Chapter II
THE HINDU WIDOW BEGINS HER LIFE-WORK: LESSONS LEARNED IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA.
" Thy words were found, and I did eat them ; and Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart:
for I am called by Thy name, O Lord God of Hosts."
Jer. XV. i6. RAMABAFS position in her widowed state dif-
fered from that of the millions of her fellow-
countrywomen when bereaved of their natural
protectors, in that she was not ignorant of the world and
its ways, and by the fact that she had an education fit-
ting her to open out a path of usefulness for herself.
Accordingly, we find her, within a few months of the
death of her husband, at Poona, the ancient capital of
the Marathas, having resumed her former occupation as
lecturer on the Education of Women.
The evil custom of confining high-caste women with-
in the four walls of the Zenana, which prevails in the
North-West Provinces and other parts of India, is un-
known among the Brahmins of the Maratha country.
In Poona and Bombay all Maratha women are free to
BEGINS HER LIFE WORK 31
walk and ride abroad^ to see and to be seen. This, and
the fact that Ramabai had relatives and family connec-
tions in Poona, drew her to recommence her career as
a lecturer at this great centre of Brahminism.
In prosecuting her object, Ramabai took her stand
upon her knowledge of the Shastras, and maintained
that their ancient teaching enjoined the instruction of women ; and that the neglected and ignorant condition
of women was a modern descent into degradation. She
advocated that high-caste girls should be instructed be-
fore marriage in Sanskrit and the vernacular. She also
strongly condemned the practice of child-marriage.
Ramabai's lectures made a wide impression upon the
best families in Poona, and, through her instrumen-
tality, a Society of high-caste women was formed, hav-
ing for its object the education of girls and tl;,e post-
ponement of marriage to maturity. Encouraged by
the success of this project in Poona, Ramabai went
from city to city throughout the Maratha country,
forming branches of the Arya Mahila Somaj, as this woman's Society was called. Ramabai also busied her-
self with writing and translating, in the endeavour to
create a literature helpful to her cause. In her leisure
hours she gave lessons on morality and religion to the women of Poona.
It was on Ramabai's heart during this time to start
an institution for the education and succour of helpless
32 PANDITA RAMABAI
widows. In this class she saw, in faith, the future
teachers of the high-caste girls. But she failed in get-
ting the necessary financial support from the Hindu
community to put this cherished plan into execution.
It was here and now, however, that she rescued her first
widow. The girl was a waif of the Poona streets, a
Brahmin child of twelve years, cast out by her hus-
band's relatives after his death. For several years she
had lived the life of a street arab. Her appeal to
Ramabai was not on the ground of starvation and
homelessness, but on the ever-increasing difficulty of
keeping her budding womanly honour intact. To her
homely face and strange defective eyes she probably
owed her escape from the harpies of vice thus far.
Ramabai was poor herself, but she took the girl in,
to share whatever food she had, and to protect her from
wrong and outrage. She is now a useful Bible-
woman, labouring in connection with Ramabai's settle-
ment at Mukti.
In 1882 the British Government appointed a Com-
mission to inquire into the question of Education in
India. The terms of reference included the definite and
separate question of female education; and when the
Commission visited Poona, it was invited to a reception
by over three hundred Brahmin women connected with
Ramabai's Arya Mahila Somaj, who with their children
BEGINS HER LIFE WORK 33
assembled in the Town Hall at Poona. Ramabai was
the speaker, and her subject the Education of Women.
Subsequently Ramabai was examined before the
Commission, and the President was so struck with her
evidence that he had it translated from the Marathi and
printed in English. In her replies to the questions
put by the Commission, Ramabai told of her father's
strenuous efforts for the education of women, of her
brother's views, and those of her late husband, who
was a Vakil,^ and fellow of Calcutta University. She
told the Commission that she felt herself bound to the
end of her life to labour on behalf of her country-
women. She advocated that Girls' Schools should
have specially trained women teachers ; that women in-
spectors should also be employed; and concluded with
a forcible appeal that Government should make pro-
vision for the study of medicine by women, doctors of
their own sex being, in her opinion, one of the greatest
needs of the women of India.
The publicity given to the proceedings of the Edu-
cation Commission brought Ramabai into notice in cir-
cles other than the Marathi Brahmins. She now began
to feel that she herself needed more training and experi-
ence in regard to the education of others. At this time
she was unacquainted with the English language, al-
though so well versed in those of India; and the idea
*A lawyer.
34 PANDITA RAMABAI
that she should go to England for study and training
forced itself again and again upon her mind.
Ever since the death of her brother, and more par-
ticularly again after her husband died, Ramabai had felt
in an undefined manner that God was guiding her.
