110-467: Navayāna ( Devanagari : नवयान, IAST : Navayāna , meaning " New Vehicle "), otherwise known as Navayāna Buddhism , refers to the modern re-interpretation of Buddhism founded and developed by the Indian jurist, social reformer, and scholar B. R. Ambedkar ; it is otherwise called Neo-Buddhism and Ambedkarite Buddhism . B. R. Ambedkar was an Indian lawyer , politician , and scholar of Buddhism , and
220-777: A शिरोरेखा śirorekhā , that runs along the top of full letters. In a cursory look, the Devanāgarī script appears different from other Indic scripts , such as Bengali-Assamese or Gurmukhi , but a closer examination reveals they are very similar except for angles and structural emphasis. Among the languages using it as a primary or secondary script are Marathi , Pāḷi , Sanskrit , Hindi , Boro , Nepali , Sherpa , Prakrit , Apabhramsha , Awadhi , Bhojpuri , Braj Bhasha , Chhattisgarhi , Haryanvi , Magahi , Nagpuri , Rajasthani , Khandeshi , Bhili , Dogri , Kashmiri , Maithili , Konkani , Sindhi , Nepal Bhasa , Mundari , Angika , Bajjika and Santali . The Devanāgarī script
330-440: A British Dominion model that established separate electorates based on religious and social divisions. They invited Indian religious leaders, such as Muslims and Sikhs , to press their demands along religious lines, as well as B. R. Ambedkar as the representative leader of the untouchables. Gandhi vehemently opposed a constitution that enshrined rights or representations based on communal divisions, because he feared that such
440-533: A constitution would not bring people together but divide them, perpetuate their status and divert the attention from India's struggle to end the colonial rule. After Gandhi returned from Second Round Table conference, he started a new satyagraha . He was immediately arrested and imprisoned at the Yerwada Jail , Pune. While he was in prison, the British government enacted a new law that granted untouchables
550-650: A couple of retreat centres, and hundreds of Indian Dharmacharis and Dharmacharinis. Funding for movement's social and dharma work has come from foreign countries, including the Western countries and Taiwan . Some of the foreign-funded organisations include Trailokya Bauddha Mahasangha Sahayaka Gana and Triratna (Europe and India). Triratna has links with the 'Ambedkarite' Buddhist Romanis in Hungary. Since Ambedkar's conversion, several thousand people from different castes have converted to Buddhism in ceremonies including
660-531: A desire to find the ultimate truth, and he becomes a figure not unlike a minority politician in contemporary India. The discussion of water rights was also a familiar topic after the Mahad Satyagraha. These changes, though unorthodox, create a character for the Buddha that might be easily understood by oppressed communities, specifically Dalits. Scholars broadly accept that the depictions of the Buddha as
770-675: A flourishing leather trade. Mangu Ram arrived in the United States in 1909 at the age of 23 and worked in California . There, he joined the Ghadar Party and smuggled weapons from California to India in order to oppose British rule. In 1925, he shifted his focus onto Dalit freedom, launching the "Ad Dharm" movement as well as a weekly newspaper titled Adi-Danka to spread his ideas. According to Teltumbde, Mandu Ram's religious movement failed to materialize, and Mangu Ram later joined
880-614: A monastic order. A number of critics also argue that there is no moral foundation for the political practices that are based on Neo-Buddhist notions, since religion is totally voluntary, and Neo-Buddhism may thus violate democratic principles by restricting its followers to abide to certain non-religious rules. The mass conversions to Buddhism are also seen as a political stunt rather than a genuine spiritual movement. Politicians such as Udit Raj, Ramdas Athawale, Kanshi Ram and Mayawati have also been involved in staging or planning to stage mass conversions—these politicians are members of either
990-566: A sect with radically different ideas, but rather as a new social movement founded on the principles of Buddhism . In the Dalit Buddhist movement , Navayāna is considered an independent new branch of Buddhism native to India , distinct from the traditionally recognized branches of Theravāda , Mahāyāna , and Vajrayāna —considered to be foundational in the Buddhist tradition. It radically re-interprets what Buddhism is, revising parts of
1100-399: A sentence or half-verse may be marked with the " । " symbol (called a daṇḍa , meaning "bar", or called a pūrṇa virām , meaning "full stop/pause"). The end of a full verse may be marked with a double- daṇḍa , a " ॥ " symbol. A comma (called an alpa virām , meaning "short stop/pause") is used to denote a natural pause in speech. Punctuation marks of Western origin, such as
1210-723: A separate electorate. It came to be known as the Communal Award . In protest, Gandhi started fast-unto-death, while he was held in prison. The resulting public outcry forced the government, in consultations with Ambedkar, to replace the Communal Award with a compromise Poona Pact . Ambedkar accepted the Poona Pact under public pressure, but disagreed with Gandhi and his political methods. He dismissed Gandhi's ideas as loved by "blind Hindu devotees", primitive, influenced by spurious brew of Tolstoy and Ruskin, and "there
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#17327810604561320-428: A social reform movement or as some other stable entity interpreted (or misinterpreted) from a social reform perspective — is historically accurate", thereby placing Navayana theories to be ahistorical, though it served as an important means for Dalit political mobilization and social movement. Scholars broadly accept that the depictions of the Buddha as a social reformer are inaccurate. Gombrich (2012) states that there
1430-447: A social reformer are inaccurate. Gombrich (2012), states that there is no evidence that the Buddha began or pursued social reforms, rather his aim was at the salvation of those who joined his monastic order. Modernist interpreters of Buddhism, states Gombrich, keep picking up this "mistake from western authors", a view that initially came into vogue during the colonial era. Richard Gombrich adds that Buddha should not be seen as
