Pandita Ramabai: the story of her life

Introduction

TOWARDS the close of the eighteenth century, when books were few, a remarkable volume entitled " Monumental Pillars," was published for English Christians. It was compiled from authentic records of the Lord's dealings in providence and grace with individual Christians; of summary justice meted out to those who had blasphemed His name ; of wonderful dreams and their fulfilment ; of preservation of life through following the inner guidance of the Spirit of God; and similar testimonies tending to show the direct individual methods of God with the children of men, and of the absolute certainty of a particular providential care over their lives.

The story told in the following pages will show how the Lord, having a purpose of grace towards the downtrodden widows of India, has raised up one of that despised class to erect a " Monumental Pillar '' to His name. The whole may be designated as a Record of Answered Prayers and Fulfilled Promises. Ramabai could adopt the language of Eliezer of old, and say,

6 INTRODUCTION

" I being in the way, the Lord led me." The human part of the work has been persevering faith and obedience ; and as God dehghts to honour faith, the blessing has come, and the work has grown.

When, in the providence of God, my husband was obliged to relinquish the work in India in which we had been engaged for more than ten years, it was impressed upon my mind that the Lord would have us do something in England for Ramabai. This book has been written in response to that impression.

We know also that Ramabai covets the prayers of God's people. It has therefore been on our hearts to do something to bring this work more definitely before the Lord's remembrancers. Ramabai is intensely desirous that all the glory should be given to God. In a recent letter she writes : " I do not want to be in this place, or have anything to do in connection with it, unless the Lord wants me to be here. It is all His work, and He will take care of it. He is giving me joy, and grace, and strength, for the work day by day. I want you to pray very much for me, that I may be kept very humble and close to Christ." She says that she has had it on her mind to ask Christian people to form prayer circles specially to pray for the salvation of India's twenty-three millions of widows. She believes that if two or three believing ones would meet together and agree upon this subject, and pray specially for it,

INTRODUCTION 7

the Lord would answer their prayer, and qualify those whom she is training to go out in increasing numbers with the Gospel message. In a letter I received from her, in reference to this, she says : " I shall be glad indeed if a Prayer Circle be organized in England, and the Lord permitting, for you to take a leading part in organizing it. I tried to get some friends to do it when I was in England in 1898; but it was not the Lord's will then to let the plan be carried out. I am awaiting His time and orders, and leave everything to Him."

After much prayerful consideration we have therefore launched the

Sisters of India Prayer Union,

to include first of all the work for India's daughters in the hands of Pandita Ramabai, and any other work of faith and labour of love carried on by the women of India for the salvation of their own people.

I shall be glad to send further particulars to any who may write to me.

Helen S. Dyer.

Contents

PAGE

Introduction • ^

Chapter I

The Child of the Forest; An Orphan; A Pilgrim; A Wife; And a Widow ii

CHAPTER n

The Hindu Widow Begins Her Life-work: Lessons

Learned in England and America 30

CHAPTER HI

Dreams Become Reality; The School for High-caste Widows Established in India 38

CHAPTER IV

A Visit to the " Sharada Sadan," and a Glimpse at Some of its Pupils 47

CHAPTER V

Some of Ramabai's Pupils Become Christians ; Opposition and Persecution 57

CHAPTER VI The Marble Halls of Hinduism 66

CHAPTER VII Plans for the Future; Ramabai's Spiritual Experiences. . T7 lo CONTENTS

CHAPTER VIII

PAGE

CHAPTER IX The Famine of 1897, and the Rescue of Starving Widows 100

CHAPTER X "Mukti" — the New Settlement at Khedgaon 113

CHAPTER XI Material Progress and Spiritual Advancement 129

CHAPTER XII Rescue Work During the Famine of 1900 145

The Story of Her Life

CHAPTER I.

THE CHILD OF THE FOREST ; AN ORPHAN ; A PILGRIM ; A wife; and a WIDOW.

" God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty ; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in His presence." — I Cor. i. 27-29.

AN eloquent commentary on these inspired words may be found in the life and work of Pandita Ramabai. For in her " God hath chosen " a weak Indian widow to do mighty works in His great name. An emancipated member of a class of women held in the bondage of idolatry and superstition for ages, Ramabai, having found light, liberty, and salvation for herself, seeks the same for her fellow-widows, her race, and her country. Measurably in sight of a comfortable Government appointment — the Eldorado of thousands

II in India — she gave it up, in the prospect of devoting herself to the uplifting and enlightening of Hindu widows.

