Pandita Ramabai - Revision history

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			{{Short description\|Indian feminist historian and social reformer}}
	{{Use dmy dates\|date=December 2018}}		{{Use dmy dates\|date=December 2018}}
	{{Use Indian English\|date=October 2015}}		{{Use Indian English\|date=October 2015}}
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	\| birth_name = Rama Dongre		\| birth_name = Rama Dongre
	\| birth_date = {{birth date\|1858\|4\|23\|df=y}}		\| birth_date = {{birth date\|1858\|4\|23\|df=y}}
	\| birth_place = [[Kanara\|Canara ~~district~~]], [[Madras Presidency]], [[British India]]~~<br/>(Now [[Karnataka\|Karnataka, India]])~~		\| birth_place = [[Kanara\|Canara]], [[Madras Presidency]], [[British India]]
	\| death_date = {{death date and age\|1922\|4\|5\|1858\|4\|23\|df=y}}		\| death_date = {{death date and age\|1922\|4\|5\|1858\|4\|23\|df=y}}
	\| death_place = [[Bombay Presidency]], British India		\| death_place = [[Bombay Presidency]], British India
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	}}		}}

	'''Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati''' (23 April 1858 – 5 April 1922) was an Indian ~~[[reform movement\|~~social reformer~~]], a pioneer in the education and emancipation of women in India~~. She was the first woman to be awarded the titles of ''[[Pandit]]a'' as a [[Sanskrit]] scholar and ''[[Sarasvati]]'' after being examined by the faculty of the [[University of Calcutta]].<ref name="WHN">{{cite web\|title=Women's History Month: Pandita Ramabai\|url=https://womenshistorynetwork.org/womens-history-month-pandita-ramabai/\|website=Women's History Network\|date=11 March 2011}}</ref> She was one of the ten women delegates of the [[History of the Indian National Congress\|Congress]] session of 1889.<ref>{{Cite journal \| url=https://www.academia.edu/4481937 \| title=Indian Christianity and National Movements\| last1=Kollanoor\| first1=Greger}}</ref><ref>{{cite web\| url=http://www.importantindia.com/15397/short-biography-of-pandita-ramabai/\| title=Short Biography of Ramabai\| date=25 May 2015\| access-date=23 October 2016\| archive-date=7 December 2018\| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181207235117/https://www.importantindia.com/15397/short-biography-of-pandita-ramabai/\| url-status=dead}}</ref> In the late 1890s, she founded Mukti Mission at [[Kedgaon railway station\|Kedgaon]] village, forty miles east of the city of [[Pune]].<ref name="(Pandita)Ramabai2003">{{cite book\|author1=Ramabai Sarasvati (Pandita)\|author2=Pandita Ramabai\|title=Pandita Ramabai's American Encounter: The Peoples of the United States (1889)\|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oJGKf0efsRMC&pg=PP1\|year=2003\|publisher=Indiana University Press\|isbn=0-253-21571-4\|pages=29–30}}</ref><ref name="Feldhaus1998">{{cite book\|author=Anne Feldhaus\|title=Images of Women in Maharashtrian Society\|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0FobxiflfVQC&pg=PA192\|date=29 January 1998\|publisher=SUNY Press\|isbn=978-0-7914-3660-8\|page=205}}</ref> The mission was later named Pandita Ramabai Mukti Mission.		'''Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati''' (23 April 1858 – 5 April 1922) was an Indian social reformer.
			She was the first woman to be awarded the titles of ''[[Pandit]]a'' as a [[Sanskrit]] scholar and ''[[Sarasvati]]'' after being examined by the faculty of the [[University of Calcutta]].<ref name="WHN">{{cite web\|title=Women's History Month: Pandita Ramabai\|url=https://womenshistorynetwork.org/womens-history-month-pandita-ramabai/\|website=Women's History Network\|date=11 March 2011}}</ref> She was one of the ten women delegates of the [[History of the Indian National Congress\|Congress]] session of 1889.<ref>{{Cite journal \| url=https://www.academia.edu/4481937 \| title=Indian Christianity and National Movements\| last1=Kollanoor\| first1=Greger}}</ref><ref>{{cite web\| url=http://www.importantindia.com/15397/short-biography-of-pandita-ramabai/\| title=Short Biography of Ramabai\| date=25 May 2015\| access-date=23 October 2016\| archive-date=7 December 2018\| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181207235117/https://www.importantindia.com/15397/short-biography-of-pandita-ramabai/\| url-status=dead}}</ref> In the late 1890s, she founded Mukti Mission at [[Kedgaon railway station\|Kedgaon]] village, forty miles east of the city of [[Pune]].<ref name="(Pandita)Ramabai2003">{{cite book\|author1=Ramabai Sarasvati (Pandita)\|author2=Pandita Ramabai\|title=Pandita Ramabai's American Encounter: The Peoples of the United States (1889)\|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oJGKf0efsRMC&pg=PP1\|year=2003\|publisher=Indiana University Press\|isbn=0-253-21571-4\|pages=29–30}}</ref><ref name="Feldhaus1998">{{cite book\|author=Anne Feldhaus\|title=Images of Women in Maharashtrian Society\|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0FobxiflfVQC&pg=PA192\|date=29 January 1998\|publisher=SUNY Press\|isbn=978-0-7914-3660-8\|page=205}}</ref> The mission was later named Pandita Ramabai Mukti Mission.