1540-541: Is "often referred to as their 'bible' and its novel interpretation of the Buddhist path commonly constitutes their only source of knowledge on the subject". Dr. B.R. Ambedkar is regarded as a bodhisattva , the Maitreya , among the Navayana followers. In practice, the Navayana followers revere Ambedkar, states Deitrick (2013), as virtually on-par with the Buddha. He is considered as the one prophesied to appear and teach
1650-518: Is a table for Hindi, one for Sanskrit and Prakrit, etc. WX is a Roman transliteration scheme for Indian languages, widely used among the natural language processing community in India. It originated at IIT Kanpur for computational processing of Indian languages. The salient features of this transliteration scheme are as follows. ISCII is an 8-bit encoding. The lower 128 codepoints are plain ASCII ,
1760-412: Is always some simpleton to preach them". Ambedkar concluded that Dalits must leave Hinduism and convert to another religion, and announced his intent to leave Hinduism in 1935. He considered Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism. Ambedkar was approached by various leaders of different denominations and faiths. On 22 May 1936, an "All Religious Conference" was held at Lucknow . It
1870-620: Is an Indic script used in the Indian subcontinent . Also simply called Nāgari ( Sanskrit : नागरि , Nāgari ), it is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system ), based on the ancient Brāhmi script. It is one of the official scripts of the Republic of India and Nepal . It was developed and in regular use by the 8th century CE and achieved its modern form by 1000 CE. The Devanāgari script, composed of 48 primary characters, including 14 vowels and 34 consonants,
1980-658: Is associated with an application of the same name that enables typesetting in Indic scripts . The user inputs in Roman letters and the ITRANS pre-processor translates the Roman letters into Devanāgarī (or other Indic languages). The latest version of ITRANS is version 5.30 released in July 2001. It is similar to Velthuis system and was created by Avinash Chopde to help print various Indic scripts with personal computers. The disadvantage of
2090-516: Is celebrated as Dhammachakra Pravartan Day at Dikshabhoomi, Nagpur: I will accept and follow the teachings of Buddha. I will keep my people away from the different opinions of Hinayana and Mahayana, two religious orders. Our Buddhism is a Neo-Buddhism, Navayana . — B.R. Ambedkar The writings of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar were posthumously published as The Buddha and His Dhamma , and this is the scripture for those who follow Navayana Buddhism. Among Navayana followers, state Keown & Prebish (2013), this
2200-566: Is closely related to the Nandināgarī script commonly found in numerous ancient manuscripts of South India , and it is distantly related to a number of southeast Asian scripts. Devanāgarī is formed by the addition of the word deva ( देव ) to the word nāgarī ( नागरी ). Nāgarī is an adjective derived from nagara ( नगर ), a Sanskrit word meaning "town" or "city," and literally means "urban" or "urbane". The word Nāgarī (implicitly modifying lipi , "script")
2310-659: Is considered [by Ambedkar] a precursor for moral action in the world and explicitly associated with a non-monastic lifestyle. Nibbana "means enough control over passion so as to enable one to walk on the path of righteousness". Ambedkar's interpretation of dukkha and nibbana implies that moral action, for which nibbana is preparation, will rectify the material suffering of inequality. Ambedkar considered all ideas in Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism that relate to an individual's merit and spiritual development as insertions into Buddhism, and something that "cannot be accepted to be
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#17327810604562420-409: Is indicated by diacritics . The vowel अ ( a ) combines with the consonant क् ( k ) to form क ( ka ) with halant removed. But the diacritic series of क , ख , ग , घ ( ka, kha, ga, gha , respectively) is without any added vowel sign, as the vowel अ ( a ) is inherent . The combinations of all Sanskrit consonants and vowels, each in alphabetical order, are laid out in
2530-472: Is no evidence that the Buddha began or pursued social reforms; rather his aim was the salvation of those who joined his monastic order. Modernist interpreters of Buddhism, states Gombrich, keep picking up this "mistake from western authors", a view that initially came into vogue during the colonial era. Richard Gombrich adds that Buddha should not be seen as a social reformer: "his concern was to reform individuals and help them leave society forever, not to reform
2640-555: Is part of the Brahmic family of scripts of India , Nepal , Tibet , and Southeast Asia . It is a descendant of the 3rd century BCE Brāhmī script , which evolved into the Nagari script which in turn gave birth to Devanāgarī and Nandināgarī . Devanāgarī has been widely adopted across India and Nepal to write Sanskrit , Marathi , Hindi , Central Indo-Aryan languages , Konkani , Boro , and various Nepalese languages. Some of
2750-614: Is similar to the Krutidev typing method, popular in Rajasthan. The 'itrans' method is useful for those who know English (and the English keyboard) well but are not familiar with typing in Devanāgarī. Thousands of manuscripts of ancient and medieval era Sanskrit texts in Devanāgarī have been discovered since the 19th century. Major catalogues and census include: Dalit Buddhist movement The Dalit Buddhist movement (also known as
2860-633: Is the Indian wing of the UK-based Triratna Buddhist Community founded by Sangharakshita . Its roots lie in the scattered contacts that Sangharakshita had in the 1950s with Ambedkar. Sangharakshita, then still a bhikshu, participated in the conversion movement from 1956 until his departure to the UK in 1963. When his new ecumenical movement had gained enough ground in the West, Sangharakshita worked with Ambedkarites in India and
2970-450: Is the best in terms of ligatures but, because it is designed for Vedic as well, requires so much vertical space that it is not well suited for the "user interface font" (though an excellent choice for the "original field" font). Santipur OT is a beautiful font reflecting a very early [medieval era] typesetting style for Devanagari. Sanskrit 2003 is a good all-around font and has more ligatures than most fonts, though students will probably find
