Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati (23 April 1858 – 5 April 1922) was an Indian social reformer and Christian missionary. She 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. She was one of the ten women delegates of the Indian National Congress session of 1889. During her stay in England in early 1880s she converted to Christianity. She then toured extensively in the United States to collect funds for destitute Indian women. With the funds raised, she started Sharada Sadan (Home for Learning) for child widows. In the late 1890s, Ramabai founded Mukti Mission, a Christian charity at Kedgaon village, forty miles east of the city of Pune. The mission was later named Pandita Ramabai Mukti Mission. In 1883, she testified before the Hunter Commission in support of female education in India.
Early life and education Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati was born as Ramabai Dongre on 23 April 1858 into a Marathi-speaking Chitpavan high-caste Brahmin family. Her father, Anant Shastri Dongre, a Sanskrit scholar, taught her Sanskrit at home. Anant Dongre's extraordinary piety led him to travel extensively across India with his family in tow. Her mother, Lakshmi was married to the much older Anant Shastri at the age of nine. Anant Shastri was in favour of female education and started teaching Sanskrit to Lakshmi. This was in stark contrast to the prevalent customs. 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. Lakshmi became so adept at Sanskrit that she also would even teach young boys, but this was opposed severely by the orthodox Brahmins. These were the circumstances which compelled Anant Shastri to move with his family to a rather desolate place. Orphaned at the age of 16 during the Great Famine of 1876–78, Ramabai and her brother Srinivas continued the family tradition of travelling the country reciting Sanskrit scriptures. Ramabai was comfortable in addressing all genders but women in those times would not come out in public spaces. Sometimes, she would go inside the female quarters to convince the women to get educated. Ramabai's fame as a woman adept in Sanskrit reached Calcutta, where the pandits invited her to speak. A British officer, W. W. Hunter, was acquainted with her through news of her address in an Indian newspaper. Her address in the senate hall of Calcutta University was well-received and won her great acclaim. In 1878, Calcutta University conferred on her the titles of Pandita and Sarasvati in recognition of her knowledge of various Sanskrit works. This was her first exposure to the Bengali gentry and Christianity. Ramabai and Srinivas were meeting a number of Sanskrit scholars but she was quite astonished to attend a meeting of Christians. She admitted to being impressed by the Christian mode of worshipping. 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. This was the time Ramabai encountered new influences and began to question her old beliefs. She met Bipin Chandra Madhvi at the Sylhet District school, he was part of the committee organised to welcome her. After the death of Srinivas in 1880, Ramabai married Bipin Behari Medhvi, a Bengali lawyer, from the Kayastha community, a lower caste than Ramabai. The marriage was inter-caste and inter-regional and considered inappropriate during this period. They were married in a civil ceremony on 13 November 1880. The couple had a daughter on 16 April 1881 whom they named Manorama (english translation:heart's joy). Around this time Ramabai wrote a poem on the deplorable condition of Sanskrit and sent it to the forthcoming Oriental Congress to be held in Berlin. Its translation was read with her introduction and deep appreciation by Indologist Monier Monier-Williams. Unfortunately, Bipin Bihari Medhvi succumbed to cholera on 4 February 1882. This was a time that Ramabai recalled that due to her unorthodox ways, no one thought of her except her cousin Anandibai but in her depression, she could not respond to her kind offer of support. After Medhvi's death, Ramabai, who was only 23, moved to Pune and founded the 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.
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