The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (168 page)

Ambap
l
.

A beautiful courtesan of Vesali and devotee of the
Buddha
. She eventually renounced the world, gained insight into impermanence through contemplating the ageing of her own body, and attained
arhatship
.

 
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(1891–1956).
Indian lawyer and politician, also known as Babasaheb. Born the fourteenth child of untouchable (Mahar) parents in Indore State he succeeded, against all the odds, in graduating from Elphinstone College in 1912. His career developed on two fronts: he was called to the bar in 1923, and became Principal of the Government Law College, Bombay. Politically, he became active fighting for the rights of untouchables. In 1924 he founded an organization for the ‘moral and material progress of untouchables’ and employed the technique of
saty
graha
(passive resistance) in a successful attempt to allow untouchable access to Hindu temples and tanks. Shortly before his death he initiated the Bharatiya Buddha Mahasabha as an organization to promote the spread of Buddhism in India. Deprived of his strong leadership many untouchable converts to Buddhism have since reverted to Hinduism.

 
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(
c.
339–97).
Bishop
of Milan. He was trained in rhetoric and law, and assumed the
see
in
c.
374, after having been civil governor. He was famous as a preacher and champion of orthodoxy (e.g. against the Arians). He was a strong advocate of
monasticism
, writing on asceticism, and also interpreting Eastern theology for the West. He is one of the four original
Doctors
of the W. Church. Feast day, usually 7 Dec.

 
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(Lat., Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam, ‘to the greater glory of God’). The motto of the
Jesuits
, but it appears more widely as well.

 
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