a matter of fact, for a reform of Hindu religion. And later announced the plan to leave Hindu religion and convert to other religion to secure equality, dignity to the untouchable.
From 1935 onward, I think it's a coincidence that he declared that he was born as a Hindu, but he won't die as a Hindu. That was on 13th of October, 1935. So 20 years later, he converted to Buddhism. He waited for 20 years for Hindus to reform, to come forward for the reform of the caste system in Hindu religion, but there was no response. And therefore, then, he took a decision to convert to Buddhism.
Now, as I said, the goal was certainly that reform of caste system would not help, reform of untouchability would not help. He has started a civil rights movement in 20 and 30. It is only the change of religion would help. And therefore, rebuilding necessarily involved. When he was talking of rebuilding, rebuilding necessarily involved replacement of one by another, wrong by right.
Here, for Dr. Ambedkar, rebuilding of Hindu society was replacement of Brahminism by Buddhism as the governing doctrine of way of life for Hindu people. Two sources namely the book Buddha and His Dhamma and the 22 Vows administered by him to the follower on October 14, 1956 at the time of conversion to Buddhism clearly bring out this. If you look at these two writings, there are two separate parts, very interestingly.
One part talks about the negation and rejection, and another part talks about the acceptance, dealing with the principles which he rejected. And Dr. Ambedkar very meticulously saw to it in this book Buddha and His Dhamma that each point he made, he made that point quoting Buddha. He only offered the interpretation, but he quoted Buddha on each of the important points.
This tells us the mission of Dr. Ambedkar to replace the religious ideology of Brahminism, supportive of inequality, lack of individual freedom, lack of fraternity with Buddhism, which promote equality, equal status, freedom, fraternity, and brotherhood. Similar differences are in religious teaching also.
Now what he rejected? Dr. Ambedkar has a good section in Buddha and His Dhamma. He rejected Vedic Brahmanism, and quoting Buddha, and what are Dr. Ambedkar [INAUDIBLE]. Very briefly, I will mention. What is the main religious and social doctrine of the philosophy of Vedic Brahmanism in the early stages of, say, around BC 1500 to 1000? In Ambedkar's view, the quarrel between Buddhism and Brahminism was an issue, and the difference was, what is truth? How do we interpret truth? What can we accept as truth?
And he described the main feature of Brahmanism then, which of course he attributed to the downfall of untouchable and massive inequality in Indian society. I just mentioned the main point so that we can capture what Buddha negates. The Brahmin doctrine of truth was that it was something to which was declared by Vedas.
Veda are sacred and infallible and is not to be questioned, with the ordain that God created physical and human universe. Salvation of human being or wellbeing lies in Vedic sacrifices and observation of religious rites and ceremonies and offering of give to the God through Brahmin priest. Brahmin is a believe in life after death that is rebirth. Brahmin is also believe in soul and karma and its linkages with rebirth. The present life is determined by the karma in the past, and the future birth determined by karma in the present, thus the present is fixed, given, and cannot be changed. The karma is carried through the soul, which is eternal with which resides the rebirth. Brahminism believes sacrifices of animals in rituals, and hence supported violence or hinsa.
Now this is as far as the religious ideology of Vedic Brahmanism is concerned, which Dr. Ambedkar has described in Buddha and His Dhamma. In a very simple word, this was a book written for the ordinary people. But the Vedism or Brahmanism had also the theory of ideal society, and Ambedkar outlined the feature of the caste system, which is the ideal Hindu society.
Caste system is a binding and unquestionable because it is given in Vedas, and Vedas are infallible, not to be questioned. Caste system is created by God from the different parts of his body. The first rule is that the society is divided into four classes or five castes based on the graded inequality and bonded with each other by unequal rights and privileges. Occupation of each caste are fixed by birth. One class cannot trespass the occupation of other.
Rules is that no social equality among the four, five caste. Rule gives a right to education to three class but not to Shudra and the woman. Half of the population, woman, they did not have right to education. Fifth feature is that man's life is divided into four stages, Brahmacarya, Grhasthama, then Sannyasa, and others. First and the last stage was not open to the Shudra and the woman.