	==Early life and education==		==Early life and education==
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	==Social activism==		==Social activism==
	After Medhvi's death (1882), Ramabai moved to [[Pune]] where she founded Arya Mahila Samaj (Arya Women's Society). Influenced by the ideals of the [[Brahmo Samaj]] and Hindu reformers, the purpose of the society was to promote the cause of women's education and deliverance from the oppression of child marriage.<ref name=":1" /> When in 1882 the [[Hunter Commission]] was appointed by the colonial Government of India to look into education, Ramabai gave evidence before it. In an address before the Hunter Commission, she declared, "In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the educated men of this country are opposed to female education and the proper position of women. If they observe the slightest fault, they magnify the grain of mustard-seed into a mountain, and try to ruin the character of a woman." She suggested that teachers be trained and women school inspectors be appointed. Further, she said that as the situation in India was that women's conditions were such that women could only medically treat them, Indian women should be admitted to medical colleges. Ramabai's evidence created a great sensation and reached [[Queen Victoria]]. It bore fruit later in starting of the Women's Medical Movement by [[Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava\|Lord Dufferin]]. In Maharashtra, Ramabai made contact with Christian organizations also involved in women's education and medical missionary work, in particular a community of Anglican nuns, the [[Community of St Mary the Virgin\|Community of St. Mary the Virgin]] (CSMV).<ref name=":1" />		After Medhvi's death (1882), Ramabai moved to [[Pune]] where she founded Arya Mahila Samaj (Arya Women's Society). Influenced by the ideals of Jesus Christ, the [[Brahmo Samaj]], and Hindu reformers, the purpose of the society was to promote the cause of women's education and deliverance from the oppression of child marriage.<ref name=":1" /> When in 1882 the [[Hunter Commission]] was appointed by the colonial Government of India to look into education, Ramabai gave evidence before it. In an address before the Hunter Commission, she declared, "In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the educated men of this country are opposed to female education and the proper position of women. If they observe the slightest fault, they magnify the grain of mustard-seed into a mountain, and try to ruin the character of a woman." She suggested that teachers be trained and women school inspectors be appointed. Further, she said that as the situation in India was that women's conditions were such that women could only medically treat them, Indian women should be admitted to medical colleges. Ramabai's evidence created a great sensation and reached [[Queen Victoria]]. It bore fruit later in starting of the Women's Medical Movement by [[Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava\|Lord Dufferin]]. In Maharashtra, Ramabai made contact with Christian organizations also involved in women's education and medical missionary work, in particular a community of Anglican nuns, the [[Community of St Mary the Virgin\|Community of St. Mary the Virgin]] (CSMV).<ref name=":1" />

