Appendix C: Chronology of the Life and Times of Pandita Ramabai

“So teach us to number our days, That we may get us a heart of wisdom.”

— Psalm 90:12, ASV

The dates below are meant as orientation. Where Ramabai’s own writings, contemporary letters, or the records of the Ramabai Association give a date, it is given plainly. Where the sources disagree, the chronology gives the best-supported date and the disagreement is noted in the chapters or in Appendix D.

Before 1858 - Anant Shastri

Anant Shastri Dongre, a Brahman Sanskrit scholar from the Mangalore district, studies in Poona, resolves to teach his wife Sanskrit, and later marries Lakshmibai, aged nine. He teaches her, and makes a home in the Gangamul forest in the Western Ghats.

23 April 1858 - Birth

Ramabai is born in the forest, the youngest of three surviving children: Srinivas, Krishnabai, and Ramabai.

Late 1858 - The Pilgrim Life Begins

Ruined by hospitality, the family leave the forest when she is about six months old, and live for some fifteen years as Puranikas, reciting the Puranas at sacred places across India.

c. 1862-1873 - Education and Pilgrimages

Her mother teaches her Sanskrit from about eight to fifteen. Pilgrimages to Tirupati, Dakor, the Jumna, Dwarka, and Pandharpur. Her father refuses to marry her as a child.

c. 1874-1877 - Famine

As famine spreads in the Madras Presidency, the family spends its money on religious merit. Her father dies near Tirupati; her mother at Raichur; her sister soon after. She is about sixteen. The usual date of 1877 is probably too late.

c. 1875-1878 - Wandering

Ramabai and Srinivas walk, by her reckoning, more than four thousand miles, north to Kashmir and east to Calcutta.

1878 - Calcutta

She meets Keshab Chandra Sen, reads the Dharma Shastras, is given a Sanskrit Bible, and is acclaimed by the pandits with the title Sarasvati. She becomes known as Pandita Ramabai.

1880 - Bereavement and Marriage

Srinivas dies, probably at Dacca. In November she marries Bipin Behari Medhavi, a Bengali lawyer of non-Brahman caste, in a civil ceremony.

1881 - Manorama

Her daughter Manorama is born, probably in April, at Silchar in Assam. At Silchar she reads Luke’s Gospel in Bengali.

1882 - Widowhood and Poona

Her husband dies of cholera, probably in February. She moves to Poona, founds the Arya Mahila Samaj, publishes Stri Dharma Niti, and on 5 September gives evidence to the Education Commission.

1883 - England and Baptism

She sails for England in the spring with Manorama and a companion, Anandibai Bhagat, who later takes her own life. On 29 September she and Manorama are baptised at Wantage.

1884-1886 - Cheltenham

She studies and teaches Sanskrit at Cheltenham Ladies’ College under Dorothea Beale, while arguing with the Wantage sisters over doctrine and authority.

1886-1888 - America

She reaches Philadelphia in March 1886 and attends Anandibai Joshee’s graduation. The High-Caste Hindu Woman is published in June 1887. The Ramabai Association is formed in Boston on 13 December 1887. She lectures across the United States and sails from San Francisco in November 1888.

1 February 1889 - Return

She lands at Bombay.

11 March 1889 - Sharada Sadan

The school for high-caste widows opens at Chowpatty, Bombay. In December she speaks at the Indian National Congress.

November 1890 - Poona

The Sharada Sadan moves to Poona.

1891 - Finding Christ

By her own account, eight years after her baptism, she surrenders to Christ and finds peace. A press campaign in Poona attacks her school.

13 August 1893 - The Resignation

The Hindu advisory board resigns, charging proselytism. Thirty-one pupils are withdrawn. The Ramabai Association investigates and supports her.

1895 - Kedgaon and the Spirit

A farm is bought at Kedgaon. In April, at Lonavla, she seeks and receives the Holy Spirit. By July some girls of the Sharada Sadan have been baptised.

1896-1897 - Famine Rescues

She travels into the Central Provinces and brings back hundreds of famine girls. Plague restrictions in Poona force her to move them to Kedgaon in the spring of 1897.

1897 - Mukti

Minnie Abrams arrives in October. Many girls are baptised in the Bhima river in November. In December the settlement at Kedgaon is dedicated and named Mukti.

1898 - Boston and Keswick

On 16 March she addresses the Ramabai Association in Boston. The old Association dissolves and the property passes to her; she transfers it to the new American Ramabai Association. At the Keswick Convention she asks prayer for 100,000 men and 100,000 women to preach in India.

1899 - Kripa Sadan

The foundation stone of Kripa Sadan, the House of Grace for rescued women, is laid on 20 March.

1899-1900 - The Second Famine

Famine in Gujarat. By August 1900 more than 1,350 Gujarati girls are at Mukti. Manorama returns from America to lead the Sharada Sadan.

1901-1902 - Growth

Mukti shelters some two thousand women and girls. A home for boys opens in 1902.

1904 - Bible Translation

Work begins on a new translation of the Bible into colloquial Marathi.

1905 - Revival

A prayer circle of about seventy begins in January. Revival breaks out late in June. Praying bands go out across western India.

1906-1907 - Tongues and A Testimony

Speaking in tongues appears at Mukti in December 1906. In 1907 she publishes A Testimony and defends the revival in the Mukti Prayer Bell.

1912 - Gulbarga and the New Testament

Manorama begins Shanti Sadan at Gulbarga (1912-13). A tentative edition of the New Testament as far as Acts is printed.

1919 - Honour

She is awarded the Kaisar-i-Hind gold medal in the New Year Honours.

July 1921 - Manorama’s Death

Manorama dies at Miraj, aged forty.

5 April 1922 - Death

Ramabai dies at Mukti, aged sixty-three, shortly after completing the translation of the Bible. Lissa Hastie succeeds her.

1924 - The Marathi Bible

The complete Bible in her translation is published.

1989 - Stamp

India issues a postage stamp in her honour.