Buddhism in India

Conclusion 267

of Buddhism’s relationship to idealism, materialism and science;

the social thrust of Buddhism; and finally whether it does indeed

make sense to see Indian history as ‘nothing but a history of mortal

conflict between Brahmanism and Buddhism.’

Nirvana: The Meaning of reedom

There is perhaps no word so misunderstood and debated as the

term nibbana (popularly known in its Sanskrit form Nirvana). This

can be seen by looking at two simple dictionary definitions:

nir.va.nan, often cap [Skt nirvana, lit., act of extinguishing, fr. nis- out +

vati it blows...] 1: the final beatitude that transcends suffering, karma, and

samsara and is sought esp. in Buddhism through the extinction of desire

and individual consciousness (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary).

nirvaan: m. Calamity. Death. Salvation (Marathi–English Dictionary

by Madhav Deshpande).

Three definitions from Molesworth, the best Marathi–English

dictionary still available give an even better idea of complexities

and distortions:

nirbaan: a (S) that has quitted or is without house, family and worldly

concerns

nirvaan: n (S) Extremity or extreme distress, the state of one reduced to

his last resource. 2. Fig Death. 3. The ultimatum of man – emancipation

from matter and reunion with the Deity

nirvaan: a (S) Departed, utterly gone, lit.fig.; e.g. defunct or dead; eman-

cipated from matter or from distinct existence; extinguished or gone out.^1

A look in almost any dictionary will reveal a similar disparity of

meanings. Ambedkar’s Pali dictionary, it might be noted, gives

‘extinction, destruction, annihilation’ for nibbaana, and ‘free

from desire or human passion’ for the closely correlated nibbano’

9

Conclusion

With the dhammadikshaof 1956, a new era of Buddhism in India
began, as masses of Dalits in Maharashtra and north India affirmed
a new commitment. Yet for decades this remained stagnant, limited
to Dalits, and restricted as a social force because of their poverty,
lack of education and material backwardness. Even their population
of some millions in the context of India’s near-billion population
seemed insignificant.
From the 1970s, however, a new anti-caste movement began which
soon gathered force and became a mass movement by the 1980s and
brought the campaign against Brahmanism on to a wider Indian stage.
This, in turn, eventually led to a renewed interest in Buddhism among
wider sections of Indians—primarily Dalits throughout India, but also
including the other backward classes (OBCs), or non-Brahmans, in
many areas and many upper caste intellectuals. By the beginning of the
new millennium, when Dalits took their campaign against casteism to a
world arena and tried to focus world attention at the World Conference
against Racism held in August–September 2001 at Durban, an interna-
tional interest in Ambedkar himself could be seen. New mass conver-
sions have begun; though numbers are as yet small, there is a seriousness
which has frightened the Hindutva forces and led to overreactions. At
the world level, in the currently growing wave of interest in Buddhism,
involving new seekers from North America and Europe and new exam-
inations of their own tradition by Asian Buddhists, Ambedkar’s
Navayana Buddhism is also beginning to play an important role.
This requires a critical look at the main points raised by
Ambedkar. This chapter will conclude the study of Buddhism,
Brahmanism and caste in India with a look at some issues raised
earlier: the meaning of Nirvana; the issue of whether Buddhism
makes sense without the karma and rebirth framework; the question

(^1) An amusing feature of the collaboration in producing this dictionary between
Molesworth, an English puritanical aristocrat and Brahman pandits can be seen by
looking up zhavane(to fuck) which is defined as ‘to hold in sexual embrace, vc
(Low)’. While today’s Oxford English–Marathi dictionary gives the correct transla-
tion, all current Marathi–English dictionaries avoid the term. Its use was a defiant
distinguishing feature of much early Dalit poetry.