	With earnings from the sale of her first book, ''Stri Dharma Niti'' ("Morals for Women," 1882) and contacts with the CSMV, Ramabai went to Britain in 1883 to start medical training; she was rejected from medical programs because of progressive deafness.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news\|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/obituaries/pandita-ramabai-overlooked.html\|title=Overlooked No More: Pandita Ramabai, Indian Scholar, Feminist and Educator\|date=2018-11-14\|work=The New York Times\|access-date=2020-03-26\|language=en-US\|issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>Kosambi, M., 1988. Women, emancipation and equality: Pandita Ramabai's contribution to women's cause. Economic and political weekly, pp.WS38-WS49.[https://www.jstor.org/stable/4393987]</ref> During her stay she converted to Christianity. Among the reasons Ramabai gave for her conversion was her growing disillusionment with orthodox Hinduism and particularly what she saw as its ill regard of women. In an autobiographical account of her conversion written years later, Ramabai wrote that there were, "only two things on which all those books, the Dharma Shastras, the sacred epics, the Puranas and modern poets, the popular preachers of the present day and orthodox high-caste men, were agreed, that women of high and low caste, as a class were bad, very bad, worse than demons, as unholy as untruth; and that they could not get Moksha. as men."<ref>{{Cite book\|last=Ramabai\|first=Pandita\|title=A Testimony\|publisher=[[Ramabai Mukti Mission]]\|year=1977 \|orig-year=1907\|location=Kedgaon}}</ref> Ramabai had a contentious relationship with her Anglican "mentors" in England, particularly Sister Geraldine, and asserted her independence in a variety of ways: she maintained her vegetarian diet, rejected aspects of Anglican doctrine that she regarded as irrational, including the doctrine of the [[Trinity]],<ref>{{Cite book\|last=Viswanathan\|first=Gowri\|title=Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity, and Belief\|publisher=Princeton University Press\|year=1998\|isbn=978-0691058993\|location=Princeton, NJ}}</ref> and questioned whether the crucifix she was asked to wear had to have a Latin inscription instead of the Sanskrit inscription she wished for.<ref>{{Cite book\|last=Kent\|first=Eliza\|title=The Routledge Handbook of Hindu-Christian Relations\|publisher=[[Routledge]]\|year=2021\|isbn=9781003139843\|editor-last=Bauman\|editor-first=Chad M\|location=New York\|pages=250–251\|chapter=Gender and the Social Boundaries between 'Hindus' and 'Christians'}}</ref>		With earnings from the sale of her first book, ''Stri Dharma Niti'' ("Morals for Women," 1882) and contacts with the CSMV, Ramabai went to Britain in 1883 to start medical training; she was rejected from medical programs because of progressive deafness.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news\|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/obituaries/pandita-ramabai-overlooked.html\|title=Overlooked No More: Pandita Ramabai, Indian Scholar, Feminist and Educator\|date=2018-11-14\|work=The New York Times\|access-date=2020-03-26\|language=en-US\|issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>Kosambi, M., 1988. Women, emancipation and equality: Pandita Ramabai's contribution to women's cause. Economic and political weekly, pp.WS38-WS49.[https://www.jstor.org/stable/4393987]</ref> During her stay she converted to Christianity. Among the reasons Ramabai gave for her conversion was her growing disillusionment with orthodox Hinduism and particularly what she saw as its ill regard of women. In an autobiographical account of her conversion written years later, Ramabai wrote that there were, "only two things on which all those books, the Dharma Shastras, the sacred epics, the Puranas and modern poets, the popular preachers of the present day and orthodox high-caste men, were agreed, that women of high and low caste, as a class were bad, very bad, worse than demons, as unholy as untruth; and that they could not get Moksha. as men."<ref>{{Cite book\|last=Ramabai\|first=Pandita\|title=A Testimony\|publisher=[[Ramabai Mukti Mission]]\|year=1977 \|orig-year=1907\|location=Kedgaon}}</ref> Ramabai had a contentious relationship with her Anglican "mentors" in England, particularly Sister Geraldine, and asserted her independence in a variety of ways: she maintained her vegetarian diet, rejected aspects of Anglican doctrine that she regarded as irrational, including the doctrine of the [[Trinity]],<ref>{{Cite book\|last=Viswanathan\|first=Gowri\|title=Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity, and Belief\|publisher=Princeton University Press\|year=1998\|isbn=978-0691058993\|location=Princeton, NJ}}</ref> and questioned whether the crucifix she was asked to wear had to have a Latin inscription instead of the Sanskrit inscription she wished for.<ref>{{Cite book\|last=Kent\|first=Eliza\|title=The Routledge Handbook of Hindu-Christian Relations\|publisher=[[Routledge]]\|year=2021\|isbn=9781003139843\|editor-last=Bauman\|editor-first=Chad M\|location=New York\|pages=250–251\|chapter=Gender and the Social Boundaries between 'Hindus' and 'Christians'}}</ref>
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	[[Category:Converts to Protestantism from Hinduism]]		[[Category:Converts to Protestantism from Hinduism]]
	[[Category:Indian Anglicans]]		[[Category:Indian Anglicans]]
	~~[[Category:Anglican saints]]~~
	[[Category:Recipients of the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal]]		[[Category:Recipients of the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal]]
	[[Category:Translators of the Bible into Marathi]]		[[Category:Translators of the Bible into Marathi]]
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	[[Category:Christian revivalists]]		[[Category:Christian revivalists]]
	[[Category:Indian Protestant missionaries]]		[[Category:Indian Protestant missionaries]]
	~~[[Category:Indian evangelicals]]~~
	~~[[Category:Evangelical Anglicans]]~~
	[[Category:Missionary linguists]]		[[Category:Missionary linguists]]
			[[Category:Female Bible Translators]]

