PENIEL BIBLE SEMINARY

A PAPER PRESENTATION ON: PANDITA RAMABAI (1858-1922)

Presented To; Rev A.J.Baby

Presented By; Jismon George and G.L.Darwin

Presented On; 18-11-2014

Introduction

A student of Indian Christian theology cannot ignore the importance of Pandita Ramabai
and her contribution. She concentrated on both spiritual and secular aspect of Indian people.
Even though she was both in a High caste Hindu family, she stood for the un-divisional society
and worked for that. She had her own understanding on the Christian as well as Hindu religions.
Here is a presentation on Pandita Ramabai’s life and mission.

Childhood and Life

Ramabai was born in the southern Kanara district of Karnataka on 23rd April 1858. She
had an elder brother and sister. Her father ancient Sastri Dongra was a Maratho Chitpavan
Konkanstha Brahmin and a scholar in Hindu scriptures. Yet he was an Orthodox man, he
educated his wife and daughters Sanskrit even if it was ancient the tradition. As long as Ramabai
could remember, her family used to have scriptural pilgrimage to holy places, bathing in the
sacred river, visiting temples and worshiping Gods. She lost her parents during the pilgrimage.
Ramabai travelled with her brother and came to Calcutta in 1888. During this time she was a
Sanskrit scholar, lecturer and of 30 years. Hence she was given the title Pandita and Saraswath
by the Calcutta University Senate. She married to a Bengali layer Babu Bahari Dhas Medhavi of
the Sudra caste. He was a Brahmo Samajist. Her husband died of cholera after 19 months of their
marriage.1

There after Pandita Ramabai moved to Poona and joined Prathana Samaj. She established
the Arya Mahila Samaj in Bombay and other towns of Maharashtra for the purpose of educating
and emancipating Hindu women. She wrote a book in Marathi named “Shree Dharma Neeti”,
containing questions with morality and justice for women in Hindu society. Through the contact
1
Barbara Underhill, Pandita Ramabai PIONEER (Pune: Pandita Ramabai Mukti Mission, 1984),9.
of some missions and Brahmo Samaj in Calcutta, she came to know about Jesus Christ and
Christianity. At Poona she had contact with Nehemiah Goreh, who belongs to ‘Cowley Fathers
Mission’ and they both had conversation with Brahmoism and Christianity, but yet she remained
as a Brahmo Theist.

Ramabai set out for England with her daughter in order to improve education and if
possible to become a medical daughter. So that she could serve in women in a better way. Even
while she was residing at community of Anglican sisters at Wantage, she corresponded with
Sastri Goreh further about Christianity and as a result she received Baptism on 29 September
1883.

Afterwards she traveled to America right from England to avail support for a house for
Brahmin ‘child widows’, that she wanted to establish. She was back to Poona and started
‘Sharado Sadan’ a secular institution rather than a Christian. This was disliked by the Christian
community of Poona but even though some Hindu widows were converted to Christian by her
Christian influence. This caused the registration of Hindu members from the Sadan’s governing
board. A famine in Maharashtra forced her to start the Mukti mission at Kedgaon convinced as a
Christian settlement.

Later Ramabai and her institution became the center of spiritual revival and she got the
experience of Holy Spirit, that giving her a spiritual security in Jesus Christ unknown to her
before. Her daughter died in 1921 at Miraj hospital and Ramabai died on 5th April 1922 at
Kedgaon at the age of 64.2

Pandita Ramabai is very much known for her strong leadership in the movement which
destined to liberate Indian women. She urged the country to rethink or reevaluate the tradition of
Hindu drama on womanhood. Her conversion from traditional Hinduism to Brahmo Theism was
accepted as part of Hindu reform movement. But her conversion from Brahmoism to Christianity
produced a great controversy among Hindu reforms. On contrary considering herself as a non-
denominational Christian participating in the Hindu women’s liberation movement and still
continuing her recitals and lectures on the Puranas led to Christians questioning her Christian

