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 Pandita as a Sanskrit scholar and Sarasvati after being examined by the faculty of the University of Calcutta.
Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati was born as Ramabai Dongre on 23 April 1858 into a Marathi-speaking Chitpavan Brahmin family.
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.
Her mother, Lakshmi was married to 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 that compelled Anant Shastri to move with his family to a rather desolate place.
1876
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 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.
1878
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.
Rama and Shrinivas were meeting a number of Sanskrit scholars but she was quite astonished to attend a meeting of Christians.
She admitred 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 who was part of the committee organised to welcome her.
1880
During her stay in England in early 1880s she converted to Christianity.
After that she toured extensively in the United States to collect funds for destitute Indian women.
With the funds raised she started Sharada Sadan for child widows.
After the death of Srinivas in 1880, Ramabai married Bipin Behari Medhvi, a Bengali lawyer.
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.
1881
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 transalation was read with her introduction and deep appreciation by Indologist Monier Monier-Williams.
1882
Unfortunately, Bipin Bihari Medhvi succumbed to cholera on 4 February 1882.
This was a time that Rama recalls that due to her unorthodox ways, no one thought of her except her cousin Anandibai but in her depression, she could not rspond to her kind offer of support.
After Medhvi's death, Ramabai, who was only 23, moved to Pune and founded an organisation to promote women's education.
When in 1882 the Hunter Commission was appointed by the colonial Government of India to look into education, Ramabai gave evidence before it.
1889
She was one of the ten women delegates of the Congress session of 1889.
1890
In the late 1890s, she 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.