3080-471: Is the fourth most widely adopted writing system in the world, being used for over 120 languages. The orthography of this script reflects the pronunciation of the language. Unlike the Latin alphabet, the script has no concept of letter case . It is written from left to right, has a strong preference for symmetrical rounded shapes within squared outlines, and is recognisable by a horizontal line, known as
3190-548: Is the holy book of Navayana or Dalit Buddhists. According to Junghare, for the followers of Navyana, Ambedkar has become a deity and he is worshipped in its practice. After publishing a series of books and articles arguing that Buddhism was the only way for the Untouchables to gain equality, Ambedkar publicly converted on 14 October 1956, at Deekshabhoomi , Nagpur , over 20 years after he declared his intent to convert. Around 365,000 of his followers converted to Buddhism at
3300-560: Is the holy book of Navayāna Buddhism. The followers of Navayāna Buddhism are generally called "Buddhists" ( Bauddha ) as well as Ambedkarite Buddhists , Neo-Buddhists , and rarely Navayana Buddhists . Almost 90% of Navayāna Buddhists live in Maharashtra . Ambedkar was an Indian leader influential during the colonial era and the early post-independence period of India. He was the fourteenth child in an impoverished Maharashtra Schedule caste family, who studied abroad, returned to India in
3410-682: Is the standard keyboard layout for Devanāgarī as standardized by the Government of India. It is inbuilt in all modern major operating systems . Microsoft Windows supports the InScript layout, which can be used to input unicode Devanāgarī characters. InScript is also available in some touchscreen mobile phones. This layout was used on manual typewriters when computers were not available or were uncommon. For backward compatibility some typing tools like Indic IME still provide this layout. Such tools work on phonetic transliteration. The user writes in
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3520-460: Is used for writing languages other than Sanskrit, conjuncts are used mostly with Sanskrit words and loan words. Native words typically use the basic consonant and native speakers know to suppress the vowel when it is conventional to do so. For example, the native Hindi word karnā is written करना ( ka-ra-nā ). The government of these clusters ranges from widely to narrowly applicable rules, with special exceptions within. While standardised for
3630-489: Is visible in the Kutila inscription of Bareilly dated to VS 1049 (992 CE), which demonstrates the emergence of the horizontal bar to group letters belonging to a word. One of the oldest surviving Sanskrit texts from the early post- Maurya period consists of 1,413 Nāgarī pages of a commentary by Patanjali , with a composition date of about 150 BCE, the surviving copy transcribed about 14th century CE. In
3740-768: The Siddhaṃ matrika script (considered as the closest precursor to Nāgarī) was in use by Buddhists . Nāgarī has been the primus inter pares of the Indic scripts. It has long been used traditionally by religiously educated people in South Asia to record and transmit information, existing throughout the land in parallel with a wide variety of local scripts (such as Moḍī , Kaithi , and Mahajani ) used for administration, commerce, and other daily uses. Sharada remained in parallel use in Kashmir . An early version of Devanāgarī
3850-487: The bārākhaḍī ( बाराखडी ) or bārahkhaṛī ( बारहखड़ी ) table. In the following barakhadi table, the IAST transliteration of each combination will appear on mouseover: The following letter variants are also in use, particularly in older texts and in specific regions: As mentioned, successive consonants lacking a vowel in between them may physically join as a conjunct consonant or ligature . When Devanāgarī
3960-542: The Arya Samaj suddhi reform movement and worked there for about eight years (1905–1912). He felt Arya Samaj practiced untouchability in subtle ways, and subsequently left it to launch the socio-political Bharitiya Achhut Mahasabha movement. Achhutanand published the Adi-Hindu magazine, wherein he called on Dalits to return to Adi-Dharma as the "original religion of Indians." Achhutanand formulated his philosophy on
4070-693: The Bahujan Samaj Party or the Republican Party of India . According to Janet Contursi, Ambedkar re-interprets Buddhist religion and with Navayana "speaks through Gautama and politicizes the Buddha philosophy as he theologizes his own political views". Ambedkar not only rejected Hinduism but also the most popular Buddhist schools . Ambedkar considered all ideas in Theravada, Vajrayana and Mahayana Buddhism that relate to an individual's merit and spiritual development as insertions into Buddhism, and something that "cannot be accepted to be
4180-507: The Government of India . A standard transliteration convention was codified in the ISO 15919 standard of 2001. It uses diacritics to map the much larger set of Brāhmic graphemes to the Latin script. The Devanāgarī-specific portion is nearly identical to the academic standard for Sanskrit, IAST . The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is the academic standard for
4290-479: The Great Renunciation in order to try and gain mass appeal from Dalits by giving the impression that The Buddha founded Buddhism as a social reform movement rather than a spiritual movement. Virginia Hancock writes about Ambedkar's reinterpretations as turning the Buddha into a politician. According to Ambedkar, the Buddha advocated a rational and peaceful resolution of an inter-tribe water conflict but
4400-675: The Maha Bodhi Society . The Maha Bodhi Society, according to Bhagwan Das, was not a Dalit movement however, because it mainly attracted upper-caste Hindus to Buddhism. The two Adi Dharma movements – those that rejected Hinduism in favor of Buddhism – were launched by the Swami Achhutanand Harihar in Uttar Pradesh and Babu Mangu Ram in Punjab . Born in an untouchable family, Achhutanand joined
4510-542: The Mahatma Gandhi led Indian independence movement held discussions with the British government over the Round Table Conferences . They sought constitutional reforms as a preparation to the end of colonial British rule, and begin the self-rule by Indians. The British side sought reforms that would keep the Indian subcontinent as a colony. The British negotiators proposed constitutional reforms on
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4620-490: The Neo-Buddhist movement , Buddhist movement for Dalits , Ambedkarite Buddhist movement and Modern Buddhist movement ) is a religious as well as a socio-political movement among Dalits in India which was started by B. R. Ambedkar . It re-interpreted Buddhism and created a new school of Buddhism called Navayana . The movement has sought to be a socially and politically engaged form of Buddhism . The movement
