Ven Sandamuni (Arakense Monk, Missionary in India, taught Dhamma to Dr Ambedkar)
In the 1950s, Ambedkar turned his attention to
Buddhism and travelled to
Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) to attend a convention of Buddhist scholars and monks. While dedicating a new Buddhist
vihara near
Pune, Ambedkar announced that he was writing a book on Buddhism, and that as soon as it was finished, he planned to make a formal conversion to Buddhism.
[10] Ambedkar twice visited
Burma in 1954; the second time in order to attend the third conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists in
Rangoon. In 1955, he founded the Bharatiya Bauddha Mahasabha, or the
Buddhist Society of India. He completed his final work,
The Buddha and His Dhamma, in 1956. It was published posthumously.
After meetings with the Sri Lankan Buddhist monk
Hammalawa Saddhatissa,
[11] Ambedkar organised a formal public ceremony for himself and his supporters in
Nagpur on October 14, 1956. Accepting the
Three Refuges and
Five Precepts from a Buddhist
monk in the traditional manner, Ambedkar completed his own conversion. He then proceeded to convert an estimated 500,000 of his supporters who were gathered around him.
[10] Taking the
22 Vows. He then traveled to
Kathmandu in
Nepal to attend the Fourth World Buddhist Conference. His work on
The Buddha or Karl Marx and "Revolution and counter-revolution in ancient India" (which was necessary for understanding his book "The Buddha and his dhamma")remained incomplet.