>Thenexttalk at 07:54, 8 January 2022

2022-01-08T07:54:40Z

New page

{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2018}}
{{Use Indian English|date=October 2015}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Pandita Ramabai
| image = Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati 1858-1922 front-page-portrait.jpg
| caption =
| birth_name = Rama Dongre
| birth_date = {{birth date|1858|4|23|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[Kanara|Canara district]], [[Madras Presidency]], [[British India]]<br/>(Now [[Karnataka|Karnataka, India]])
| death_date = {{death date and age|1922|4|5|1858|4|23|df=y}}
| death_place = [[Bombay Presidency]], British India
| nationality = Indian
| spouse = {{marriage|Bipin Behari Medhvi|1880|1882|reason=his death}}
| occupation = Social reformer
| years_active = 1885 to 1922
| organization = Pandita Ramabai Mukti Mission, Kedgaon
| known_for = Ministry among destitute and orphan girls
| notable_works = ''The High-Caste Hindu Woman''
| children = 1
}}

'''Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati''' (23 April 1858 – 5 April 1922) was an Indian [[reform movement|social reformer]], a pioneer in the education and emancipation of women in India. She was the first woman to be awarded the titles of ''[[Pandit]]a'' as a [[Sanskrit]] scholar and ''[[Sarasvati]]'' after being examined by the faculty of the [[University of Calcutta]].<ref name="WHN">{{cite web|title=Women's History Month: Pandita Ramabai|url=https://womenshistorynetwork.org/womens-history-month-pandita-ramabai/|website=Women's History Network|date=11 March 2011}}</ref> She was one of the ten women delegates of the [[History of the Indian National Congress|Congress]] session of 1889.<ref>{{Cite journal | url=https://www.academia.edu/4481937 | title=Indian Christianity and National Movements| last1=Kollanoor| first1=Greger}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.importantindia.com/15397/short-biography-of-pandita-ramabai/| title=Short Biography of Ramabai| date=25 May 2015| access-date=23 October 2016| archive-date=7 December 2018| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181207235117/https://www.importantindia.com/15397/short-biography-of-pandita-ramabai/| url-status=dead}}</ref> In the late 1890s, she founded Mukti Mission at [[Kedgaon railway station|Kedgaon]] village, forty miles east of the city of [[Pune]].<ref name="(Pandita)Ramabai2003">{{cite book|author1=Ramabai Sarasvati (Pandita)|author2=Pandita Ramabai|title=Pandita Ramabai's American Encounter: The Peoples of the United States (1889)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oJGKf0efsRMC&pg=PP1|year=2003|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=0-253-21571-4|pages=29–30}}</ref><ref name="Feldhaus1998">{{cite book|author=Anne Feldhaus|title=Images of Women in Maharashtrian Society|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0FobxiflfVQC&pg=PA192|date=29 January 1998|publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=978-0-7914-3660-8|page=205}}</ref> The mission was later named Pandita Ramabai Mukti Mission.