Thus the Vedic brahmanical ideal society is based on the [INAUDIBLE] caste with an equal right across caste with immense privileges to the Brahmin at the cost of the denial of economic civil and religious rights to the vast majority of the low caste. The motive behind religious and social philosophy is thus economic power and high social status. There is hardly anything spiritual about it.
The caste is a social organization of Hindus is supported by Rigveda and all other Vedas and other brahmanical religious texts. In a volume 4 Riddle of Hinduism is the title. Dr. Ambedkar has studied all the religious texts and pointed out that they contain the reference to caste, which include Gita, Manusmriti, Puranas, Ramayana, Mahabharata. There is no Hindu text which has not supported the caste system.
Now let me come very quickly what is the alternative that he has given in the form of Buddhism? And again, this is from the Buddha and His Dhamma. Buddhism emerged in BC 600 as a counter to Brahmanism, which did not recognize religious and social philosophy of Vedic Brahmanism. That is the rejection that has come.
Ambedkar interpreted Buddhism in a manner such that on each of the points, the Buddha's position is counterposed against Brahmanism. This amounts to offering an alternative religious and social philosophy and to build up the social relation on those alternative principles, making Buddhism a emancipatory laboratory project or what we use liberation theology. He doesn't use theology. He uses ideology, but it is close to the idea of liberation theology, if we draw a parallel from discourse from Christianity.
Let us mention Ambedkar's position, which Ambedkar has quoted Buddha on each of these points very briefly. On truth, to Buddha, the truth was something which is supported by proof and experience, to which a person experience and bear witness and also perception logic and rationalism as a basis of understanding truth and generating knowledge. Buddha defeated Vedas are infallible and their authority is unquestionable. Nothing is final. Everything should be subject to re-examination and reconsideration.
Freedom of thought was essential. No belief in efficacy in rites, ceremony, sacrifice as a means of obtaining human being. No sacrifice. Buddha made distinction between true sacrifice and false sacrifice. Self-denial for good of others is true sacrifice, but not sacrifice in terms of killing of animal as a ritual.
Denied caste system. Denied belief in God as the creator and Brahma as the principle underlying universe. No belief in atma or soul. No belief in karma based on the past deed. Oppose violence and refuted the theory of God created by universe.
So these are some of the rejection that comes from Buddha. The objective of Dr. Ambedkar in Buddha and His Dhamma is counterpose Buddhism vis a vis the brahmanical ideology. So I will avoid the other differences of Buddha. But basically, then what alternative Buddha has given? Buddha has given the alternative.
And I will read out very quickly that dhamma is social. Dhamma is righteousness, which means right relation between man and man in all sphere of life. Does one man, if he is alone, does not need dhamma? This is the sentence that I pick up from Buddha and His Dhamma. When there are two men living in relation to each other, they must decide what should be the relation between them so that both benefit out of the relationship. For men to behave with each other in righteousness so that the wellbeing of all is maximized.
And that ideology, again, I don't want to go into greater detail. It has been mentioned very clearly. The Pancasila and the Eightfold Path. This is what, in summary, he has given. I don't have time to go into detail. But he also reject the theory of karma based on the past deed. He also reject the existence of soul, and he also denied the existence of rebirth. There is a special interpretation of Dr. Ambedkar about the rebirth, rebirth of womb and rebirth of what. If you believe rebirth of what, then Buddha believe in rebirth, but rebirth of same person, Buddha denied.
So this is what I think what Dr. Ambedkar did in Buddha and His Dhamma is the counterpose Buddhism vis a vis the Vedic Brahminism. Some of the point he has modified. And this was all with the intention of rebuilding society, highly unequal society on the basis of Buddhism. So I think both on the religious side but also on the social side, society side. Vedism believes in caste system. Ambedkar quote Buddha and is very powerful. I want to read it out.
Buddha opposed caste system, roots and branches. What a powerful word he has brought out. Worth not birth is the measure of a man. Must promote equality between man and man. Oppose religion, which recommend action that brings happiness to oneself by causing sorrow to other. You can see that the advantage of high caste are at the cost of the denial of a right to the untouchable.
So this is what I think I briefly summarize. Now same thing has happened in 22 Vows. If you read the 22 Vows, there are 22 vows, 1 to 8 are rejection. I don't want to read it. There is a list here. But eight onwards, they are acceptance, Buddhism. So the same approach you follow in the conversion also.