4730-624: The Supreme Court of the Union of Burma on 28 October 1956. The conversion ceremony was attended by Medharathi, his main disciple Bhoj Dev Mudit, and Mahastvir Bodhanand's Sri Lankan successor, Bhante Pragyanand. Ambedkar asked Dalits not to get entangled in the existing branches of Buddhism (Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana), and called his version Navayana or 'Neo-Buddhism'. Ambedkar would die less than two months later, just after finishing his definitive work on Buddhism. Many Dalits employ
4840-688: The colon , semicolon , exclamation mark , dash , and question mark have been in use in Devanāgarī script since at least the 1900s, matching their use in European languages. A variety of Unicode fonts are in use for Devanāgarī. These include Akshar, Annapurna, Arial , CDAC-Gist Surekh, CDAC-Gist Yogesh, Chandas, Gargi, Gurumaa, Jaipur, Jana, Kalimati, Kanjirowa, Lohit Devanagari, Mangal, Kokila, ,Preeti, Raghu, Sanskrit2003, Santipur OT, Siddhanta, and Thyaka. The form of Devanāgarī fonts vary with function. According to Harvard College for Sanskrit studies: Uttara [companion to Chandas ]
4950-564: The dhamma after it was forgotten; his iconography is a part of Navayana shrines and he is shown with a halo. Though Ambedkar states Navayana to be atheist, Navayana viharas and shrines features images of the Buddha and Ambedkar, and the followers bow and offer prayers before them in practice. According to Junghare (1988), for the followers of Navayana, Ambedkar has become a deity and is devotionally worshipped. Ambedkar's re-interpretation of Buddhism and his formulation of Navayana has attracted admirers and criticism. The Navayana theories restate
5060-420: The khattiyas (warrior class) are always mentioned first and never other classes such as brahmans , vessas , suddas . The novel interpretations and the dismissal of mainstream doctrines of Buddhism by Ambedkar as he formulated Navayana has led some to suggest that Navayana may more properly be called Ambedkarism. However, Ambedkar did not consider himself as the originator of a new Buddhism, but stated that he
5170-483: The original teachings of the Buddha to be more concerned with class struggle , social equality , and right to education , taking into account modern problems. While the term Navayāna is most commonly used in reference to the movement that Ambedkar founded in India, it is also (more rarely) used in a different sense, to refer to Westernized forms of Buddhism . Ambedkar called his version of Buddhism " Navayāna " or "Neo-Buddhism". His book, The Buddha and His Dhamma
5280-593: The sacred texts of Buddhism and found several of its core beliefs and doctrines, such as Four Noble Truths and non-self ( anātman ), as flawed and pessimistic, then re-interpreted these teachings into what he called "New Vehicle" Buddhism, or Navayāna . Ambedkar held a press conference on 13 October 1956, announcing his rejection of Theravāda and Mahāyāna branches of Buddhism, as well as of Hinduism altogether. Thereafter, he left Hinduism and adopted Navayāna Buddhism as his religious faith , about six weeks before his death. Its adherents see Navayāna Buddhism not as
5390-479: The 13th century, states Craig Lockard, Buddhist monks in India fled to Tibet to escape Islamic persecution, while the monks in western India, states Peter Harvey, escaped persecution by moving to south Indian Hindu kingdoms that were able to resist the Muslim power. Efforts to revive Buddhism in India began in the 19th century, such as with the efforts of Sri Lankan Buddhist leader Anagarika Dharmapala who founded
5500-481: The 1920s and joined the political movement. His focus was social and political rights for the Depressed class community. To free his community from religious prejudice, he concluded that they must leave Hinduism and convert to a different religion. He chose Buddhism in the form of Navayana. In 1935, during his disagreements with Mahatma Gandhi , Ambedkar announced his intent to convert from Hinduism to Buddhism. Over
5610-523: The 2nd century CE, Buddhism was widespread in India and had expanded outside of India into Central Asia, East Asia and parts of Southeast Asia. During the Middle Ages, Buddhism slowly declined in India, while it vanished from Persia and Central Asia as Islam became the state religion. According to Randall Collins, Buddhism was already declining in India by the 12th century, but with the pillage by Muslim invaders it nearly became extinct in India. In
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#17327810604565720-772: The 7th century, under the rule of Songtsen Gampo of the Tibetan Empire , Thonmi Sambhota was sent to Nepal to open marriage negotiations with a Nepali princess and to find a writing system suitable for the Tibetan language. He then invented the Tibetan script based on the Nāgarī used in Kashmir. He added 6 new characters for sounds that did not exist in Sanskrit. Other scripts closely related to Nāgarī (such as Siddhaṃ ) were introduced throughout East and Southeast Asia from
5830-620: The 7th to the 10th centuries CE: notably in Indonesia, Vietnam, and Japan. Most of the Southeast Asian scripts have roots in Dravidian scripts, but a few found in south-central regions of Java and isolated parts of southeast Asia resemble Devanāgarī or its prototypes. The Kawi script in particular is similar to the Devanāgarī in many respects, though the morphology of the script has local changes. The earliest inscriptions in
5940-524: The 9th century copper plate inscription of Devapaladeva (Bengal) which is also in early Devanāgarī script. The term kawi in Kawi script is a loan word from kāvya (poetry). According to anthropologists and Asian studies scholars John Norman Miksic and Goh Geok Yian, the 8th century version of early Nāgarī or Devanāgarī script was adopted in Java, Bali , and Khmer around the 8th–9th centuries, as evidenced by
6050-822: The Ambedkarite movement. In 1914, Prakash was ordained as a Bodhanand Mahastavir in Calcutta , and began preaching Buddhism in Lucknow . He founded the Bharatiye Buddh Samiti in 1916, and set up a vihara in 1928. In 1898, Pandit Iyothee Thass founded the Sakya Buddhist Society also known as Indian Buddhist Association in Tamil Nadu . He presented Buddhism as a religious alternative to Hinduism for Dalits. Thass's efforts led to
