Democracy's Dhamma: Buddhism in the Making of Modern India, C. 1890-1956 (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781009424950)

In 1956, B. R. Ambedkar publicly converted to Buddhism raising questions about his turn from constitutionalism to religion. The answer lies in Buddhism itself. In the late colonial era, the struggle to produce an appropriate Buddhism for a nation-in-the-making reveals a secret history foundational to modern India. Thinkers, activists, reformers, pilgrims, and monks from around South, Southeast and East Asia discussed universalism, nationalism, modernity, democracy, and caste radicalism and advocated an Indian return to Buddhism and the Buddha. This book traces this genealogy through the Buddhist itineraries and political projects of figures like Anagarika Dharmapala, Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, Jawaharlal Nehru, Vinayak D. Savarkar, Rahul Sankrityayan and Ambedkar, to reveal how Buddhism emerged as democracy's dhamma, the religion of democracy.

Author: Gitanjali Surendran
ISBN-10: 1009424955
ISBN-13: 9781009424950
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 11/30/2024
Pages: 350
Format: Hardcover