Now I will make-- just five minute, I'll stop then. And this is a very important point in present context. So I'm buying five minutes from Raja Sekhar Vundru's presentation--
[LAUGHTER]
--is that Dr. Ambedkar interpreted Indian history as a struggle between Brahmanism and Buddhism, as a struggle between equity and non-equity. And then he said that the struggle between Brahmanism and Buddhism is not a one-time event. It has happened throughout the history. And so he developed a theory of interpretation of Indian history, what is called Revolution and Counter-Revolution. That there has been a revelation by Budda and Ashoka, but there was a counter-revolution of Brahmanism in the later period, which it was so significantly important that it lead to the downfall and demise of the Buddhism altogether from the soil of its origin.
Even before Buddha, there was a counter-revolution. You had a Vedic Brahmanism. There was what is called Shamanism, which was opposing the principle of Brahmanism. Now I want to summarize by saying that the history of history is nothing but a struggle between Brahmanism and Buddhism. That is a struggle between having a society based on equality, against inequality, having a religious ideology which believe in rationalism, empirical fact, as against those who believe in God, rituals, and all that.
Now what is happening is that today, the same approach is being used. In 1944 in Madras, Dr. Ambedkar said that we are living in a world in a period of counter-revolution, that is the rise of Brahminism. Buddhism was no nowhere there in 1944. It is Dr. Ambedkar who revived it.
And he said that we are living in a counter-revolution. And if you see today is that there is a massive effort on the part of the group to revive Brahminism, to revive brahmanical religious ideology, and also to revive casteism. There are written statement and statement by the people who talks about replacing Constitution by Vedic Brahmanism, replacing Constitution by Manusmriti, replacing Constitution by Sanatan Dharma because Constitution was a revelation. When your entire Hindu society is based on inequality, lack of freedom, when you accept the Constitution which talk of equality, fraternity, it was a revelation.
So in order to counter the Constitution, you find that the counter-revolution is on. I don't have a time. I have this. I will ask Santosh to circulate to all of you who are interested that what is the nature of present counter-revolution. The present counter-revolution follow the same method of accommodation and assimilation. It follows the same method of violence against those who talk about equity and alternative ideologies. And that counter-revolution which we started in 2000 BC by Manu continues today in the present time.
I think with these few observations, I conclude. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
SANTOSH RAUT: Well, the kingdom of righteousness, that's what the Buddha used, and that's what Dr. Ambedkar expressed. Now I'd like to say that what he has rejected and what he accepted was a very peaceful means he adopted in the process of transformation of society. And I think more need to talk about Buddhism and the ideas that he interpreted it in modern times to have inputs for a liberation theology.
Maybe I would like to invite now Raja Sekhar Vundru for his presentation.
RAJA SEKHAR VUNDRU: It's a beautiful evening. Thank you all of you for coming over for a very significant and it's going to be a very important event for the future. Here we are sitting trying to understand about Dr. BR Ambedkar and his role in bringing back Buddhism in India. And he brings it to the oppressed classes or the marginalized classes of India.
I'm extremely thankful for Harvard Divinity School, the Center for the Study of World Religions, Buddhist this Ministry Initiative, the director, his entire staff and faculty, and of course, Dr. Santosh Raut. His Buddhist name is Maitriveer Nagarjuna. He is an honorary director of an Institute called Nagaloka in Nagpur. And every weekend, he runs away from his university after teaching Buddhist aesthetics to Nagpur.
Running an Institute is not very easy. He tries to do it. Thank you so much all of you. Every one of you having come over here. Very beautiful talk by Dr. William. He has introduced so beautifully about Dr. BR Ambedkar to all of us and his struggle, the initiative. When we are talking about oppressed classes, every society in the world civilizations have oppressed. A section has oppressed the other section. It's a civilizational aspect.
And there's always been a struggle and a fight, and the powerful class wants to continue to oppress. But we have a unique situation. We had a unique situation. Still have a unique situation in India. The scriptural sanction for the oppression is something different, and the scriptural sanction is written in the scriptures. And what actually happened when Dr. BR Ambedkar was studying the religion.
During the British colonial period, a lot of Indian scriptures were in Sanskrit and other language was translated into English. So now we know Dr. BR Ambedkar comes to know where is the oppressive character of those scriptural sanctions? And he goes about it. He goes about it. And that is the unique journey Dr. Ambedkar takes to understand and to emancipate the oppressed classes.