6160-601: The BSP forms a government at the Centre. Japanese-born Surai Sasai emerged as an important Buddhist leader in India. Sasai came to India in 1966 and met Nichidatsu Fujii , whom he helped with the Peace Pagoda at Rajgir . He fell out with Fuji, however, and started home, but, by his own account, was stopped by a dream in which a figure resembling Nagarjuna appeared and said, "Go to Nagpur". In Nagpur, he met Wamanrao Godbole,
6270-500: The Buddha philosophy as he theologizes his own political views". According to the 2011 Census of India there are 8.4 million Buddhists in India. Navayana Buddhists comprise about 87% (7.3 million) of the Indian Buddhist community, with nearly 90% (6.5 million) of all Navayana Buddhists in India living in Maharashtra state. A 2017 IndiaSpend.com report on census data says "Buddhists have a literacy rate of 81.29%, higher than
6380-434: The Buddha's teaching that everything is characterized by Dukkha , or unsatisfactoriness, as referring specifically to interpersonal relations. In one instance Ambedkar presents a dialogue in which the Buddha teaches that the root of dukkha is class conflict and asserts elsewhere that "the Buddha's conception of Dukkha is material" . — A. Blackburn Nibbana (Skt. nirvana ) the state or process which describes enlightenment,
6490-679: The Devanāgarī-like scripts are from around the 10th century CE, with many more between the 11th and 14th centuries. Some of the old-Devanāgarī inscriptions are found in Hindu temples of Java, such as the Prambanan temple. The Ligor and the Kalasan inscriptions of central Java, dated to the 8th century, are also in the Nāgarī script of north India. According to the epigraphist and Asian Studies scholar Lawrence Briggs, these may be related to
6600-589: The Drafting Chairman of the Constitution of India . He was born in a Dalit (untouchable) family during the colonial era of India , studied abroad, became a Dalit leader, and announced in 1935 his intent to convert from Hinduism to a different religion, an endeavor which took him to study all the major religions of the world in depth, namely Hinduism , Buddhism , Sikhism , Christianity , and Islam , for nearly 21 years. Thereafter, Ambedkar studied
6710-950: The Indic language Misplaced Pages and other wikiprojects, including Hindi, Bhojpuri, Marathi, and Nepali Misplaced Pages. While some people use InScript , the majority uses either Google phonetic transliteration or the input facility Universal Language Selector provided on Misplaced Pages. On Indic language wikiprojects, the phonetic facility provided initially was java-based, and was later supported by Narayam extension for phonetic input facility. Currently Indic language Wiki projects are supported by Universal Language Selector (ULS) , that offers both phonetic keyboard (Aksharantaran, Marathi: अक्षरांतरण , Hindi: लिप्यंतरण, बोलनागरी ) and InScript keyboard (Marathi: मराठी लिपी ). The Ubuntu Linux operating system supports several keyboard layouts for Devanāgarī, including Harvard-Kyoto, WX notation , Bolanagari and phonetic. The 'remington' typing method in Ubuntu IBUS
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#17327810604566820-577: The Latin alphabet and the IME automatically converts it into Devanāgarī. Some popular phonetic typing tools are Akruti, Baraha IME and Google IME . The Mac OS X operating system includes two different keyboard layouts for Devanāgarī: one resembles the INSCRIPT/KDE Linux, while the other is a phonetic layout called "Devanāgarī QWERTY". Any one of the Unicode fonts input systems is fine for
6930-581: The UK to develop Indian Buddhism further. After visits in the late 1970s by Dharmachari Lokamitra from UK, supporters developed a two-pronged approach: social work through the Bahujan Hitaj (also spelled as Bahujan Hitay) trust, mainly sponsored from the general public by the British Buddhist-inspired Karuna Trust (UK) , and direct Dharma work. Currently the movement has viharas and groups in at least 20 major areas,
7040-675: The above ASCII schemes is case-sensitivity, implying that transliterated names may not be capitalised. This difficulty is avoided with the system developed in 1996 by Frans Velthuis for TeX , loosely based on IAST, in which case is irrelevant. ALA-LC romanisation is a transliteration scheme approved by the Library of Congress and the American Library Association, and widely used in North American libraries. Transliteration tables are based on languages, so there
7150-404: The adoption of Nāgarī scripts. For example, the mid 8th-century Pattadakal pillar in Karnataka has text in both Siddha Matrika script, and an early Telugu-Kannada script; while, the Kangra Jawalamukhi inscription in Himachal Pradesh is written in both Sharada and Devanāgarī scripts. The Nāgarī script was in regular use by the 7th century CE, and it was fully developed by about
7260-452: The arrival of Dipankar, a Chamar bhikkhu, in 1980. Dipankar had come to Kanpur on a Buddhist mission and his first public appearance was scheduled at a mass conversion drive in 1981. The event was organised by Rahulan Ambawadekar, an RPI Dalit leader. In April 1981, Ambawadekar founded the Dalit Panthers (U.P. Branch) inspired by the Maharashtrian Dalit Panthers. The event met with severe criticism and opposition from Vishva Hindu Parishad and
7370-424: The basis of a shared cultural and ethnic identity. He presented it to an audience beyond just Dalits, including tribal societies as well. He opposed Mahatma Gandhi 's non-cooperation movement and fasts as well as the Indian National Congress , stating that Brahmins were "as foreign to India as were the British", according to Anand Teltumbde . Babu Mangu Ram was also born in an untouchable family of Punjab with
7480-405: The colonial era and post-independence period of India. He belonged to a Dalit community, traditionally the most oppressed and marginalized group in Indian society. He was the fourteenth child in an impoverished Maharashtra Dalit family, who studied abroad, returned to India in the 1920s and joined the political movement. His focus was social and political rights of the Dalits. During 1931–32,
7590-440: The core doctrines of Buddhism, according to Zelliot & Macy (1980), wherein Ambedkar's "social emphasis exclude[s] or distort some teaching, fundamental to traditional and canonical Buddhism". Anne Blackburn states that Ambedkar re‑interprets core concepts of Buddhism in class conflict terms, where nirvana is not the aim and end of spiritual pursuits, but a preparation for social action against inequality: Ambedkar understands
