Caste figured little in studies of Buddhist traditions across Asia because caste seemingly had little effect on Buddhist communities outside the subcontinent. Yet, as perhaps the identifying, if not defining, feature of South Asian societies, caste proved an inescapable phenomenon for modernist subcontinental Buddhist thinkers such as Anagarika Dharmapala (1864-1933), Dharmanand Kosambi (1876-1947), and BR Ambedkar (1891-1956). While the semantic ambiguity of jāti allows the linguistic term to become mapped onto various forms of exclusion and difference, we must not forget that caste mattered in the primary social circles of these three thinkers. This paper explores the various ways in which they hoped to build a strong South Asian Buddhist community by positioning the religion around, or beyond, caste discourses. Despite their respective efforts to distance themselves from its practice and its reach, caste remained an integral component in their various social calculations and interactions.