Ambedkar Leads a Mass Conversion to Buddhism
Half a million people abandon caste in a single ceremony, and Buddhism returns to the land of its birth
Quick facts
- Date
- October 14, 1956
- Location
- Nagpur, India
- Estimated converts (36-hour window)
- Nearly half a million
- Name for Ambedkar's Buddhism
- Navayana ("New Vehicle")
What happened
B. R. Ambedkar, the Columbia- and London-trained economist and lawyer who chaired the drafting committee of India's constitution, spent decades opposing the caste system that classified him and millions of others as untouchables. On October 14, 1956, at Nagpur, he and his wife formally took the Three Jewels and Five Precepts of Buddhism from a monk, then administered the same vows, along with 22 additional vows of his own composition explicitly rejecting Hindu belief and practice, to what a contemporary account estimated at roughly 380,000 of his followers, most from Dalit, formerly untouchable, communities. A second ceremony the following day brought the total number of converts in that 36-hour window to nearly half a million, and the movement continued to grow after Ambedkar's death later that same year.
Why it matters
Ambedkar's conversion, later called Navayana or Neo-Buddhism, brought organized Buddhism back to India in large numbers for the first time since its medieval disappearance, reframing it explicitly as a religion of social liberation from caste rather than only a personal spiritual path, and it remains the largest single religious conversion event in modern Indian history.
How we know
The 1956 conversion ceremony was witnessed and reported by journalists and participants at the time, and it continues to be studied by academic institutions, including a dedicated research project at Columbia University's Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life examining Ambedkar's choice of Buddhism and its religious and political context.
Sources
- Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life, Columbia University. Ambedkar's Religion · Reputable sourceircpl.columbia.edu · The domain "ircpl.columbia.edu" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar and the Great Conversion · General sourcetricycle.org · Cited as a "news" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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