Nagpur, India - As the votive candles flicker, 70-year-old Buddhist priest Shurei Sasai's voice resounds through the temple: "I believe that all men are equal."
The young husband and wife repeat his words, their hands clasped in prayer. "Following Buddha's teachings, I will live a new life from now on."
With that, the couple--and three other members of their family--converted to Buddhism. Under Hinduism, they were "untouchables," the lowest rank in India's discriminatory caste system. As Buddhists, that distinction is erased.
It is a route to dignity that many Hindu untouchables choose. Here, at the temple in Nagpur, central India, 20,000 Hindus have converted to Buddhism in the last six months.
Sasai, one of the most prominent Buddhist leaders in India, has been instrumental in that effort.
Originally from Okayama Prefecture in western Japan, he has lived in India for 39 years. His shaven head and narrow eyes stand out in Indian crowds. Here, he is practically a saint: Indian Buddhists literally call him Bhanteji Sasai (Saint Sasai).
His early life in Japan was extremely tumultuous. Stormy love affairs and enormous debt sent him roaming the country, where he worked as a story-teller and fortune-teller, and once attempted suicide.
When he was 24, he turned to Buddhism, and began training to become a priest.
After several years, however, he began to wonder whether Japanese Buddhism could truly help save people from agony, seeing as each sect focused exclusively on its own teachings. So in 1967, in his early 30s, he moved to the birthplace of Buddhism: India. He has never come back.
Fittingly, Sasai's work converting "untouchables" to Buddhism here at the Nagpur temple is the same spot where Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956), India's first justice minister after the nation's 1947 independence from Britain, implemented the historic "mass conversion." Shortly before his death in 1956, Ambedkar led a ceremony that converted more than 500,000 Hindus in discriminated castes to Buddhism.
Ambedkar himself was also born an untouchable. His remarkable rise to become one of the authors of the Indian Constitution was the exception that proved the rule: All Hindus born untouchable inherited the lowest rung on the social ladder.
That meant discrimination in employment, education, even being forced to use segregated public drinking fountains. Ambedkar dedicated his whole life to eliminating such discrimination through mass conversion to Buddhism, a religion which advocates the equality of all men.
Nagpur is also believed to be the base of an ancient Indian philosopher and Buddhist priest, Nagarjuna, also known by his Chinese name Longshu.
In the second and third centuries, Nagarjuna developed and spread the so-called Mahayana (great vehicle) Buddhism--a major movement that emphasizes acts of virtue and compassion rather than asceticism and contemplation.
When Sasai visited the city to learn about Nagarjuna, he also found himself deeply moved by the great achievements of Ambedkar, whose mass conversion had given Buddhism new life.
By the time Sasai arrived, though, more than 10 years after Ambedkar's death, the religion was once again losing steam. Sasai saw Buddhists being bullied by majority Hindus, and one day someone threw stones at him. The country's caste system discrimination, he noted, remained deeply rooted.
So he decided to lead a new Buddhist revival. He took Indian nationality and began fighting for Buddhist rights. He sees his role in India as that of a savior.
"Without me, Buddhism in India will decline," he says.
One of his great victories was the fight over Mahabodhi Temple in Buddhagaya, eastern India.
Despite being the location where Buddha himself was spiritually awakened, Hindus controlled both the temple and most of the votive monetary offerings from visiting Buddhist pilgrims.
In 1992, chanting "Return Buddhagaya to the Buddhists," Sasai and several thousand followers marched for about 5,000 kilometers in northern India. They repeatedly appealed directly to the prime minister and national Parliament, and even fasted in protest.
Three years later, Sasai and other Buddhists were allowed to join the management committee of Mahabodhi Temple.
The fight with the Hindus over the management of the temple is ongoing. On several occasions during his negotiations Sasai has faced the threat of deportation.
But he is finally earning some respect from politicians and the Indian people.
"Sasai's ongoing activities have been a good influence on India's Hindu-controlled politics," says R.S. Gavai, a Buddhist member of parliament. "For example, the spirit of Buddhism has been incorporated into politics."
In 2003, Sasai was appointed as a Buddhist representative on a government "minority committee" consisting of representatives from various religious minorities, including Muslims and Sikhs. It has worked on helping solve religious conflicts across the nation.
Official estimates say there are about 8 million Buddhists in India, a small minority of the country's 1.1 billion total population. Sasai says the number of Buddhists is undercounted.
"Many people continue to identify themselves as Hindus even after they converted to Buddhism. That is because they want to make use of the current affirmative action plan for people of the discriminated castes in employment and other opportunities," he explained.
This October will mark the 50th anniversary of Ambedkar's mass conversion. Sasai is working toward getting more than 1 million Buddhists from across the globe to converge for a memorial gathering.