It is characteristic of Ramabai that she works with all her heart and soul for the highest ideal she knows ; and as soon as more light dawns upon her, she leaves the things that are behind, and reaches out to that which opens up in the vista of the future. This thought explains the developments of her work and plans during the past years, and prepares those who know her well for further surprising developments in the future.

If Ramabai's work has not patterned itself after the exact ideal set out in her mind when she returned to India in 1887 — to begin a school that should open the paths of knowledge to young widows in such a way that they should not have to dread the loss of their ancestral religion — it has been prosecuted according to the pattern revealed to her " in the Mount." ^ While still holding open a door to a liberal education to the high caste Hindu widow, without causing her to break her caste, Ramabai has herself become the moving spirit in an aggressive. Evangelistic, and Industrial Mission.

To sketch the developments of this work as personally observed by the writer, is the object of these chapters; but an outline of the life-story of this re-

*Heb. viii. 5- markable woman is necessary for those unacquainted with her history.

There are factors in making Ramabai the woman she is which date back to forty years before her birth, when her father, Ananta Shastri, a student at Poona, was witness of the (to him) astonishing fact that a woman could be taught to read and recite Sanskrit. His tutor was also tutor to one of the princesses in the household of the Royal Peishwa; and Ananta Shastri made up his mind that knowledge was an excellent thing for a woman as well as for a man, and that his wife should be taught to read also. In due time he returned to his ancestral home in the Mangalore district ; but his bride and his mother both opposed his efforts to teach the former, and he was obliged to relinquish the plan.

Years passed ; his family grew up, his wife died, and he set out on pilgrimage. From a fellow-pilgrim with daughters he obtained a fine little girl of nine years for his second wife, took her home and delivered her to his mother, as usual, for domestic training, but asserted his right to teach the child to read. Continual opposition caused him to realize that this experiment was likely to fail also ; so he took his wife and started off into the forest, where a rude home was made. The child-wife was tenderly cared for, but sedulously taught; so that in the process of years, when womanhood and the cares of family life came on, it was her voice that taught the sacred learning of the Brahmins to the children of the family. The father was revered as a holy as well as a learned man, and pilgrims and students flocked into his forest home. Ramabai venerates the memory of her father, believing that, like Cornelius, the old Brahmin scholar was one of the class whom Peter confessed to be " accepted " with God.^

It was in this forest home that Ramabai's childhood was spent; and among her earliest recollections are those of being awakened in the early mornings by a loving mother to hear and repeat her lessons. Her love of reading was from a child remarkable. Sanskrit, in which all the classics of Hinduism are written, was to her as her mother tongue. The ponderous volumes which form the scriptures of Hinduism were all accessible to her, and she became familiar with their contents and doctrines. At twelve years of age she had committed to memory eighteen thousand verses from the Puranas. This religious learning forms the highest education of the Brahmin or priestly caste, to which Ramabai's family belonged. She says that though she was not formally taught Marathi, yet hearing her parents speak it, and being in the habit of reading newspapers and books in that language, she

*Acts X, 35.

acquired a correct knowledge of it. In the same manner when travelHng about she acquired also a knowledge of Kanarese, Hindustani, and Bengali. In fact, she may be said to have a knowledge of all those dialects of India which are based on the Sanskrit, the sacred language of the East. With her parents and brother all enthusiasts in Brahminic learning, and pioneers in the education of women, it was no wonder that Ramabai's remarkable talents were cultivated, till she became, under their instruction, a "prodigy of erudition.*'

I have before me a photograph taken in Bombay between thirty and forty years ago. It is a copy of an old daguerreotype, a family group. The father, an aged man ; the mother, a comely woman under thirty ; a boy and a girl in their teens ; and Ramabai, a little maiden of seven, nestling at her mother's side. Their Spartan adherence to all Hindu customs was well illustrated by this journey to Bombay. They came from the Malabar coast by sea in a country vessel, and not a morsel of food or a drop of water passed the lips of one of them while on the journey, which lasted three days— Ramabai remembers them keenly now, as days of misery.

The poverty that overtook the family in Ramabai's early teens was partly caused by the open house kept for so many years for pilgrims and students; and then

J 5 PANDITA RAMABAI

came the beginnings of the terrible famine which culminated in South India in 1876-77, but which, Ramabai says, was keenly felt by many three years before. The share of the ancestral land, to which her brother was heir, was sold, with his consent, to pay the family debts, and the family went on pilgrimage. How they parted with all their money, jewels, and valuables in the vain hope of propitiating the gods and securing a return of fortune's favours, Ramabai has pathetically told in her " Famine Experiences," as follows :-—

" My recollections carry me back to the hard times some twenty-two years ago. The last great famine of Madras presidency reached its climax in the years 1876-77, but it began at least three years before that time. I was in my teens then, and so thoroughly ignorant of the outside world that I cannot remember observing the condition of other people, yet saw enough of distress in our own and a few other families to realize the hard-heartedness of unchanged human nature.

