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In presenting the final draft of the Indian Constitution to the Constituent Assembly in 1949, drafting chair B.R. Ambedkar claimed the origins of Indian democracy in the parliamentary rules of the ancient Buddhist sanghas (monastic communities). In this article we trace the development of Ambedkar’s embrace of Buddhism, consider the documentary sources of his reference to Buddhist proto-democracy, and propose that his judicial philosophy was further shaped by his study of Western constitutions and the political slogans “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” and “Educate, Agitate, Organize”