==Early life and education==
Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati was born as Ramabai Dongre on 23 April 1858 into a Marathi-speaking [[Chitpavan]] Brahmin family.<ref name="nyt">{{Cite news|title=Overlooked No More: Pandita Ramabai, Indian Scholar, Feminist and Educator|last=Khan|first=Aisha|newspaper=The New York Times|date=14 November 2018|url=https://nyti.ms/2DnDI6P}}</ref> Her father, Anant Shastri Dongre, a Sanskrit scholar, taught her Sanskrit at home. Dongre's extraordinary piety led him to travel extensively across India with his family in tow. Ramabai gained exposure to public speaking by participating in the family's public recitation of the Purana at pilgrimage sites around India, which is how they earned a meager living.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Kosambi|first=Meera|date=October 24–31, 1992|title=Indian Response to Christianity, Church and Colonialism: The Case of Pandita Ramabai|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4399059|journal=Economic and Political Weekly|volume=27|issue=43/44|pages=WS-62|jstor=4399059|via=JSTOR}}</ref> Orphaned at the age of 16 during the Great Famine of 1876–78, Ramabai and her brother Srinivas continued the family tradition of traveling the country reciting Sanskrit scriptures. Ramabai's fame as a woman adept in Sanskrit reached [[Calcutta]], where the pandits invited her to speak.<ref>''My Story'' by Pandita Ramabai. Pub: Christian Institute for Study of Religion and Society, Bangalore.</ref> In 1878, [[Calcutta University]] conferred on her the titles of Pandita and Sarasvati in recognition of her knowledge of various Sanskrit works.<ref name="icwhp">{{cite web|url=http://www.icwhp.org/cameo-pandita-ramabai-story.html |title=Intl' Christian Women's History Project & Hall of Fame |publisher=Icwhp.org |access-date=15 May 2015}}</ref><ref name="nyt" /> The theistic reformer [[Keshab Chandra Sen]] gave her a copy of the Vedas, the most sacred of all Hindu literature, and encouraged her to read them. After the death of Srinivas in 1880, Ramabai married Bipin Behari Medhvi, a Bengali lawyer.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last=Kosambi|first=Meera|title=Pandita Ramabai: Life and Landmark Writings|publisher=[[Routledge]]|year=2016|isbn=978-1138962453|location=New York|pages=121}}</ref> The groom was a Bengali [[Kayastha]], and so the marriage was inter-caste and inter-regional and therefore considered inappropriate for that age. They were married in a civil ceremony on 13 November 1880. The couple had a daughter whom they named Manorama. After Medhvi's death in 1882, Ramabai, who was only 23, moved to Pune and founded an organization to promote women's education.<ref name="nyt" />

==Social activism==
After Medhvi's death (1882), Ramabai moved to [[Pune]] where she founded Arya Mahila Samaj (Arya Women's Society). Influenced by the ideals of the [[Brahmo Samaj]] and Hindu reformers, the purpose of the society was to promote the cause of women's education and deliverance from the oppression of child marriage.<ref name=":1" /> When in 1882 the [[Hunter Commission]] was appointed by the colonial Government of India to look into education, Ramabai gave evidence before it. In an address before the Hunter Commission, she declared, "In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the educated men of this country are opposed to female education and the proper position of women. If they observe the slightest fault, they magnify the grain of mustard-seed into a mountain, and try to ruin the character of a woman." She suggested that teachers be trained and women school inspectors be appointed. Further, she said that as the situation in India was that women's conditions were such that women could only medically treat them, Indian women should be admitted to medical colleges. Ramabai's evidence created a great sensation and reached [[Queen Victoria]]. It bore fruit later in starting of the Women's Medical Movement by [[Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava|Lord Dufferin]]. In Maharashtra, Ramabai made contact with Christian organizations also involved in women's education and medical missionary work, in particular a community of Anglican nuns, the [[Community of St Mary the Virgin|Community of St. Mary the Virgin]] (CSMV).<ref name=":1" />