7700-416: The creation of a broader movement amongst Tamil Dalits in South India until the 1950s. The first president of the Indian Buddhist Association was Paul Carus . Unlike the Ambedkarite movement , the Indian Buddhist Association adopted the Theravada Buddhism tradition founded in Sri Lanka (where Thass had received his training and initiation in Buddhism). Ambedkar was an Indian leader, influential during
7810-404: The death of Ambedkar. Some critics also argue that Neo-Buddhism deviates too much from traditional Buddhism. Even though traditional Buddhism emphasizes equality among people, it does not deny the caste system. In addition, its emphasis on people's liberation in the religious sense does not deny social distinctions as the norm of organizations in society, as the Buddha himself was the founder of
7920-611: The earliest epigraphic evidence attesting to the developing Sanskrit Nāgarī script in ancient India is from the 1st to 4th century CE inscriptions discovered in Gujarat . Variants of script called nāgarī , recognisably close to Devanāgarī, are first attested from the 1st century CE Rudradaman inscriptions in Sanskrit, while the modern standardised form of Devanāgarī was in use by about 1000 CE. Medieval inscriptions suggest widespread diffusion of Nāgarī-related scripts, with biscripts presenting local script along with
8030-643: The end of first millennium. The use of Sanskrit in Nāgarī script in medieval India is attested by numerous pillar and cave-temple inscriptions, including the 11th-century Udayagiri inscriptions in Madhya Pradesh , and an inscribed brick found in Uttar Pradesh , dated to be from 1217 CE, which is now held at the British Museum . The script's prototypes and related versions have been discovered with ancient relics outside India, in places such as Sri Lanka , Myanmar and Indonesia . In East Asia,
8140-673: The grounds that he had overstayed his visa was dismissed, and he was granted Indian citizenship. Sasai and Bhante Anand Agra are two of main leaders of the campaign to free the Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya from Hindu control. A movement originating in Maharashtra but also active in Uttar Pradesh, and spread out over quite a few other pockets where Neo Buddhists live, is Triratna Bauddha Mahāsaṅgha (formerly called TBMSG for Trailokya Bauddha Mahasangha Sahayaka Gana). It
8250-481: The immediate mass support from the Untouchable population that Ambedkar had hoped for. Division and lack of direction among the leaders of the Ambedkarite movement have been an additional impediment. According to the 2011 census, there are currently 8.44 million Buddhists in India, at least 6.5 million of whom are Marathi Buddhists in Maharashtra. This makes Buddhism the fifth-largest religion in India and 6% of
8360-532: The keyboard. This makes typing in Harvard-Kyoto much easier than IAST. Harvard-Kyoto uses capital letters that can be difficult to read in the middle of words. ITRANS is a lossless transliteration scheme of Devanāgarī into ASCII that is widely used on Usenet . It is an extension of the Harvard-Kyoto scheme. In ITRANS, the word devanāgarī is written "devanaagarii" or "devanAgarI". ITRANS
8470-399: The many contemporaneous inscriptions of this period. The letter order of Devanāgarī, like nearly all Brāhmic scripts, is based on phonetic principles that consider both the manner and place of articulation of the consonants and vowels they represent. This arrangement is usually referred to as the varṇamālā (" garland of letters"). The format of Devanāgarī for Sanskrit serves as
8580-532: The most part, there are certain variations in clustering, of which the Unicode used on this page is just one scheme. The following are a number of rules: The pitch accent of Vedic Sanskrit is written with various symbols depending on shakha . In the Rigveda , anudātta is written with a bar below the line ( ◌॒ ), svarita with a stroke above the line ( ◌॑ ) while udātta is unmarked. The end of
8690-422: The national average of 72.98%", but it does not distinguish Navayana Buddhists from other Buddhists. When compared to overall literacy rate of Maharashtra state where 80% of Buddhists are found, their literacy rate is 83.17% or slightly higher than statewide average of 82.34%. According to Jean Darian, the conversion to Buddhism and its growth in India has in part been because of non-religious factors, in particular
8800-415: The next two decades, Ambedkar studied Buddhist texts and wrote The Buddha and His Dhamma which is the primary doctrine of those who follow Navayana Buddhism. The Twenty-two vows or twenty-two pledges are the 22 Buddhist vows administered by B. R. Ambedkar , the revivalist of Buddhism in India , to his followers. On converting to Buddhism , Ambedkar made 22 vows, and asked his 400,000 supporters to do
8910-400: The person who had organised the conversion ceremony for Ambedkar in 1956. Sasai claims that when he saw a photograph of Ambedkar at Godbole's home, he realised that it was Ambedkar who had appeared in his dream. At first, Nagpur folk considered Surai Sasai very strange. Then he began to greet them with " Jai Bhim " (victory to Ambedkar) and to build viharas. In 1987 a court case to deport him on
9020-562: The political and economic needs of the community as well as the needs of the political leaders and the expanding administrative structure in India. According to Trevor Ling and Steven Axelrod, the intellectual and political side of Navayana Buddhist movement lost traction after the death of Ambedkar. Major festivals among Navayana Buddhists are: Devanagari Devanagari ( / ˌ d eɪ v ə ˈ n ɑː ɡ ə r i / DAY -və- NAH -gə-ree ; देवनागरी , IAST : Devanāgarī , Sanskrit pronunciation: [deːʋɐˈnaːɡɐriː] )
9130-535: The population of Maharashtra , but less than 1% of the overall population of India. The Buddhist revival remains concentrated in two states : Ambedkar's native Maharashtra , and Uttar Pradesh – the land of Bodhanand Mahastavir, Acharya Medharthi and their associates. Acharya Medharthi retired from his Buddhapuri school in 1960, and shifted to an ashram in Haridwar . He turned to the Arya Samaj and conducted Vedic yajnas all over India. After his death, he
