On the Editions of Dr B. R. Ambedkar’s The Buddha and His Dhamma

This article seeks to outline the history of the addition of references to what is often considered Dr B. R. Ambedkar’s magnum opus, his posthumously published The Buddha and His Dhamma (1957). It discusses the original edition, the 1961 Hindi translation by Bhadant Anand Kausalyayan, which was the first to add references, the 1992 reprint of the original edition as Volume 11 of the collection Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches published by the Government of Maharashtra, and the 2011 ‘critical edition’ edited by Aakash Singh Rathore and Ajay Verma and published by Oxford University Press. Through a critical appraisal of these editions, the article aims to press the general need turned urgent for scholars of Ambedkar to produce competent scholarly editions of Ambedkar’s texts, especially his later writings, which were left incomplete and unpublished during his lifetime.