But it was not Dr. BR Ambedkar alone who tried to do it. In fact, Dr. Williams was mentioning about it. I would like to mention for saints before him. They attained sainthood. And of course, Dr. BR Ambedkar became a saint in the Buddhist tradition, bodhisattva. We have two Buddhist stupas. For him, one in Mumbai and other one in Nagpur with his ashes kept there in a Buddhist tradition.
The four point saints came before him from Tamil Nadu in Southern India and Nandanar. He was the first to oppose the caste system. He recited poetry, but he was fighting within the Hindu religion. So he was a worshipper of Shiva. It's called Shaivism, and he tried to enter the temple, he was denied. So goes on the story.
So he was dying, and all his poetry is about, I'd like to see the God at least once. Because in temples, they close the doors in the evening or during certain periods. Nandanar was in the 8th century. Then we have Chokhamela from the land of Dr. BR Ambedkar. He was again a saint trying to enter the Temple of Vithoba under the form of a Hindu God. And again, he's denied, so he sings songs. He has recites great poetry, yearning to be with the Lord or the Guard.
Then we have the most important saint called Saint Ravidas. Ravidas was a shoemaker. And he goes about talking about equality. He tries to talk to people, bringing people together. And during the period of 15th and 16th century, similarly, Saint Kabir, he was a weaver. And he, again, tried to reform Hinduism, try to bring in people. Beautiful poetry. This period in the Indian history is called Bhakti revolution. These are all called poet saints. That is how they could connect to the people.
Interestingly, another religion, I don't know whether our school has really picked it up, the Sikhism, the most visible and prominent new religion comparatively over the centuries. All the saint poets of Kabir and Ravidas are in the holy book of Sikhism. It's called Guru Granth Sahib. Guru Granth, Adi Granth.
When you try to reform a religion-- it has happened in several religions. When you try to reform a religion, the religion is so strong that it comes back like Professor Thorat told us, the counter-revolution. It comes back to you. All the fall followers of Ravidas has made into a caste. OK, all you Ravidas, you are a caste. So the caste is called Ravidasis.
Now the followers of Kabir, Kabir Panthi. Panth is the path. Sect. So they become caste, so what do we do about them? So since poetry got into the holy book of Sikhism. And Sikhism is comparatively a beautiful religion. They don't have any rituals. Anybody can enter their holy place any time, and all are welcome. So it is a kind of a reformed religion.
But again, even that religion, which is a new religion, got into the scourge of caste system. So what the Ravidasis who became Sikhs, this separated their gurudwara or the holy place of Sikhs. It's called Ravidas gurudwara. You can find a lot of them. On the Google, you will find Ravidas gurudwara, several of them in the US. I've seen myself in Pittsburgh, in California, in Seattle. You have one in New York. Maybe you might be having one in Boston.
So when you try to reform a religion, over the centuries, how do they come back into, again, sects? This is something interesting. So Dr. BR Ambedkar have all these people. In fact, he dedicated one of his books, where he studied untouchability for these three saints, Ravidas, Chokhamela, and Nandanar. He dedicates to them. So these emancipatory models in religion try to reform, but eventually, they became a part of the caste.
So when Dr. Ambedkar went about trying to understand, he faced, as Dr. William said, the political issue. In 1911 in India, under the British colonial period, there was a census. The census for the first time enumerated untouchables as a separate group. So suddenly, the untouchable leaders felt that, OK, this is my number. So I can claim political rights.
Eventually, in 1930s, Dr. BR Ambedkar, after studying in Columbia, goes back and uses the census data saying that, OK, I'm 9%. I would like to have 9% political representation in the legislative bodies. Here comes Mahatma Gandhi. He says, no, you are not a separate group. You are a part of Hindus.
So here comes the fight between both of them, the friction between both of them. Gandhi wins. Gandhi wins. And he says that all the untouchables are Hindus. He legalizes that thing by offering Hindu constituencies or electoral districts to untouchables. So we have elections in 1937 and then it goes on.