9240-707: The press, Lokanatha said that Ambedkar was impressed with Buddhism. According to Ambedkar, several of the core beliefs and doctrines of traditional Buddhist traditions such as the Four Noble Truths and Anatta were flawed and pessimistic, and may have been inserted into the Buddhist scriptures by wrong-headed Buddhist monks of a later era. These should not be considered as Buddha 's teachings in Ambedkar's view. Other foundational concepts of Buddhism such as Karma and Rebirth were considered by Ambedkar as superstitions. Navayana as formulated by Ambedkar and at
9350-623: The prototype for its application, with minor variations or additions, to other languages. The vowels and their arrangement are: The table below shows the consonant letters (in combination with inherent vowel a ) and their arrangement. To the right of the Devanāgarī letter it shows the Latin script transliteration using International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration , and the phonetic value ( IPA ) in Hindi . The table below shows consonants with common vowel diacritics and their ISO 15919 transliteration. Vowels in their independent form on
9460-502: The romanisation of Sanskrit. IAST is the de facto standard used in printed publications, like books, magazines, and electronic texts with Unicode fonts. It is based on a standard established by the Congress of Orientalists at Athens in 1912. The ISO 15919 standard of 2001 codified the transliteration convention to include an expanded standard for sister scripts of Devanāgarī. The National Library at Kolkata romanisation , intended for
9570-400: The romanisation of all Indic scripts, is an extension of IAST. Compared to IAST, Harvard-Kyoto looks much simpler. It does not contain all the diacritic marks that IAST contains. It was designed to simplify the task of putting large amount of Sanskrit textual material into machine readable form, and the inventors stated that it reduces the effort needed in transliteration of Sanskrit texts on
9680-510: The root of Dalit Buddhist movement abandons mainstream traditional Buddhist practices and precepts such as the institution of monk after renunciation, ideas such as karma, rebirth in afterlife, samsara, meditation, nirvana and Four Noble Truths. Ambedkar's new sect of Buddhism rejected these ideas and re-interpreted the Buddha's religion in terms of class struggle and social equality. Ambedkar called his version of Buddhism Navayana or Neo-Buddhism. His book, The Buddha and His Dhamma ,
9790-461: The same ceremony. On this occasion, many upper caste Hindus too accepted Buddhism. After Nagpur, on 16 October 1956, Ambedkar again gave Buddhism to more than 300,000 of his followers at Chandrapur , since the place is also known as Deekshabhoomi. Inspired by this Ambedkar's conversion, 5,000 Tamils of Myanmar had accepted Buddhism in Rangoon under the leadership of Chan Htoon , the justice of
9900-467: The same time. Part of the significance of this plan was that Ram's followers include not only Untouchables, but persons from a variety of castes, who could significantly broaden Buddhism's support. But, he died 9 October 2006 after a lengthy illness; he was cremated as per Buddhist tradition. Another popular Dalit leader, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati , has said that she and her followers will embrace Buddhism after
10010-511: The same. After receiving lay ordination , Ambedkar gave dhamma diksha to his followers. This ceremony organised on 14 October 1956 in Nagpur included 22 vows administered to all new converts after Three Jewels and Five Precepts . On 16 October 1956, Ambedkar performed another mass religious conversion ceremony at Chandrapur . The Buddhist movement was somewhat hindered by Ambedkar's death so shortly after his conversion. It did not receive
10120-428: The same. After receiving lay ordination , Ambedkar gave dhamma diksha to his followers. This ceremony organised on 14 October 1956 in Nagpur included 22 vows administered to all new converts after Three Jewels and Five Precepts . On 16 October 1956, Ambedkar performed another mass religious conversion ceremony at Chandrapur . Ambedkar re-interpreted Buddhism to address such issues in his mind, and re-formulated
10230-752: The scriptures of the Theravada, the Mahayana, or the Vajrayana. The question that is then clearly put forth: is a fourth yana, a Navayana , a kind of modernistic Enlightenment version of the Dhamma really possible within the framework of Buddhism? According to Omvedt, Ambedkar and his Buddhist movement deny many of the core doctrines of Buddhism. All the elements of religious modernism, state Christopher Queen and Sallie King, may be found in Ambedkar Buddhism where his The Buddha and His Dhamma abandons
10340-615: The spacing of the CDAC-Gist Surekh font makes for quicker comprehension and reading. The Google Fonts project has a number of Unicode fonts for Devanāgarī in a variety of typefaces in serif, sans-serif, display and handwriting categories. There are several methods of Romanisation or transliteration from Devanāgarī to the Roman script . The Hunterian system is the national system of romanisation in India , officially adopted by
10450-428: The term "Ambedkar(ite) Buddhism" to designate the Buddhist movement, which started with Ambedkar's conversion. Many converted people call themselves "-Bauddha" i.e. Buddhists. The Twenty-two vows or twenty-two pledges are the 22 Buddhist vows administered by B. R. Ambedkar , the revivalist of Buddhism in India, to his followers. On converting to Buddhism , Ambedkar made 22 vows, and asked his 400,000 supporters to do
10560-449: The top and in their corresponding dependent form (vowel sign) combined with the consonant ' k ' on the bottom. ' ka ' is without any added vowel sign, where the vowel ' a ' is inherent . A vowel combines with a consonant in their diacritic form. For example, the vowel आ ( ā ) combines with the consonant क् ( k ) to form the syllabic letter का ( kā ), with halant (cancel sign) removed and added vowel sign which
10670-407: The traditional precepts and practices, then adopts science, activism and social reforms as a form of Engaged Buddhism . Ambedkar's formulation of Buddhism is different from Western modernism, states Skaria, given his synthesis of the ideas of modern Karl Marx into the structure of ideas by the ancient Buddha. Critics have argued that Neo-Buddhism does not have a strong influence, especially after
