By Renu Bala Sathi,
Writer, Editorial & Broadcasting Board,
PNIB NEWS INDIA.
On 126th Birth Anniversary of Dr. Ambedkar Year 2017
There are at present 100,000,000 Untouchables in India, the vast majority of whom are underprivileged in every sense of the term. Each year between four and five hundred of them are murdered by their Caste Hindu compatriots, while thousands more are beaten, raped, and tortured and their homes looted and burned. An incalculable number of them are not only subject to social,
economic, and religious discrimination but daily suffer personal harassment and humiliation.
If any person who is not a Buddhist finds it extremely difficult to present the life and teachings of the Buddha in a manner which would make it a consistent whole. Depending on the Nikayas, not only the presentation of a consistent story of the life of the Buddha becomes a difficult thing and the presentation of some parts of his teachings becomes much more so. Indeed it would not be an exaggeration to say that of all the founders of religions in the world, the presentation of the life and teachings of the founder of Buddhism presents a problem which is quite puzzling if not baffling. Is it not necessary that these problems should be solved, and the path for the understanding of Buddhism be made clear? Is it not time that those who are Buddhists should take up these problems, at least for general discussion, and throw what light they can on these problems?
With a view to raise a discussion on these problems, I propose to set them out here. The first problem relates to the main event in the life of the Buddha, namely, Parivraja. Why did the Buddha take Parivraja? The traditional answer is that he took Parivraja because he saw a dead person, a sick person and an old person. This answer is absurd on the face of it. The Buddha took Parivraja at the age of 29. If he took Parivraja as a result of these three sights, how is it he did not see these three sights earlier? These are common events occurring by hundreds, and the Buddha could not have failed to come across them earlier. It is impossible to accept the traditional explanation that this was the first time he saw them. The explanation is not plausible and does not appeal to reason. But if this is not the answer to the question, what is the real answer?
The present work cannot be considered as remedying these deficiencies, but only as taking a small step in that direction. In the following pages I have given a brief account of Ambedkar’s career, described why and how he became a Buddhist, and explained what Buddhism meant to him. Since the work is of a popular rather than a scholarly nature Sanskrit and Pali words have in most cases not been given their diacritical marks and there has been no attempt to secure uniformity in the spelling of these words as between my own text and the various quotations from Ambedkar’s writings.
The second problem is created by the four Aryan Truths. Do they form part of the original teachings of the Buddha? This formula cuts at the root of Buddhism. If life is sorrow, death is sorrow, and rebirth is sorrow, then there is an end of everything. Neither religion nor philosophy can help a man to achieve happiness in the world. If there is no escape from sorrow, then what can religion do, what can Buddha do, to relieve man from such sorrow which is ever there in birth itself? The four Aryan Truths are a great stumbling block in the way of non-Buddhists accepting the gospel of Buddhism. For the four Aryan Truths deny hope to man. The four Aryan Truths make the gospel of the Buddha a gospel of pessimism. Do they form part of the original gospel, or are they a later accretion by the monks?
The third problem relates to the doctrines of soul, of karma and rebirth. The Buddha denied the existence of the soul. But he is also said to have affirmed the doctrine of karma and rebirth. At once a question arises. If there is no soul, how can there be karma? If there is no soul, how can there be rebirth? These are baffling questions. In what sense did the Buddha use the words karma and rebirth? Did he use them in a different sense than the sense in which they were used by the Brahmins of his day? If so, in what sense? Did he use them in the same sense in which the Brahmins used them? If so, is there not a terrible contradiction between the denial of the soul and the affirmation of karma and rebirth? This contradiction needs to be resolved.