" High caste and respectable poor families, who are not accustomed to hard labour and pauperism, suffered then, as they do now, more than the poorer classes. My own people, among many others, fell victims to the terrible famine. We had known better days. My father was a land-holder and an honoured Pandit,* and had acquired wealth by his learning. But by-and-by, *A learned man or teacher.

when he became old and infirm and blind in the last days of his earthly life, he lost all the property in one way or another. My brother, sister, and myself, had no secular education to enable us to earn our livelihood by better work than manual labour. We had all the sacred learning necessary to lead an honest religious life, but the pride of caste and superior learning and vanity of life prevented our stooping down to acquire some industry whereby we might have saved the precious lives of our parents.

" In short, we had no common sense, and foolishly spent all the money we had in hand in giving alms to Brahmins to please the gods, who, we thought, would send a shower of gold mohurs upon us and make us rich and happy. We went to several sacred places and temples, to worship different gods and to bathe in sacred rivers and tanks to free ourselves from sin and curse, which brought poverty on us. We prostrated ourselves before the stone and metal images of the gods, and prayed to them day and night ; the burden of our prayer being that the gods would be pleased to give us wealth, learning, and renown. My dear brother, a stalwart young fellow of twenty-one, spoilt his health and wasted his finely built body by fasting months and months. But nothing came of all this futile effort to please the gods — the stone images remained as hard as ever, and never answered our prayers. Oh that we had found out then that, 'Every man is brutish in his knowledge, every founder is confounded by the graven image ; for his molten image is falsehood ' ; * The idols have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have told false dreams ; they comfort in vain.'

" We knew the Vedanta, and knew also that we worshipped not the images, but some gods whom they represented — still all our learning and superior knowledge was of no avail. We bowed to the idols as thousands of learned Brahmins do. We expected them to speak to us in wonderful oracles. We went to the astrologers with money and other presents, to know from them the minds of the gods concerning us. In this way we spent our precious time, strength, and wealth, in vain. When no money was left in hand we began to sell the valuable things belonging to us — ^jewelry, costly garments, silver-ware; and even the cooking vessels of brass and copper were sold to the last, and the money spent in giving alms to Brahmins till nothing but a few silver and copper coins were left in our possession. We bought coarse rice with them and ate very sparingly ; but it did not last long. At last the day came when we had finished eating the last grain of rice — and nothing but death by starvation remained for our portion. Oh the sorrow, the helplessness, and the disgrace of the situation !

" We assembled together to consider what we should do next; and after a long discussion came to the conclusion that it was better to go into the forest and die there than bear the disgrace of poverty among our own people. And that very night we left the house in which we were staying at Tirpathy — a sacred town situated on the top of Venkatghiri — and entered into the great forest, determined to die there. Eleven days and nights — in which we subsisted on water and leaves and a handful of wild dates — were spent in great bodily and mental pain. At last our dear old father could hold out no longer — the tortures of hunger were too much for his poor, old, weak body. He determined to drown himself in a sacred tank near by, thus to end all his earthly suffering. It was suggested that the rest of us should either drown ourselves, or break the family and go our several ways. But drowning ourselves seemed most* practicable. To drown oneself in some sacred river or tank is not considered suicide by the Hindus; so we felt free to put an end to our lives in that way. Father wanted to drown himself first; so he took leave of all the members of the family one by one. I was his youngest child, and my turn came last. I shall never forget his last injunctions to me. His blind eyes could not see my face; but he held me tight in his arms, and stroking my head and cheeks, he told me, in a few words broken with emotion, to remember how he loved me, and how he taught me to do right, and never depart from the way of righteousness. His last loving command to me was to lead an honourable life if I lived at all, and to serve God all my life. He did not know the only true God, but served the — to him — unknown God with all his heart and strength; and he was very desirous that his children should serve Him to the last. ' Remember, my child,' he said, * you are my youngest, my most beloved child. I have given you into the hand of our God; you are His, and to Him alone you must belong, and serve Him all your life.'