10780-572: The traditional teachings of Buddhism into a "new vehicle" called Navayana . Navayana dhamma doctrine as propounded by Ambedkar, states Sumant (2004), "does not situate morality in a transcendental [religious] domain", nor in "a civil association, including the state". Dhamma is derived from and the guiding principle for social conscience. Navayana Buddhism began in 1956, when Bhimrao R. Ambedkar adopted it, and 380,000 Dalit community members converted to Navayana from Hinduism on 14 and 15 October 1956. After that on every year 14 October
10890-447: The twenty-two vows. Prerna Singh Bindra argued a mass-conversion of Hindus to Ambedkarite Buddhism under Udit Raj to be a political stunt. According to Gail Omvedt , an American-born and naturalised Indian sociologist and human rights activist: Ambedkar's Buddhism seemingly differs from that of those who accepted by faith, who 'go for refuge ' and accept the canon. This much is clear from its basis: it does not accept in totality
11000-646: The upper 128 codepoints are ISCII-specific. It has been designed for representing not only Devanāgarī but also various other Indic scripts as well as a Latin-based script with diacritic marks used for transliteration of the Indic scripts. ISCII has largely been superseded by Unicode, which has, however, attempted to preserve the ISCII layout for its Indic language blocks. The Unicode Standard defines four blocks for Devanāgarī: Devanagari (U+0900–U+097F), Devanagari Extended (U+A8E0–U+A8FF), Devanagari Extended-A (U+11B00–11B5F), and Vedic Extensions (U+1CD0–U+1CFF). InScript
11110-434: The word of the Buddha". Buddhism, to Ambedkar, must have been a social reform movement. Ambedkar's radical reinterpretations of the faith rejected many of the main tenets of mainstream Buddhism such as renunciation , meditation , Samsara , Karma , reincarnation and even the Four Noble Truths , which Ambedkar claims to have been invented by wrong-headed monks. Ambedkar reinvents the traditional story of The Buddha and
11220-511: The word of the Buddha". Buddhism, to Ambedkar, must have been a social reform movement. Martin Fuchs states that Ambedkar's effort is to be admired as an attempt to seek a "post-religious religion" which transcends distinctions and as being driven by the "reasonable principle of sociality", not in the sense of spiritual doctrines, philosophical speculations and existentialist questions. According to Blackburn, "neither view of traditional Buddhism — as
11330-561: The world... He never preached against social inequality, only declared it's irrelevance to salvation. He never tried to abolish the caste system nor to do away with slavery" Empirical evidence outside of India, such as in the Theravada Buddhist monasteries of the Sinhalese society, suggests that class ideas have been prevalent among the sangha monks, and between the Buddhist monks and the laity. In all canonical Buddhist texts,
11440-604: Was attended by prominent Dalit leaders including Jagjivan Ram , though Ambedkar could not attend it. At the conference, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, and Buddhist representatives presented the tenets of their respective religions in an effort to win over Dalits. Ambedkar rejected the other religions and chose Buddhism. However, Ambedkar remained a Hindu for the next 20 years, studied then re-interpreted Buddhism, and adopted Neo-Buddhism or Navayana few weeks before his death. The Italian Buddhist monk Lokanatha visited Ambedkar's residence at Dadar on 10 June 1936. Later in an interview to
11550-553: Was banned. The number of Buddhists in the Lucknow district increased from 73 in 1951 to 4327 in 2001. According to the 2001 census, almost 70% of the Buddhist population in Uttar Pradesh is from the scheduled castes background. In 2002, Kanshi Ram , a popular political leader from a Sikh religious background, announced his intention to convert to Buddhism on 14 October 2006, the fiftieth anniversary of Ambedkar's conversion. He intended for 20,000,000 of his supporters to convert at
11660-916: Was cremated according to Arya Samaj rites. His Buddhpuri school became embroiled in property disputes. His follower, Bhoj Dev Mudit, converted to Buddhism in 1968 and set up a school of his own. Rajendranath Aherwar appeared as an important Dalit leader in Kanpur. He joined the Republican Party of India and converted to Buddhism along with his whole family in 1961. In 1967, he founded the Kanpur branch of "Bharatiya Buddh Mahasabha". He held regular meetings where he preached Buddhism, officiated at Buddhist weddings and life cycle ceremonies, and organised festivals on Ambedkar's Jayanti (birth day), Sambuddhatva jayanthi , Diksha Divas (the day Ambedkar converted), and Ambedkar Paranirvan Divas (the day Ambedkar died). The Dalit Buddhist movement in Kanpur gained impetus with
11770-579: Was launched in 1956 by Ambedkar when nearly half a million Dalits – formerly untouchables – joined him and converted to Navayana Buddhism. It rejected Hinduism, challenged the caste system in India and promoted the rights of the Dalit community. The movement also rejected the teachings of Mahayana , Theravada and Vajrayana traditions of Buddhism; instead, the movement claims to be a form of engaged Buddhism as taught by Ambedkar. Buddhism originated in ancient India and grew after Ashoka adopted it. By
11880-473: Was merely reviving what was original Buddhism after centuries of "misguided interpretation" by wrong headed Buddhist monks. Others, states Skaria, consider Ambedkar attempting a synthesis of the ideas of modern Karl Marx into the structure of ideas by the ancient Buddha, as Ambedkar worked on essays on both in the final years of his life. According to Janet Contursi, Ambedkar re-interprets Buddhist religion and with Navayana "speaks through Gautama and politicizes
11990-502: Was unable to gain the necessary political leverage because he lacked majority vote. He then went into exile and became a renunciant because it was the only way to prevent his tribe from going to war with their neighbors. Ambedkar omits any mention of old age, sickness, and death (the forms of suffering the Buddha is usually understood to have encountered). In this way the Buddha’s renunciation is motivated more by political exigencies rather than
12100-409: Was used on its own to refer to a North Indian script, or perhaps a number of such scripts, as Al-Biruni attests in the 11th century; the form Devanāgarī is attested later, at least by the 18th century. The name of the Nandināgarī script is also formed by adding a prefix to the generic script name nāgarī . The precise origin and significance of the prefix deva remains unclear. Devanāgarī
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