So when Dr. BR Ambedkar goes about studying who are untouchables. He brings in another very significant aspect. He tries to understand whether untouchables are a separate race. Are they a separate race or racial factors? Most of them anthropological factors. Because when you suddenly go to India, all the people look like us. And suddenly, he is different class, I'm a different class, he's a different class. So he tries to understand, is there a racial thing about the untouchables or the caste system?
BR Ambedkar, in a very significant study, it's a one-off study, he says, there is no racial aspect to caste system. And he tells us that the untouchables were broken men, they were thrown out of the society and made to do work or menial work to be called as untouchables. He has another theory through several-- he quotes several texts.
And he says, when Buddhism was waning away, it was almost dying, they left out Buddhists were treated by the powerful regimes of those times, and they were pushed out of the society and made into untouchables. There are two theories of origin. And Dr. BR Ambedkar rejects the Aryan theory of migration. He says, nobody came to India, nobody occupied India. The people belong to India, and they became different classes and groups.
So this was his journey when Dr. BR Ambedkar gets the first opportunity. Before conversion, he writes the Indian Constitution. That was his first attack against the caste system. He creates a beautiful Constitution. And one of the most important thing, along with Gandhi, it was also a Gandhi's campaign to abolish untouchability, but first of all, abolish untouchability.
The way America abolish slavery, he, and in fact, Dr. BR Ambedkar was here right in New York when the former slaves were sitting and trying to understand what is happening to 50 years of slavery. He was writing in Harlem in maybe in Columbia University, trying to understand slavery, abolition of slavery. So he pushes the abolition of untouchability in the Indian Constitution and brings in equality, liberty, and fraternity as a core aspect of the Indian Constitution and gives us a beautiful fundamental rights.
So that was his first attempt to break the caste system and emancipate the oppressed. But for him to understand democracy, he says, democracy is a form of government, where a revolutionary changes in the society can be brought about in a social and economic manner without bloodshed. He says that is what is democracy is. Your democracy should work towards that.
So that is how he moves towards the emancipatory aspects. And of course, the way Dr. William, and Professor Thorat, and now Clipping, and Dr. Santosh told us, he gets into the conversion. I'm not going into the conversion part. But he understands, he looks at the option of Sikhism very seriously. He seriously looked at the option of Sikhism because Sikhism is devoid of the ritual, devoid of the ritual.
To have a marriage, there is no muhurat the way we do at particular time to be fixed for a marriage. Anybody can get into the gurudwara, get married, get out of the gurudwara. And you can enter the gurudwara at any time, worship the holy book, sit and listen. So it is a kind of an emancipatory religion, but it also got into there. So he thought about Sikhism.
And maybe Dr. Williams is right, politically not ripe. So he waited, and he comes, here we are because of Dr. BR Ambedkar. And on my personal note, on the 50th year of the celebration of conversion 2006, I converted to Buddhism in a huge program in Hyderabad. And maybe New Delhi, we had a huge gathering. It was a celebratory moment. And Dr. Santosh Raut was on stage, and he was again talking to us like this. These were the movements. Now what happens? We are going ahead. What has happened with these Dr. Ambedkar's Buddhist?
Last year, one of the biggest and the largest Buddhist stupa was constructed in the state of Hyderabad in India, largest. According to my understanding, after Buddhism has waned away in India, the first ever attempt to recreate a full-fledged Buddhist stupa was done by the followers of Dr. BR Ambedkar in India. That is the journey, the legacy, and the beauty, and the impact of Dr. BR Ambedkar's followers. Thank you so much for giving me this time.
[APPLAUSE]
SANTOSH RAUT: Well, we have been studying a lot of theologians and the history of religions in Divinity School. And I try to rethink about what Dr. Ambedkar was trying to do the concept of religion itself, what that should be. And he gives the criteria that it should be-- religion is an antithesis to slavery. No discrimination should be done. And he says that it should be based on liberty, equality, and fraternity. What fraternity he meant by Buddha's freedom actually, not just a political slogan.
Still, a lot long way to go to understand the Buddhist vision of Dr. Ambedkar, where he's trying to really address the notion of mind. Caste is a notion of mind, and that's the problem many of Indian society or thinkers not able to understand. They treat as a social and political problem. Even institutions and the religious institution that has been come up, they carry those notions. And that's the mission Dr. Ambedkar had is a spiritual values can really transform the society and politics, not mere institutionalized setups, from monastic to the humanistic as he expresses.