The fourth problem relates to the Bhikkhu. What was the object of the Buddha in creating the Bhikkhu? Was the object to create a perfect man? Or was his object to create a social servant devoting his life to service of the people and being their friend, guide and philosopher? This is a very real question. On it depends the future of Buddhism. If the Bhikkhu is only a perfect man he is of no use to the propagation of Buddhism, because though a perfect man he is a selfish man. If, on the other hand, he is a social servant, he may prove to be the hope of Buddhism. This question must be decided not so much in the interest of doctrinal consistency but in the interest of the future of Buddhism.
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was one of the most remarkable men of his time, and the story of his life is the story of how exceptional talent and outstanding force of character succeeded in overcoming some of the most formidable obstacles that an unjust and oppressive society has ever placed in the way of the individual. Born in Mhow in central India in 1891, he was the fourteenth child of parents who belonged to the very lowest stratum of Hindu society.
According to orthodox Hindu tradition, he was not entitled to receive education or to acquire property, he could engage only in the most menial and degrading work, and he could not come into physical contact with members of the higher castes. In short, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born an outcaste or Untouchable. He was expected to wear cast-off clothes, to eat the leavings of his higher caste masters, to be humble and obedient, and to accept his lot as the well-deserved punishment for sins committed in a former existence.
The dullness is due to the fact that it seems to fall upon a passive set of readers. After reading an article, one likes to know what the reader of the journal has to say about it. But the reader never gives out his reaction. This silence on the part of the reader is a great discouragement to the writer. I hope my questions will excite the readers to come and make their contribution to their solution.
From 1913 to 1917, and again from 1920 to 1923, Ambedkar was in the West, and when at the age of thirty-two he finally returned to the country of his birth it was as one of the most highly qualified men in public life. During his three years at Columbia University he studied Economics, Sociology, History, Philosophy, Anthropology, and Politics, and was awarded a Ph.D. for the thesis which he eventually published in book form as The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India. His first published work, however, was a paper on ‘Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development’ which he had originally read at an Anthropology seminar conducted by one of his professors.
After completing his studies in America, Ambedkar left New York for London, where he was admitted to the London School of Economics and Political Science and to Gray’s Inn. A year later his scholarship came to an end and it was only in 1920 that, having taught in a Bombay college and started a Marathi weekly called Mooknayak or ‘Leader of the Dumb’, he was able to return to
London and resume his studies there.
The Worst of the Cast-
The caste system try to represent it in terms of a division of labour, as a force making for social stability and cohesion, and as a framework within which a rich and varied religious and cultural life can flourish. For the Untouchables, who occupied the very lowest place within that system, the reality was far otherwise. Speaking at the time of his conversion to Buddhism, Ambedkar declared that he felt as though he had been delivered from hell, and there is no doubt that the hundreds of thousands of Untouchables who followed his example felt similarly. The hell from which they had been delivered was the hell of caste, to which they had been condemned for centuries and which had inflicted on them, in the most systematic manner, what Ambedkar himself characterized as torment.
But why is it that contact with the Untouchable pollutes? The traditional answer is that contact with him pollutes because he is a creature of filthy personal habits and low morals who moreover engages in unclean occupations such as the removal of faeces and the disposal of the carcasses of cows and other animals. Should it be further asked why the Untouchable engages in these occupations the answer is that according to the Hindu scriptures it is his God-given dharma or religious duty to engage in them and in no others. But what is it that makes him an Untouchable in the first place? To this most fundamental question the Hindu tradition makes an emphatic and unambiguous reply. The Untouchable is an Untouchable because he has been born of untouchable parents, i.e. of parents belonging to an untouchable caste, just as a Brahmin is a Brahmin because he has been born of Brahmin parents, a Rajput a Rajput because he is of Rajput parentage and so on. Having been born of untouchable-caste parents the Untouchable must live as an Untouchable and
die as an Untouchable. Nothing can alter his position within the caste system. Even if his personal habits are immaculate and his morals irreproachable and he does not engage in any unclean occupation he is still an Untouchable and contact with him continues to pollute.
Contd.
Renu Bala Sathi,
Editorial and Broadcasting Board,
PNIB NEWS INDIA