Asian Religions Chapter Ten

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PART FOUR ASIAN RELIGIONS CHAPTER TEN ESTABLISHMENT OF BUDDHIST SACRED SPACE IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA: THE AMBEDKARITE BUDDHISM, DALIT CIVIL RELIGION AND THE STRUGGLE AGAINST SOCIAL EXCLUSION Knut A. Jacobsen Introduction Although there were hardly any Buddhists in India at the time of inde- pendence in 1947, the two main symbols of the nation of India have strong Buddhist associations. The lion-capital of the Ashoka pillar from Sarnath is the national emblem of India and the Ashokan wheel from the base of the same Ashoka pillar from Sarnath is in the centre of the Indian flag. The main reason for the use of these symbols with strong Buddhist associations for the national emblem and the national flag is that it was suggested by the great leader of the Dalits, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956), who was one of the six members of the flag committee constituted in June 1947.1 Ambedkar was already at that time an admirer of the Buddha and his teaching. Ambedkar lobbied for the adoption of several other Buddhist features to become part of the Indian state between 1947 and 1950, not only the wheel of dharma in the flag and the Ashoka lion as the emblem of the nation, but also the inscription of a Buddhist aphorism on the pediment of the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the residence of the President of the Republic 1 Ambedkar proudly recalled that he got the lion capital and the Ashoka wheel adopted without anyone in the Constituent Assembly opposing it. That the Sarnath lion capital became the national emblem and the Ashoka wheel (chakra) as national symbol in the flag due to Ambedkar is a not often recognized fact. In a recent mono- graph on the national flag, the author does not note the potential Buddhistness of these symbols. She just notes that the second flag commission recommended the replacement of the spinning wheel of the Congress flag with the Ashoka chakra and that Nehru justified it on aesthetical grounds (Virmani 2008: 148). She does note that the press reported that the chakra could have a double meaning, it kept one part of the spinning wheel and conveyed gratitude to that idea of Gandhi as well as recalling the Buddhist emperor Ashoka’s emblem. .

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