Editing Dalit Buddhism (section)

== Size and Shape of the Community ==

According to the ''Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Buddhism'', the 2001 census counted about 7.95 million Buddhists in India, of whom at least 5.83 million were former Untouchables from Maharashtra.<ref>Geary and Mukherjee (2017), "Buddhism in Contemporary India", p. 36.</ref> The 2011 census figure, of about 8.4 million with some three-quarters of them Marathi Buddhists, is given on the page on [[India]]. The Handbook adds that the movement is largely made up of Mahars and Jatavs, and, citing Beltz (2004), that anti-caste rhetoric within it has coexisted with a hardening of caste consciousness.<ref>Geary and Mukherjee (2017), "Buddhism in Contemporary India", p. 49 (reporting Beltz 2004).</ref> The Handbook also reports deep differences between Dalit and Tibetan Buddhism, which it presents as a barrier to a pan-Asian Buddhist unity.<ref>Geary and Mukherjee (2017), "Buddhism in Contemporary India", pp. 52–53 (after Singh 2010).</ref> By the Handbook's account, the state's use of Buddhism after 1947 was symbolic and cultural: the Sarnath lion capital became the state emblem in 1950, and the Buddha Jayanti of 1956 was declared "cultural (not religious)".<ref>Geary and Mukherjee (2017), "Buddhism in Contemporary India", pp. 46–47.</ref>

Anand Kausalyayan (1905–1988), the Buddhist monk and writer, makes three claims about the legal and demographic position of Buddhists in a question-and-answer book of 1980. He says that the Buddhist population "should definitely exceed ten million" while the last census counted "thirty seven lakhs", an undercount that he blames on non-Buddhist enumerators; he does not name the census year. He also says that in "this so called secular state" a person who wishes to stand for a reserved seat "has to declare and prove that he is not a Buddhist."<ref>Kausalyayan, Anand (1992). ''An Intelligent Man's Guide to Buddhism''. [Publisher], Q. 257–260, pp. 174–175.</ref> Hunt reports, from Bhagwan Das, a related claim that denying reservations to Buddhist converts was a strategy to impede the spread of Buddhism.<ref>Hunt (2014), ''Hindi Dalit Literature'', p. 46.</ref> These are claims by participants and are reported as such. Kausalyayan's own list of the monks who re-established a foothold for Buddhism in India names Bodhananda, Mahavir, the Burmese monks Chandramani and Kittimaji, and Anagarika Dharmapala, and ends with Ambedkar's conversion.<ref>Kausalyayan (1992), ''Intelligent Man's Guide'', Q. 256, p. 174.</ref>