The new vehicle proclaimed by B. R. Ambedkar in 1956: Buddhism re-founded as the path of social liberation for India's oppressed castes.
Navayana began with Ambedkar's conversion at Nagpur in 1956, when half a million followers took the refuges with him. It reads the Buddha as a social revolutionary and rejects karma and rebirth as the tradition had taught them, which the older vehicles record as a divergence from their own doctrine.
Navayana across the site
Sources
Primary
- B. R. Ambedkar, The Buddha and His Dhamma (1957).
Secondary
- Gail Omvedt, Buddhism in India: Challenging Brahmanism and Caste (2003).