Dalit Buddhist Movement

The Dalit Buddhist movement (dubbed as Navayana by certain Ambedkarites) is a 19th and 20th-century Buddhist revival movement in India. It received its most substantial impetus from B. R. Ambedkar's call for the conversion of Dalits to Buddhism, in 1956, to escape a caste-based society that considered them to be the lowest in the hierarchy. Ambedkar saw Buddhism as a means to end the Indian caste system.

Buddhism was once dominant through much of India; it had, however, declined in India due to a number of reasons. The Buddhist revival began in India in 1891, when the Sri Lankan Buddhist leader Anagarika Dharmapala founded the Maha Bodhi Society. The Maha Bodhi Society mainly attracted upper-caste people.

In the early 20th century, the Barua Buddhists of Bengal under the leadership of Kripasaran Mahasthavir (1865–1926), founder of the Bengal Buddhist Association in Calcutta (1892), established viharas in cities such as Lucknow, Hyderabad, Shillong and Jamshedpur. The number of Buddhists in the Lucknow district was 73 in 1951. These Buddhists were mainly Barua families who came to Lucknow from Chittagong after the partition of Bengal in 1905.

In Lucknow, Bodhanand Mahastavir (1874–1952) advocated Buddhism for Dalits. Born Mukund Prakash in a Bengali Brahmi family, he was orphaned at a young age, and was raised in Varanasi by an aunt. He was initially attracted to Christianity, but became a Buddhist after a meeting with Buddhists monks from Ceylon at a Theosophical Conference in Varanasi. He later lived in Lucknow where he came in contact with the Barua, many of whom were employed as cooks by the British.

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