Sangharakshita Pilgrimage
Map showing location of Kasturchand Park and Nagpur Buddhist Localities

Kasturchand Park and Nagpur Buddhist Localities

Nagpur, India · 1956

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21.14270°N, 79.07330°E

Key Facts

  • ◆ Sangharakshita arrived in Nagpur on 6 December 1956; within an hour of his arrival Dr Ambedkar was reported dead in Delhi.
  • ◆ The condolence meeting at Kasturchand Park drew approximately 100,000 people — columns of white-clad mourners carrying candles converging from all over the city.
  • ◆ He spoke standing on the seat of a rickshaw with someone holding a microphone in front of him.
  • ◆ Over the next four days he visited practically all the ex-Untouchable localities of Nagpur and addressed nearly 30 mass meetings.
  • ◆ Approximately 30,000 people were initiated into Buddhism; the last meeting was held at 1:30 in the morning with 15,000 present.
  • ◆ While speaking he felt 'an enormous Presence' hovering above the crowd — which he could not fully explain.
  • ◆ 'I think I can say without vanity that I created a tremendous impression. Dr Ambedkar's followers told me they felt my being there at that critical juncture was a miracle and that I had saved Nagpur for Buddhism.'

“As the train came to a halt I saw that the platform was a solid mass of excited, white-clad figures. There must have been 2,000 of them and I realized, with a shock of astonishment, that they were all new Buddhists and that they had come to receive me.”

— In the Sign of the Golden Wheel

“While I was speaking I had an extraordinary experience. Above the crowd there hung an enormous Presence. Whether the Presence was Ambedkar’s departed consciousness hovering over the heads of his followers, or whether it was the collective product of their thoughts at that time of trial and crisis, I do not know, but it was as real to me as the people I was addressing.”

— In the Sign of the Golden Wheel

“I think I can say without vanity that I created a tremendous impression. Dr Ambedkar’s followers told me that they felt my being there at that critical juncture was a miracle and that I had saved Nagpur for Buddhism.”

— In the Sign of the Golden Wheel

Source: In the Sign of the Golden Wheel

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