" He could speak no more. My father's prayers for me were, no doubt, heard by the Almighty, the allmerciful Heavenly Father, whom the old Hindu did not know. The God of all flesh did not find it impossible to bring me, a great sinner and unworthy child of His, out of heathen darkness into the saving light of His love and salvation. I can now say to the departed spirit of the loving parent — ' Yes, dear father, I will serve the only true God to the last.' But I could not say so when my father spoke to me for the last time. I listened to him, but was too ignorant, too bewildered to understand him, or make an intelligent answer. We were after this dismissed from father's presence; he wanted an hour for meditation and preparation before death.

" While we were placed in such a bewildering situation, the merciful God, who so often prevents His sinful children from rushing headlong into the deep pit of sin, came to our rescue. He kept us from the dreadful act of being witnesses to the suicide of our own loved father. God put a noble thought into the heart of my brother, who said he could not bear to see the sad sight. He would give up all caste pride and go to work to support our old parents ; and as father was unable to walk, he said he would carry him down the mountain into the nearest village, and then go to work. He made his intentions known to father, and begged him not to drown himself in the sacred tank. So the question was settled for that time. Our hearts were gladdened, and we prepared to start from the forest. And yet we wished very much that a tiger, a great snake, or some other wild animal would put an end to our lives. We v/ere too weak to move, and too proud to beg or work to earn a livelihood. But the resolution was made, and we dragged ourselves to the jungle as best we could.

*' It took us nearly two days to come out of the forest into the village at the foot of the mountain. Father suffered intensely throughout this time. Weakness caused by starvation and the hardships of the life in the wilderness hastened his death. We reached the village with great difficulty, and took shelter in a temple; but the Brahmin priests of the temple would not let us stay there. They had no pity for the weak and helpless. So we were obliged again to move from the temple and go out of the village into the ruins of an old temple where no one but the wild animals dwelt in the night. There we stayed for four days. A young Brahmin seeing the helplessness of our situation gave us some food.

" The same day on which we reached that village, my father was attacked by fever from which he did not recover. On the first day, at the beginning of his last illness, he asked for a little sugar and water. We gave him water, but could not give sugar. He could not eat the coarse food, and shortly after he became unconscious, and died on the morning of the third day.

" The same kind young Brahmin who had given us some food came to our help at that time. He could not do much. He was not sure whether we were Brahmins or not ; and as none of his co-villagers would come to carry the dead, he could not, for fear of being put out of caste, come to help my brother to carry the remains of my father. But he had the kindness to let some men dig a grave at his own expense, and follow the funeral party as far as the river. Father had entered the Order of a Sannyasin before his death. So his body was to be buried in the ground according to the commands of the Shastras. As there was no one else to carry the dead, my brother tied the body in his dhoti like a bundle, and carried it alone over two miles to its last resting-place. We sadly followed to the river bank, and helped him a little. So we buried our father outside that village, away from all human habitation, and returned with heavy hearts to the ruins of the old temple where we had taken up our abode. That same evening our mother was attacked by fever, and said she would not live much longer. But we had to leave the place ; there was no work to be found, and no food to be had. We walked with our sick mother for awhile, and then some kind-hearted people gave us a little food and money to pay our fare as far as Raichur. There we stayed for some weeks, being quite unable to move from that town, owing to the illness of our mother. Our life at Raichur was a continuous story of hopelessness and starvation. Brother was too weak to work, and we could not make up our minds to go to beg. Now and then kind people gave us some food. Mother suffered intensely from fever and hunger. We, too, suffered from hunger and weakness; but the sufferings of our mother were more than we could bear to see. Yet we had to keep still through sheer helplessness. Now and then, when delirious, mother would ask for different kinds of food. She could eat but little; yet we were unable to give her the little she wanted.

" Once she suffered so much from hunger that she could bear it no longer, and sent me into a neighbour's house to beg a little piece of coarse bajree cake. I went there very reluctantly. The lady spoke kindly to me; but I could on no account open mv mouth to beg that piece of bajree bread. With superhuman effort and a firm resolution to keep my feelings from that lady, I kept the tears back; but they poured out of my nose instead of my eyes, in spite of me, and the expression of my face told its own story. The kind Brahmin lady, guessing what was in my mind, asked me if I would like to have some food ; so I said, * Yes, I want only a piece of bajree bread.' She gave me what I wanted, and I felt very grateful; but could not say a word to express my gratitude. I ran to my mother fn great haste, and gave it to her. But she could not eat; she was too weak. The fever was on her; she became unconscious, and died in a few days after that. Her funeral was as sad as that of my father, with the exception that two Brahmins came to help my brother and me to carry her body to the burning ground, about three miles from the town.

