title: The Dhammapada: Buddhist philosophy
author: Buddha
description: To have been a student of Babbitt's is to remain always in that position.<br /> - <strong>T.S. Eliot</strong>
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   THEBUDDHA  
   AND HIS DHAMMA  
                  by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar 
  
   
  UNPUBLISHED 
  PREFACE 
  April 6, 1956 
  [Text provided by Eleanor Zelliot, as prepared by Vasant Moon] 
   
  A question is always asked to me: how I happen[ed] to take such [a] high degree of 
  education. Another question is being asked: why I am inclined towards Buddhism. These 
  questions are asked because I was born in a community known in India as the 
  "Untouchables." This preface is not the place for answering the first question. But this 
  preface may be the place for answering the second question.  
  The direct answer to this question is that I regard the Buddha's Dhamma to be the best. No 
  religion can be compared to it. If a modern man who knws science must have a religion, the 
  only religion he can have is the Religion of the Buddha. This conviction has grown in me 
  after thirty-five years of close study of all religions.  
  How I was led to study Buddhism is anothe