Vol. 11 · pages 241–245

222 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES III any divine origin, did claim divine origin for his teachings. He told his followers that if they wished to reach the land of milk and honey they must accept the teachings because they were the teachings of Jehovah the God. 3. Jesus claimed divinity for himself. He claimed that he was the Son of God. Naturally His teachings acquired a divine origin. 4. Krishna said that he was God himself and the Gita was his own word. 5. The Buddha made no such claim either for himself or his Sasana. 6. He claimed that he was one of the many human beings and his message to the people was the message of man to man. 7. He never claimed infallibility for his message. 8. The only claim he made was that his message was the only true way to salvation as he understood it. 9. It was based on universal human experience of life in the world. 10. He said that it was open to anyone to question it, test it and find what truth it contained. 11. No founder has so fully thrown open his religion to such a challenge.

PART II Different views of the Buddha’s Dhamma 1. What others have understood Him to have Taught. 2. The Buddha’s Own Classification.

225 DIFFERENT VIEWS OF THE BUDDHA’S DHAMMA III § 1. What others have understood Him to have Taught 1. “What are the teachings of the Buddha?” 2. This is a question on which no two followers of the Buddha or the students of Buddhism agree. 3. To some Samadhi is his principal teaching. 4. To some it is Vippassana (a kind of Pranayam). 5. To some Buddhism is esoteric. To others it is exoteric. 6. To some it is a system of barren metaphysics. 7. To some it is sheer mysticism. 8. To some it is a selfish abstraction from the world. 9. To some it is a systematic repression of every impulse and emotion of the heart. 10. Many other views regarding Buddhism could be collected. 11. This divergence of views is astonishing. 12. Some of these views are those of men who have a fancy for certain things. Such are those who regard that the essence of Buddhism lies in Samadhi or Vippassana, or Esoterism. 13. The other views are the results of the fact that the majority of the writers on Buddhism are students of ancient Indian history. Their study of Buddhism is incidental and occasional. 14. Some of them are not students of Buddhism. 15. They are not even students of anthropology, the subject matter which deals with the origin and growth of religion. 16. The question that arises is—“Did the Buddha have no Social Message ?” 17. When pressed for an answer, students of Buddhism refer to the two points. They say— 18. “The Buddha taught Ahimsa.” 19. “The Buddha taught peace !” 20. Asked—“Did the Buddha give any other Social Message ?” 21. “Did the Buddha teach justice ?” 22. “Did the Buddha teach love?”

226 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES III 23. “Did the Buddha teach liberty?” 24. “Did the Buddha teach equality?” 25. “Did the Buddha teach fraternity ?” 26. “Could the Buddha answer Karl Marx ?” 27. These questions are hardly ever raised in discussing the Buddha’s Dhamma. 28. My answer is that the Buddha has a Social Message. He answers all these questions. But they have been buried by modern authors. § 2. The Buddha’s Own Classification 1. The Buddha adopted a different classification of Dhamma. 2. The first category he called Dhamma. 3. He created a new category called Not-Dhamma (Adhamma) though it went by the name of Dhamma. 4. He created a third category which he called Saddhamma. 5. The third category was another name for Philosophy of Dhamma. 6. To understand His Dhamma one must understand all the three—Dhamma, Adhamma and Saddhamma.