z:\ ambedkar\vol 011\vol11 10.indd MK SJ+YS 5 10 2013/YS 18 11 2013 vii
PREFACE
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar’s “The Buddha and His Dhamma” was posthumeusly published in the year
1957 by the People’s Education Society, Bombay. The book was received by Ambedkarite Buddhists with great enthusiasm and devotion but the traditional Buddhist world could not readily accept the theories and interpretation of Buddhism propounded by Dr. Ambedkar. One of the arguments of critics was that the book did not indicate the sources from the original Buddhist scriptures and hence it lacks authenticity. The People’s Education Society thereafter released four editions but no efforts were made to incorporate the original sources from which Dr. Ambedkar had taken the references and based his theories.
The book was first translated into Hindi by the renowned Buddhist scholar Dr. Bhadant Anand Kausalyayan, which was published in 1961. Dr. Kausalyayan attempted to provide as many sources from the original text as possible. But these sources were not transferred either in any of the English editions or in any of the translations in Marathi or other languages, which came out later.
Mrs. Adele M. Fiske of the University of Pennsylvania studied this subject in detail for her Master of Arts dissertation. She had submitted a paper entitled ‘The use of Buddhist scriptures in Dr. Ambedkar’s ‘Buddha and His Dhamma’ for her degree.
‘The Buddha and His Dhamma’ was recently entrusted by the People’s Education Society to the Government of