Disillusioned by painful experiences during her girl-
hood from the superstitions of Hinduism, she was still
working from the Hindu standpoint. She knew but
little of Christianity, and had no thought of becoming a
Christian, but believed in an all-powerful deity whom
she felt to be guiding her. Her mind became possessed
of a divine unrest ; and given the opportunity, she one
day found herself bound for England—going forth, as
she says, like Abraham, not knowing whither she went.
Arriving in England with her baby daughter, Ramabai
was kindly received by a Church of England Sisterhood
at Wantage, a community having a mission at Poona.
Here she remained for a year, studying the English
language, and adding to her stock of information in
many ways.
Four years before, when in Calcutta, Ramabai had
made her first acquaintance with the Christian Scrip-
tures. Keshub Chunder Sen, the founder of the
Brahmo sect of Reformed Hindus, had given her a lit-
tle book of precepts from all religions, most of which
were from the New Testament. This greatly attracted
BEGINS HER LIFE WORK 35
her ; and later she possessed herself of a complete Bible,
and commenced to read it.
At Wantage, time and opportunity to study the sub-
ject were afforded ; and here Ramabai confessed herself
a Christian, and was baptized, with her little daughter,
according to the custom of the Church of England, on
September 29th, 1883.
The difference that Ramabai at that time discerned
between the good precepts of the Hindu Scriptures and
the Gospel of Jesus Christ she thus expressed : " While
the old Hindu Scriptures have given us some beautiful
precepts of loving, the New Dispensation of Christ has
given us the grace to carry these principles mto prac-
tice; and that makes all the difference in the world.
The precepts are like a steam engine on the track, beau-
tiful and with great possibilities ; Christ and His Gospel
are the steam, the motive power that can make the
engine move."
After the year spent at Wantage, Ramabai received
the appointment of Professor of Sanskrit in the Chelt-
enham Ladies' College, where she found opportunity to
study mathematics, natural science, and English liter-
ature. The immediate goal of her mental horizon was
at this time bounded by a possible Government appoint-
ment in connection with the education of women in
India.
36 PANDITA RAMABAI
A year and a half was spent at Cheltenham, when an
invitation to visit America opened out a new vista be-
fore Ramabai's eyes, and led to important results. A
high-caste Hindu lady from Poona, a friend and relative
of Ramabai, had followed her in her determination to be
of use to the millions of their fellow-countrywomen.
Anaridibai Joshi had reached America, and studied
medicine in the Women's Medical College of Philadel-
phia. She was now about to graduate as M.D., and the
invitation to Ramabai was to witness this ceremony.
Ramabai's mind was agitated, she did not desire any
interruption to her studies ; but finally came to the con-
clusion that it would be a help to her life-work to visit
America. She went with the intention of staying a
few weeks. She stayed almost three years.
The public school system of America—including
girls as well as boys, and the Kindergarten, training
hand as well as head—greatly attracted Ramabai. She
felt she must remain and study these ; and in the course
of a few months she enrolled herself for a course of
Kindergarten study in a Philadelphia training school.
In Rachel Bodley, A.M., M.D., the Dean of the Wo-
men's Medical College in Philadelphia, Ramabai found a
true friend, and with her also a home. Dr. Bodley
had sheltered Anandibai Joshi, and helped her in her
studies ; and the sad news of the untimely death of that
devoted little Indian woman, a few months after her re-
BEGINS HER LIFE WORK 37
turn to her husband and home in India, bound Dr.
Bodley more closely to Ramabai, and evoked in her a
keener interest in her plans for the future. For now all
Ramabai's old desire to benefit her countrywomen by
founding schools which combined the training of the
hand with that of the head, revived; and forsaking
plans which regarded only the higher education of the
few women in Government High Schools or Colleges
in India, she concentrated her thoughts upon native
schools founded by and for native women.
While living with Dr. Bodley and studying Kinder-
garten methods, Ramabai wrote her famous book, en-
titled, " The High-Caste Hindu Woman." Here she
portrayed the true history of countless thousands of
lives doomed by a perverted and decaying religious sys-
tem of lifelong ignorance ; to child-marriage with all its
evils; to the absorption of young wives into the joint
family system ; to the terrible abuse and degradation of
widowhood; and to the re-action of this treatment of women upon social and family life in India.
Dr. Bodley prefaced the book with an admirable
treatise, sketching the devoted life and early death of
Anandibai Joshi, relating Ramabai's history, and sup-
porting and enforcing her appeal for help to go back to
India and found an educational home for young
widows, who in their turn should go forth as teachers
to enlighten the darkness of their countrywomen.
*. *'
CHAPTER HI.
DREAMS BECOME REALITY; THE SCHOOL FOR HIGH-
' CASTE WIDOWS ESTABLISHED IN INDIA.
