THE BUDDHA...............THE WORLD 545
Paryavasan Kalayanam.” Tathagata decided the path of preaching His religion according to the conditions of that time. Now we must have to make the mechanism. After this ceremony each one should give deeksha to each one. I proclaim that every Buddhist person has the right to give Deeksha. [1]
Thus, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar concluded his speech under thunderous applause from the Buddhists and invitees.
……tears of joy ran down
“Reverend D. Valisinha, General Secretary of the Maha Bodhi Society of India, was specially invited to grace the occasion. His eye-witness account of the conversion ceremony bears ample testimony to the enthusiasm shown by Babasaheb’s followers in embracing Buddhism. About this historical event Rev. D. Valisinha says ;
“14th October, 1956 was a memorable day in the history of Modern India. For it was on that day that Dr. Ambedkar with 500,000 of his followers recited Trisarana and Panchasila and publicly embraced Buddhism. The site of the great event was a fourteen acre vacant land in the city of Nagpur, Maharashtra Pradesh, where an enormous pandal had been erected for the ceremony. I had the privilege of being invited to it and even today the unprecedented scene of such a mass of humanity repeating word for word the Trisarana and Panchasila remains vivid in my memory. Never did I see such an enthusiastic gathering in my life. Throughout the previous night and the whole of the morning of the 14th, the sky was rent with cries of “ Bagawan Buddha-ki Jai” (Victory of Lord Buddha). Large and small batches of men, women and children, and some with babies in their arms, some with Buddhist flags in the hands, came in never ending streams from all parts of the country and poured into the enclosure. Thousands were seen squatting on the roadside
- : Marathi Speech published in the Prabuddha Bharat Special number, Ambedkar Deeksha : 27th October 1956. Translated into English by the Editors.