" I need not lengthen this account with our subsequent experiences. My elder sister also died of starvation, after suffering from illness and hunger. During those few months before our sister died, we three travelled on foot from place to place in search of food and work; but we could not get much of either. My brother and myself continued our sad pilgrimage to the northern boundary of India, and back to the east as far as Calcutta. Brother got work here and there ; but most of the time we lived wanderers' lives. Very often we had to go without food for days. Even when my brother had work to do, he got so Httle wages — only four rupees a month, and sometimes much less than that — that we were obliged to live on a handful of grain soaked in water, and a little salt. We had no blankets or thick garments to cover ourselves ; and, when travelling, we had to walk barefoot, without umbrellas, and to rest in the night, either under the trees on the roadside or the arches of bridges, or lie down on the ground in the open air. Once on the banks of the Jhelum, a river in the Punjab, we were obliged to rest at night in the open air, and tried to keep off the intense cold by digging two grave-like pits, and putting ourselves into them and covering our bodies — except our heads — with dry sand of the river bank. Sometimes the demands of hunger were so great that we would satisfy our empty stomachs by eating a handful of wild berries, and swallowing the hard stones together with their coarse skins."

It was during these wanderings with her brother that Ramabai's faith in the Hindu religion was shaken, though until twenty years of age she worshipped the gods of brass and stone. The freedom of their lives had given to the brother and sister keen powers of observation, and they resolved to test the teachings of the sacred books whenever possible. The following is but one of many tests that exposed the hollowness of their religion, and the deception of the priests. They had been taught that in the Himalayas there was a beautiful lake, in which were seven floating mountains — the forms in which seven sages, or Mahatmas, appeared. When sinless pilgrims came to the shore, the Mahatrnas floated toward them, and received their worship; but before the wicked they were immovable. During their journeyings, Ramabai and her brother, to their surprise and joy, found themselves near this lake, and beheld the mountains. They prostrated themselves, but received no sign. The priests warned them against going into the water, lest they be devoured by crocodiles; but the brother, early in the morning, when the priests were not on the watch, dared the crocodiles, and swam out to the mountains. He found them to be masses of stone and mud planted with trees, standing on rafts. The whole mystery was soon cleared. Behind the mountains a little boat was concealed. When a poor pilgrim, desirous of being considered sinless, crossed the palm of a priest's hand with sufficient coin, and called on the Mahatmas to float toward him, a priest in the boat gave the raft a push toward him, and he went away happy in his delusion.

While wandering from place to place, Ramabai had free access to the homes of the high-caste Hindus ; saw the home-life in all its cruel details, and resolved to devote her life to the redemption of her unfortunate sisters, especially the child-widows.

Ramabai and her brother gradually developed into public lecturers in the cause of the education of women. In Calcutta, Ramabai attracted much attention; and a solemn conclave of Pandits bestowed on her the title of Sarasvati, on account of her learning. She is the only woman who has been permitted to call herself Pandita. The Pandits were astonished at her learning. Beside her thorough knowledge of their sacred books, she had acquired fluency in seven of the languages of India ; and her ideas on reform were remarkable for so young a person.

Echoes of Ramabai's lectures reached England even at this early date (December, 1880). A gentleman in India, writing to a friend there, told of an accomplished Brahmin lady travelHng through Bengal with her brother, holding meetings on the education and emancipation of women. " They were received everywhere," said this Indian correspondent, " with great enthusiasm by the Hindus, who were delighted to hear their holy Sanskrit from a woman's lips. It seemed to them as if Sarasvati (the goddess of eloquence) had come down to visit them. Instead of a hot, confined room, we had a long and broad terrace open to the sky, and with the Ganges flowing at our feet. The meeting was at half-past four in the afternoon, by which time the terrace was shaded from the sun by trees and houses to the westward. At the eastern end of the terrace a small marble table, with a glass of flowers on it, and some chairs were set, and there Ramabai stood up facing the west and addressed her audience. On her right was the Ganges, covered with large, broad-sailed boats, of a type which perhaps has lasted for two thousand years. There was little or nothing around to remind her or her audience of European civilization. The clear, blue sky and the broad river coming sweeping down from the walls of Benares dominated everything else." This writer adds that " the young lady is twenty-two years of age, the daughter of a learned Pandit, slight and girlish looking, with a fair complexion and light grey eyes. She is now engaged to be married to a Bengali pleader, an M.A. of Calcutta University."