"He brought them forth also with silver and gold."—PsA.
cv. 37.
I ^HE silence of a thousand years has been
44 r
I broken! " aptly declared Dr. Bodley in her
preface to Ramabai's volume, entitled,
" The High-Caste Hindu Woman."
Missionaries and travellers had had many a story to
tell of the inaccessibility of Hindu women immured
within the four walls of the Zenana. Those who had
gained access behind the purdah, or mingled with the
castes not entirely secluded, had felt the wall of separa-
tion raised by Oriental customs; so that, as yet, but a
corner of the vail had been lifted. But now a voice
had arisen from among themselves to tell with intimate
knowledge how the ironbound customs of centuries had
ground woman into a position of servitude and igno-
rance ; making her at one and the same time the slave of
man, and his greatest hindrance in rising to the higher
plane of life held out by the religion of Jesus Christ.
DREAMS BECOME REALITY 39
The book opened the way for Ramabai to the hearts
of a class of cultured, earnest American women, who
became deeply interested in the story of the imprisoned,
contracted lives of India's daughters. Many of these
were the abolitionists of America's great anti-slavery
struggle of the previous decade. In the ranks of the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union Ramabai found
much help and encouragement. The late Frances E.
Willard became her warm friend, and through her in-
fluence much interest was evoked.
Ramabai's lifelong desire to educate Hindu widows
that through them a door might be opened into the
dense darkness of Hinduism—now took tangible shape.
Ramabai travelled up and down the United States,
speaking to large audiences here, and drawing-room
meetings there, gaining interest and forming circles of
help; at the same time exercising an alert eye with re-
gard to every kind of educational enterprise with which
she came in contact, noting many points for adaptation
to the work in India later on.
At an overflowing meeting held in Boston in May,
1887, when the audience was moved to tears and laugh-
ter by her pathos and keen wit, a provisional committee
of women was formed to consider Ramabai's plans—to
act with her, and report later. On December 13th of
the same year, at another public meeting, the Provision-
al Committee presented a report that was accepted, a
40 PANDITA RAMABAI
list of officers who were elected, a constitution that was
adopted; and the temporary Association became an
organized body—it seemed to spring into existence
and Ramabai saw her long-cherished plans take definite
form. That night her joy was too great for sleep;
when found sobbing in her room, she exclaimed, " I am
crying for joy that my dream of years has become a
reahty." The President and Vice-President of the As-
sociation comprised members of five denominations ; the
Board of Trustees, composed of some of the best busi-
ness and professional men of Boston, was equally un-
sectarian, as was the Executive Committee, formed en-
tirely of women.
Among converts to Christianity in India, especially
those of the older Missions, there is a frequent trend to-
wards a European style of living, fostered in some cases,
without any intention on the part of the missionary, by
the life in Christian boarding-schools, conducted after
European plans. This, by setting Western ideals of
life before the Indian Christian, leads to discontent with
the simple native customs of food and dress. Their
incomes will not support them in Western luxuries;
and, in consequence, the converts find themselves fre-
quently in debt and difficulty.
This aspect of conversion to Christianity is looked
upon with great disfavour by the Hindu community;
and by its more ignorant members is regarded as part
DREAMS BECOME REALITY 41
of the Christian religion. Ramabai keenly felt this
anomaly ; and realizing that Christianity was an Asiatic
religion, and as such ought to be adaptable to India
without Western additions, she wisely determined to
maintain her Indian habits in all customs of food and
dress. She would show her country people, on her
return to India, that to become Christians, it was not
necessary to denationalise themselves.
In fact, Ramabai's strict vegetarian diet must have
caused some difficulty to her American hostesses, even
as their grand dinners, of which she coul4 eat so little,
were a source of embarrassment to her. Brought up
as she had been, with an intense repugnance to any
kind of flesh-eating, it was an ordeal to be seated at
table in the place of honour next to the host, with a
smoking roast of meat in front of him (the smell of
which overpowered her) , and to have to decline every-
thing except a little bread and plain vegetable. But
Ramabai, persevered in her determination, and returned
to India as much of a Brahmin in food and habits, save
as to their religious aspects, as she left it.
Ramabai having become a Christian, placed her, how-
ever, in a more serious difficulty than that of food, viz.,
the place in regard to religion which her educational
home for widows should occupy. She had left her
country in full sympathy with the more advanced Hin-
du reformers ; she was returning, having cut herself off
42 PANDITA RAMABAI
from their sympathies by becoming a Christian. But
she yearned more than ever to reach her own people;
and the only method that approved itself to her judg-
ment was to offer an education neutral as to religious
teaching. Her plans in this respect were fully criticised
as she went about expounding them to American audi-
ences.
