22 Facts About Pandita Ramabai

Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati was an Indian social reformer and Christian missionary.

Pandita Ramabai was the first woman to be awarded the titles of Pandita as a Sanskrit scholar and Sarasvati after being examined by the faculty of the University of Calcutta.

Pandita Ramabai was one of the ten women delegates of the Congress session of 1889.

Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati was born as Ramabai Dongre on 23 April 1858 into a Marathi-speaking Chitpavan Brahmin family.

Pandita Ramabai was comfortable in addressing all genders but women in those times would not come out in public spaces.

Pandita Ramabai met Bipin Chandra Madhvi at the Sylhet District school who was part of the committee organised to welcome her.

Around this time Pandita Ramabai wrote a poem on the deplorable condition of Sanskrit and sent it to the forthcoming Oriental Congress to be held in Berlin.

When in 1882 the Hunter Commission was appointed by the colonial Government of India to look into education, Pandita Ramabai gave evidence before it.

Pandita Ramabai's evidence created a great sensation and reached Queen Victoria.

In Maharashtra, Pandita Ramabai made contact with Christian organizations involved in women's education and medical missionary work, in particular a community of Anglican nuns, the Community of St Mary the Virgin.

Pandita Ramabai published one of her most important books, The High-Caste Hindu Woman.

Willard invited Pandita 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.

Pandita Ramabai 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 Pandita Ramabai returned, but they did not meet.

Pandita Ramabai worked however with the WCTU of India once it was officially organized in 1893.

Pandita Ramabai 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, Pandita 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.

Pandita Ramabai's childhood was full of hardships and she lost her parents early.

Pandita Ramabai persevered as an independent woman, and a single mother to Manorama Bai.

Pandita Ramabai 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.

In 1920 Pandita Ramabai's health began to flag and she designated her daughter as the one who would take over the ministry of Mukti Mission.

Nine months later, on 5 April 1922, Pandita Ramabai herself died from septic bronchitis, at age 63.