With earnings from the sale of her first book, ''Stri Dharma Niti'' ("Morals for Women," 1882) and contacts with the CSMV, Ramabai went to Britain in 1883 to start medical training; she was rejected from medical programs because of progressive deafness.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/obituaries/pandita-ramabai-overlooked.html|title=Overlooked No More: Pandita Ramabai, Indian Scholar, Feminist and Educator|date=2018-11-14|work=The New York Times|access-date=2020-03-26|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>Kosambi, M., 1988. Women, emancipation and equality: Pandita Ramabai's contribution to women's cause. Economic and political weekly, pp.WS38-WS49.[https://www.jstor.org/stable/4393987]</ref> During her stay she converted to Christianity. Among the reasons Ramabai gave for her conversion was her growing disillusionment with orthodox Hinduism and particularly what she saw as its ill regard of women. In an autobiographical account of her conversion written years later, Ramabai wrote that there were, "only two things on which all those books, the Dharma Shastras, the sacred epics, the Puranas and modern poets, the popular preachers of the present day and orthodox high-caste men, were agreed, that women of high and low caste, as a class were bad, very bad, worse than demons, as unholy as untruth; and that they could not get Moksha. as men."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Ramabai|first=Pandita|title=A Testimony|publisher=[[Ramabai Mukti Mission]]|year=1977 |orig-year=1907|location=Kedgaon}}</ref> Ramabai had a contentious relationship with her Anglican "mentors" in England, particularly Sister Geraldine, and asserted her independence in a variety of ways: she maintained her vegetarian diet, rejected aspects of Anglican doctrine that she regarded as irrational, including the doctrine of the [[Trinity]],<ref>{{Cite book|last=Viswanathan|first=Gowri|title=Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity, and Belief|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=1998|isbn=978-0691058993|location=Princeton, NJ}}</ref> and questioned whether the crucifix she was asked to wear had to have a Latin inscription instead of the Sanskrit inscription she wished for.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Kent|first=Eliza|title=The Routledge Handbook of Hindu-Christian Relations|publisher=[[Routledge]]|year=2021|isbn=9781003139843|editor-last=Bauman|editor-first=Chad M|location=New York|pages=250–251|chapter=Gender and the Social Boundaries between 'Hindus' and 'Christians'}}</ref>

in 1886, she traveled from Britain to the [[United States]] at the invitation of Dr. Rachel Bodley, Dean of the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, to attend the graduation of her relative<ref name=":0" /> and the first female Indian doctor, [[Anandibai Joshi]], staying for two years.<ref name=":2" /> During this time she also translated textbooks and gave lectures throughout the United States and Canada.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Jayawardena|first1=Kumari|title=The white woman's other burden: Western women and South Asia during British colonial rule|date=1995|publisher=Routledge|location=New York|isbn=978-0-415-91104-7|page=56}}</ref> She also published one of her most important books, ''The High-Caste Hindu Woman''. Her first book written in English, Ramabai dedicated it to her cousin, Dr. Joshi. ''The High-Caste Hindu Woman'' showed the darkest aspects of the life of Hindu women, including child brides and child widows, and sought to expose the oppression of women in Hindu-dominated British India. Through speaking engagements and the development of a wide network of supporters, Ramabai raise the equivalent of 60,000 rupees to launch a school in India for the child widows whose difficult lives her book exposed.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Shah|first=A.B.|title=The Letters and Correspondence of Pandita Ramabai. Compiled by Sister Geraldine|publisher=Maharashtra State Board for Literature and Culture|year=1977|location=Bombay|pages=xxi}}</ref>

While giving presentations in the U.S. to seek support for her work in India, Ramabai met American [[Suffragette]] and Women's rights activist, [[Frances Willard]] in July 1887. Willard invited Ramabai to speak at the national [[Woman's Christian Temperance Union]] convention in November 1887 where she gained the support of this large women's organization. She returned to India in June 1888 as a National Lecturer for the WCTU. [[Mary Greenleaf Clement Leavitt]], the first World Missionary of the WCTU, was already there when Ramabai returned, but they did not meet. Ramabai worked however with the WCTU of India once it was officially organized in 1893.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Osborne |first1=Lori |editor1-last=Waldschmidt-Nelson |editor1-first=Britta |editor2-last=Schuler |editor2-first=Anja |title=The World Woman's Christian Temperance Union: An Early Transnational Women's Organization and its Work in India, 1883-1900 |journal=Bulletin of the German Historical Institute Washington, Supplement |date=2017 |volume=13 |pages=129–142 |url= https://legacy.ghi-dc.org/fileadmin/user_upload/GHI_Washington/Publications/Supplements/Supplement_13/129.pdf |access-date=20 October 2020 |trans-title=Forging Bonds Across Borders: Transatlantic Collaborations for Women’s Rights and Social Justice in the Long Nineteenth Century}}</ref>

