Democracy's Dhamma

Buddhism in the Making of Modern India, c. 1890–1956

Gitanjali Surendran

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2025
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781009424943
• Subtopic: Indian & South Asian History
• Index: History

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Advance Praise
• Democracy’s Dhamma
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• INTRODUCTION: Buddhism in the Making of Modern India
• 1 ANAGARIKA DHARMAPALA IN INDIA
• 2 DHARMAPALA AND VIVEKANANDA IN AN AGE OF UNIVERSALISM
• 3 BUDDHISM AND THE BHADRALOK
• 4 THE BUDDHIST BAY: Buddhist Mobility across the Bay of Bengal
• 5 BUDDHIST RELICS, THE MAHABODHI TEMPLE AND THE DISCOURSE OF A SHARED BUDDHISM
• 6 BUDDHISM AS A CIVIL RELIGION AND HINDUTVA
• 7 BUDDHISM, ANTI-CASTE RADICALISM AND SOCIALISM
• 8 AMBEDKAR, DHAMMA AND DEMOCRACY
• CONCLUSION: The Destinies of Buddhism
• Bibliography
• Index