Many spiritually-minded people committed to mis-
sionary enterprise could not see why Ramabai should
not cast in her lot with some Mission, and open an
avowed Mission School. But Ramabai was strongly
of opinion that no Mission School would reach the class
for which her heart was aching. The people were too
prejudiced against Christianity. Their widows were
taught that it was better to commit suicide and be sure
of heaven, rather than enter any institution established
for the purpose of turning them from their ancestral
faith.
In the midst of this controversy, Ramabai cast no
slur on Missions or Mission work ; but she rallied many
to her standard outside of the ordinary supporters of
Missions. In an interview with the representative of a
Chicago daily paper, in December, 1887, on being asked
to give her opinion on the good done by missionaries in
India, Ramabai said : " Missionaries are showing by
their precepts and example that Christianity does not
mean going into other countries and taking possession
DREAMS BECOME REALITY 43
of them, putting taxes upon the people, introducing the
liquor traffic, and gaining a great deal of revenue from
the infamous traffics in rum and opium. As their
numbers multiply they are gaining a foothold in the
country, and also commanding the love and respect of
the people by their earnestness in missionary work.
. . . And finally, the blessed Gospel will be every-
where preached by the missionaries; and I hope some
day we shall owe to their labours and their prayers a
great army of Christian apostles among our people who
will eventually regenerate the whole Hindu nation
through their lives and their teachings."
In the same interview, with a variety of illustrations,
Ramabai enforced her belief that the work she desired
to do would prepare the way of missionaries by enabling
widows to rise to an independent position in which they
would be free to accept Christianity as she herself had
*' Christ," argued Ramabai, " came to give dif-
done.
ferent gifts to different people—some He made proph-
ets ; some He made preachers ; some He made teachers.
Since I have become a Christian I have thought He has
given me the gift of being a sweeper. I want to sweep away some of the old difficulties that lie before the mis-
sionaries in their efforts to reach our Hindu widows."
Ramabai further declared her belief that having the
widows brought under the influence of her school, with
the Bible placed in the hands of every pupil, Christian
44 PANDITA RAMABAI
women as teachers, and Christian literattire in its
Hbrary, many would be won to see the beauty of Chris-
tianity, and embrace it for themselves. Thus it came to pass that the platform of her work was declared to be neutral as to its religious teaching. Her Hindu pupils were to have full liberty to retain
thelt caste, and perform their religious observances.
In due time the " Ramabai Association " was com-
plete. Its headquarters were in Boston; its base,
" Ramabai Circles,'' in towns and cities all over the
country. Members of circles pledged themselves to
give or collect a certain sum annually for ten years, to
equip and sustain a home and school in India for the
education and support of high-caste Hindu widows.
In May, 1888, Ramabai bade good-bye to her Boston
friends and went on to Canada, and thence to the Pacific
Coast, gaining friends and forming circles all the way.
In November of the same year she left America for India
via San Francisco and Hong Kong, and thus got a
glimpse of China on the way. She arrived in Bombay
on February ist, 1889, and chose that city in which to commence her work. Six weeks later the Widow's Home was quietly inaugurated in a house just back of
the Chowpatty Sea-face. The modest announcement
of " Sharada Sadan " (Abode of Wisdom) was placed
on a board on its frontage. School commenced with
two pupils, and the alphabet in three languages,
DREAMS BECOME REALITY 45
Marathi, English, and Sanskrit. One of the pupils
had thrice attempted suicide, restrained only by the fear
of being again born a woman. She is now the educat-
ed wife of a professor in Poona College, and a happy
mother.
The Hindu reform circles in Bombay and Poona gave Ramabai a welcome ; her assurances of neutrality as to.
religion were generally, though cautiously, accepted;
and, in a short time, more pupils of the desired class were obtained. Ramabai went in and out among the Hindus, and had frequent opportunities of lecturing as
of yore, when she always commanded a large audience.
Miss Soonderbai H. Powar, at that time engaged in work among women in connection with one of the Bombay Missions, first brought me news of Ramabai and
her work. She had visited Ramabai and been introduced to the pupils in residence. Her calling as a
teacher of the Bible had been explained to them, and an opportunity to give a talk on the Bible and Christian-
ity was afforded her. Ramabai's little daughter, Manorama, then about nine years old, had won Soon-
derbai's heart, by insisting that she was a Christian, and that the Bible was her Shastra.
In the course of a year or so, Ramabai moved the Sharada Sadan to Poona, as being a more healthy place,
cheaper, and more suitable in every way for the work than Bombay. In 1892, through the continued gener-
46 PANDITA RAMABAI
osity of her American friends, she was enabled to pur-
chase a commodious bungalow in a fine position in
Poona, standing in about two acres of ground, which
made an admirable home for the Sharada Sadan.