AHMEDABAD, India (RNS) Dosa vendor Sunil Gagnath Sabkale watches over a fragile Buddhist temple across the street from a market where he sells his crepelike pancakes. The temple consists of a small ...

(RNS) — Many Buddhists today trace their social justice activism to the work of BR Ambedkar, the Indian caste abolitionist who once led a mass conversion of Dalits, or lower caste, to Buddhism. (RNS) ...

MUMBAI, India - Next month, Kanti Sarvaiya will abandon his Hindu heritage and become a Buddhist. "Hinduism has done nothing for us," said Sarvaiya, 20, who lives in the western state of Gujarat. "So ...

I met Minal at a retreat center in rural England in March 2023, and we became fast friends. We were there to attend a Buddhist course, with six other women from different parts of the world. Over the ...

Explore the origins of the caste system, rooted in political and economic factors rather than purity, pollution, or race.

NEW DELHI — “We are Hindus no more, and inferior to nobody,” declared Ramkumar, a low-caste Indian from the northern Indian state of Utter Pradesh. Ramkumar, a bureaucrat in the state government, ...

Kanti Sarvaiya left his Hindu heritage behind and became a Buddhist. “Hinduism has done nothing for us,” said Sarvaiya, 20, who lives in the western Indian state of Gujarat. “So our family elders have ...

MUMBAI, India (AP) -- About 2,000 low-caste Hindu Indians bowed before orange-robed monks and recited prayers as they converted to Buddhism in a mass ceremony Sunday that they said would bring them ...

FILE - Members of the audience listen to a speaker at a rally organized by National Conference of Dalit Organisations in New Delhi, India, Sunday, Dec. 5, 2005. Dalits, who belong to the lowest of ...