2
www.panditaramabai.com
conversation. This was really a period of her identity crisis. Therefore Christians as well as
Hindu’s deserted her alone, string her lonely path with rational freedom and spiritual courage.
But at the end she found in her Pentecostal experience of the indwelling Christ, the authority and
the anchor she needed to stick to her own path of faith and prophetic action in society.3

Her Thought and Understanding

Pandita Ramabai’s significance for Indian Theology lies in the fact that Ethos of her
Hindu upbringing and her love of spiritual freedom revolted against and questioned the relevance
of the established dogmatic Christianity of the west imported to India and that she was searching
for a spiritual authority for an Indian experiment in defining the Christian faith in simple non-
metaphysical themes and in relating into service to society Nehemiah Goreh was able to help her
see that Christ transcended Brahmo Theism, but in argument with the Anglicans. She asserted
that Christ transcended the Anglicanism of Goreh and the community of the sisters of wantage.
She found the much closed experience of Holy Spirit the possibility of the form of Christianity
which corresponded to the Ethos of liberation from all established traditions and dogmatic
formulations and of individual liberty.

Various kinds of views came into her argument with the advocates of Anglican
Catholicism in England. The sisters were tolerant of her vegetarianism up to a level but believed
it a real caste prejudice for such cases she used to answer in this way “I like to be called a Hindu
for I am one and also keep all the customs of my forefathers as far as I can”. In contradiction to
the doctrine of Bible, Ramabai was often confused by the daily ceremonial rites and rituals
practiced by wantage sisters and she opposed the demand that she as a Christian follow them.
Moreover that she notes down in her letter to sis. Geraldine she doubts that what need of
becoming the member of the church of Christ meant accepting as authoritative “Every words that
falls down from the lips of the priests and Bishops”. She rectifies that “Obedience to law and the
word of God” is entirely different from perfect obedience to Priest’s. She says “I have just with
great freed myself from the yoke of the Indian Priestly tribe, so I am not at present willing to
place myself under another yoke”. In her opinion, “People should not think that they are masters
of others conscience”.

3
M.M.Thomas and P.T.Thomas, Towards an Indian Christian Theology (Tiruvalla: Christava Sahitya Samithi,
1998),71.
 The sisters and Priests of wantage did not like raise doubts or questions and seeking
clarifications or clearing of doubts on Anglican doctrines. For that she came to know that faith
was not just blind acceptance, but for her an attempt at understanding in the light of reason,
Hindu tradition and Christian scriptures. She never considers her confession of Christ as meaning
the acceptance of all the Anglican doctrines. She writes this way “you have never gone through
the same experience of choosing another religion for yourself, which was totally foreign to you
as I have”. For any reason she was not able to accept that the holy Catholic Church was confined
within the walls of the Anglican Church and its dogmas. She was greatly confused with the
denominational divisions within the church. In her letter to the wife of justice Ranade, she
compliance that to an already caste-divided Hinduism, Christianity adds denominational
divisions and also she says that the only answer to it is for missionaries, preachers of all
denominations, to decide the essential doctrines of Christianity and establish, “One united
Christian church- an indigenous national Church”, for them alone they will “be worthy” preach
Christ to Indians, till then the converts has to struggle for the truth of Christ. She adds: It is to be
imagine how hard I have to struggle some times between the prayer book, the Bible and Hindu
religion and my own different understandings about them… the simple faith in which I am
Baptized is sufficient for me”.

Conclusion

Pandita Ramabai is a very typical figure in the Indian Christian movements as we go through
her life and doctrines we may find lots of difficulties for her to cope with doctrines of the Anglican
Church. She demands for an ecumenical form of church irrespective of various denominations. She
was a versatile figure, who engaged in the work of upbringing of the standard of women. Even
though she became a Christian, at the same time she tries to hold her traditional background. She had
a theology that Indian way of thinking on the Bible. Though there are controversies, we cannot forget
what she had given to Indian Christianity and reform movements.

Bibliography

Thomas, M.M and P.T.Thomas. Towards an Indian Christian Theology. Tiruvalla: Christava Sahitya Samithi, 1998.

Underhill, Barbara. Pandita Ramabai PIONEER. Pune: Pandita Ramabai Mukti Mission, 1984.

www.panditaramabai.com