page_title: History of Buddhism in India
section_title: Dalit Buddhist movement
hierarchical_section_title: History of Buddhism in India / Revival of Buddhism in India / Dalit Buddhist movement
caption_attribution_description: Deekshabhoomi
context_page_description: Buddhism is an ancient Indian religion, which arose in and around the ancient Kingdom of Magadha, and is based on the teachings of the Gautama Buddha who was deemed a "Buddha". Buddhism spread outside of Magadha starting in the Buddha's lifetime.
  With the reign of the Buddhist Mauryan Emperor Ashoka, the Buddhist community split into two branches: the Mahāsāṃghika and the Sthaviravāda, each of which spread throughout India and split into numerous sub-sects. In modern times, two major branches of Buddhism exist: the Theravāda in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, and the Mahāyāna throughout the Himalayas and East Asia. The Buddhist tradition of Vajrayana is sometimes classified as a part of Mahāyāna Buddhism, but some scholars consider it to be a different branch altogether.
  The practice of Buddhism as a distinct and organized religion lost influence after the Gupta reign, and declined from the land of its origin in around the 13th century, but not without leaving a significant impact on other local religious traditions. Except for the Himalayan region and south India, Buddhism almost became extinct in India after the arrival of Islam in the late 12th century.
context_section_description: In the 1950s, the Dalit political leader B. R. Ambedkar (1891-1956) influenced by his reading of Pali sources and Indian Buddhists like Dharmanand Kosambi and Lakshmi Narasu, began promoting conversion to Buddhism for Indian low caste Dalits. His Dalit Buddhist Movement was most successful in the Indian states of Maharashtra, which saw large scale conversions. Ambedkar's "Neo Buddhism" included a strong element of social and political protest against Hinduism and the Indian caste system. His magnum opus, The Buddha and His Dhamma, incorporated Marxist ideas of class struggle into Buddhist views of dukkha and argued that Buddhist morality could be used to "reconstruct society and to build up a modern, progressive society of justice, equality, and freedom".
  The conversion movement has generally been limited to certain social demographics, such as the Mahar caste of Maharashtra and the Jatavs. Although they have renounced Hinduism in practice, a community survey showed adherence to many practices of the old faith including endogamy, worshipping the traditional family deity etc.
  Major organizations of this movement are the Buddhist Society of India (the Bharatiya Bauddha Mahasabha) and the Triratna Buddhist Community (the Triratna Bauddha Mahasangha).
caption: Deekshabhoomi monument, located in Nagpur, Maharashtra where B. R. Ambedkar converted to Buddhism in 1956 is the largest stupa in Asia.[107]
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