in 1889, she returned to India, and founded a school for child widows in Pune called Sharada Sadan, which had the support of many Hindu reformers, including [[Mahadev Govind Ranade|M.G. Ranade]]. Although Ramabai did not engage in overt evangelism, she did not hide her Christian faith either, and when several students converted to Christianity, she lost the backing of Pune's Hindu reform circles. She moved the school 60 kilometers east to the much quieter village of Kedgaon, and changed its name to the Mukti Mission. In 1896, during a severe famine, Ramabai toured the villages of Maharashtra with a caravan of bullock carts and rescued thousands of outcast children, child widows, orphans, and other destitute women and brought them to the shelter of the Mukti Mission. By 1900 there were 1,500 residents and over a hundred cattle in the Mukti mission. A learned woman knowing seven languages, she also translated the Bible into her mother tongue—Marathi—from the original Hebrew and Greek.. The Pandita Ramabai Mukti Mission is still active today, providing housing, education, vocational training, etc. for many needy groups including widows, orphans, and the blind.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gracevalley.org/teaching/2010/Untold_Tale_Revival_Pandita_Ramabai.html |title=Untold Tale of Revival: Pandita Ramabai | Grace Valley Christian Center |publisher=Gracevalley.org |access-date=15 May 2015}}</ref>

==Family life==
In many ways, Pandita Ramabai's family life departed from the norms expected of women in her day. Her childhood was full of hardships and she lost her parents early. Her marriage to Bipin Bihari Medhvi crossed caste lines. Moreover, when her husband died after just two years a marriage, she was left a widow. Under ordinary circumstances, such a tragedy put nineteenth century Indian women in a vulnerable condition, dependent upon their deceased husband's family for support. Pandita Ramabai, however, persevered as an independent woman, and a single mother to Manorama Bai. She ensured that Manorama Bai was educated, both in Wantage by the sisters of the CSMV, and later at Bombay University, where Manorama earned her BA. After going to the United States for higher studies, she returned to India where she worked side-by-side with Ramabai. Serving first as Principal of Sharada Sadan, she also assisted her mother in establishing Christian High school at Gulbarga (now in Karnataka), a backward district of south India, during 1912. In 1920 Ramabai's health began to flag and she designated her daughter as the one who would take over the ministry of Mukti Mission. However, Manorama died in 1921. Her death was a shock to Ramabai. Nine months later, on 5 April 1922, Ramabai herself died from septic bronchitis, a few weeks before her 64th birthday.<ref>''Panditha Ramabai Sarasvathi'' – Book in Kannada (1962) Pub by Christ Sahitya Sangha, Bangalore</ref>

==Awards and honors==
[[File:Pandita Ramabai 1989 stamp of India.jpg|thumb|Ramabai on a 1989 stamp of India]]
*"Pandit" and "Sarasvati" at Bengal (before going to Britain), recognizing her skills in Sanskrit.{{citation needed|date=April 2019}}
*[[Kaisar-i-Hind Medal|''Kaisari-i-Hind'' Medal]] for community service in 1919, awarded by the British Colonial Government of India.<ref>Butler (1922), [https://archive.org/details/panditaramabais00butlgoog/page/n98 p. 83]</ref>
*She is honored with a [[feast day]] on the [[Calendar of saints (Episcopal Church)|liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA)]] on 5 April,<ref>{{cite book |url=https://extranet.generalconvention.org/staff/files/download/19349 |format=PDF |title=A Great Cloud of Witnesses |publisher=Church Publishing |page=8 |isbn=9780898699661 |date=October 15, 2016 |df=dmy-all}}</ref> and she is [[Calendar of saints (Church of England)|remembered]] in the [[Church of England]] with a [[Commemoration (observance)|commemoration]] on [[April 30|30 April]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Calendar|url=https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/common-worship/churchs-year/calendar|access-date=2021-03-27|website=The Church of England|language=en}}</ref>
*On 26 October 1989, in recognition of her contribution to the advancement of Indian women, the Government of India issued a commemorative stamp.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://postagestamps.gov.in/Stamps_List.aspx |title=Indian Postage Stamps 1947–2000 |publisher=Department of Posts, Ministry of Communications, Government of India |access-date=2019-04-09 |df=dmy-all}}</ref>
*A road in Mumbai is also named in her honour. The road connecting Hughes Road to Nana Chowk, in the vicinity of the Gamdevi locality is known as Pandita Ramabai Marg.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://indianexpress.com/article/india/road-in-mumbai-named-after-woman-who-started-arya-mahila-samaj-4795565/ |title=Road in Mumbai named after woman who started Arya Mahila Samaj |last=Thale |first=Siddharaj |date=2017-08-14 |work=[[The Indian Express]] |access-date=2019-04-09 |df=dmy-all}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
{{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooks=yes|viaf=50029736 }}

==Further reading==
* [[Antoinette Burton|Burton, Antoinette]]. "Colonial encounters in late-Victorian England: Pandita Ramabai at Cheltenham and Wantage 1883–6." ''Feminist Review'' 49.1 (1995): 29–49.
* {{cite book |title=Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati: Pioneer in the movement for the education of the child-widow of India|author=Butler, Clementina |publisher= Fleming H. Revell Company, New York|year=1922|url= https://archive.org/stream/panditaramabaisa00butluoft#page/n5/mode/2up}}
* Case, Jay Riley. ''An Unpredictable Gospel'' (Oxford University Press, 2012)
* Chakravarti, Uma. ''Rewriting history: The life and times of Pandita Ramabai'' (Zubaan, 2014).
*Dyer, Helen S. ''Pandita Ramabai: the story of her life'' (1900) [https://archive.org/details/panditaramabais00dyergoog online]
* Kosambi, Meera. "Indian Response to Christianity, Church and Colonialism: Case of Pandita Ramabai." ''Economic and Political Weekly'' (1992): WS61-WS71. [http://www.epw.in/system/files/pdf/2015_50/11/indian_response_to_christianity_church_and_colonialism.pdf online]
* White, Keith J. "Insights into child theology through the life and work of Pandita Ramabai." ''Transformation'' (2007): 95-102. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/43052697 online]

===Primary sources===
*Pandita Ramabai, ''Pandita Ramabai's American Encounter: The Peoples of the United States'' (1889), [https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=lang_en&id=oJGKf0efsRMC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=%22Pandita+Ramabai%22&ots=axZAK0DLKE&sig=Gkm5e7eH2_0W02YXqLtE3V13uis#v=onepage&q=%22Pandita%20Ramabai%22&f=false online]
*Ramabai Sarasvati, Pandita. ''The High-Caste Hindu woman'' (1888) [https://archive.org/details/highcastehinduw00saragoog/page/n11 online]
* Sarasvati, Ramabai. ''Pandita Ramabai through her own words: Selected works'' (Oxford University Press, 2000).

==External links==
{{Commons category|Pandita Ramabai}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20110624004608/http://www.jeevanmarg.com/testimonies/pandita-ramabai-founder-of-mukti-mission/ Life Testimony of Pandita Ramabai]
*[http://www.saadigitalarchive.org/entity/pandita-ramabai Pandita Ramabai materials in the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20180305200017/http://www.knoxpcea.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=72%3Athe-story-of-ramabai&catid=40%3Achurch-history&Itemid=93%2F The Story of Ramabai]
*[http://www.mukti-mission.org/mukti/History.htm A Short History of Mukti Mission] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131021141312/http://mukti-mission.org/mukti/History.htm |date=21 October 2013 }}

{{Authority control}}

{{Indian Independence Movement}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ramabai, Pandita}}
[[Category:1858 births]]
[[Category:1922 deaths]]
[[Category:Converts to Anglicanism from Hinduism]]
[[Category:Converts to Protestantism from Hinduism]]
[[Category:Indian Anglicans]]
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[[Category:Recipients of the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal]]
[[Category:Translators of the Bible into Marathi]]
[[Category:Indian women's rights activists]]
[[Category:Indian social reformers]]
[[Category:19th-century Indian women]]
[[Category:19th-century Indian people]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian women]]
[[Category:19th-century Indian educational theorists]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian educational theorists]]
[[Category:Indian women educational theorists]]
[[Category:Marathi-language writers]]
[[Category:People from Dakshina Kannada district]]
[[Category:Activists from Karnataka]]
[[Category:Indian women activists]]
[[Category:Educators from Karnataka]]
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[[Category:19th-century translators]]
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[[Category:Indian women travel writers]]
[[Category:Christian revivalists]]
[[Category:Indian Protestant missionaries]]
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[[Category:Evangelical Anglicans]]
[[Category:Missionary linguists]]