THE PANDITA RAMABAI
Ramabai and her brother were alone, but they had one treasure that very
few Hindu brothers and sisters then had. They had their friendship for
each other, their common interests and hopes and fears.
They were still very reverent to shrines and idols, though strange
thoughts and questions were rising in their minds, and the thought
of the one great God of whom their father had spoken to them grew
ever stronger. One day they found that they were near a sacred lake,
in which there were seven floating mountains;--at least they were
called mountains, but they were really only small hills. On the
shore of the lake there were priests, for worship was paid to the
spirits of the mountains. Ramabai and her brother had often heard of
this spirit-haunted lake, for it was a place of pilgrimage, and the
wonderful thing about it was that if the pilgrim who prayed at the
water’s edge was good the mountains slowly moved towards the shore,
but if he was bad the cliffs remained stolidly still, and no prayers
could move them one inch. When Ramabai and her brother reached the lake
they found that what had been called mountains were only wooded island
mounds, but there they were, all seven of them, rising from the still
waters.
[Illustration: A SCHOOL FOR GIRLS]
The priests warned everyone who came that they must on no account bathe
in the waters of the lake because of the crocodiles. They seemed to
be so much afraid that any of the pilgrims might be eaten up, that they
kept a very strict watch all round the lake.
Ramabai and her brother knelt by the shore. They had been true
worshippers of the gods, and they felt that if they were to be judged
by the best of the old books of India they were good. It is true that
their caste-fellows had disowned them, but, though many of their old
beliefs about idols and shrines still lingered with them, they did not
believe that a good god could be angry at their father’s treatment of
his daughters. So they worshipped eagerly, and looked to see if the
mountains were moving to the shore. But the water lapped against the
banks as calmly as before, and not an extra ripple could be seen. They
slept that night near the lake, and very early in the morning, before
the priests were on the watch, the boy made up his mind that if the
mountains would not come to him he would go to the mountains! Ramabai
watched him breathlessly, for had he not the anger of the spirits to
dread, as well as the hungry crocodiles? He swam out to the nearest
mountain, swam right round it, and back to the shore. No crocodile had
touched him, and the look in his eyes as he returned to Ramabai was a
look of anger, not of fear. He had seen, when he reached it, that the
mountain was only a sham. It was cleverly built of mud and earth, on a
floating raft. Trees and creepers were stuck into the clay as if they
grew there. Behind, out of sight of land, there was a little boat. It
was all clear to him now. Some signal must pass from the priests on
shore to the priest in the boat, and if the pilgrim gave enough of
money to the priest on shore, the boatman pushed the floating mountain
towards the land; so it was not virtue but money that moved the spirit
of the mountain. This discovery opened their eyes to many other things.
If the worship of the gods was only kept up in order to give money to
the priests; and if, in order to keep up this great system, the priests
had to call to their aid the gloomy spirits of caste and custom, then
there might be escape for India from these terrible things. And with
eyes open to all she saw, Ramabai began to notice more than ever before
what a terrible life high caste Hindu widows had to live when they were
not the mothers of sons. Gradually she and her brother gathered groups
of people to listen to them as their father had done. Soon the days of
poverty were over, for Ramabai had found out where one of her great
powers lay. Crowds gathered to hear her speak, and to wonder at her
knowledge. But this relief came too late for her brother, who had been
so much worn out with want that his strength gave way, and though he
saw his sister safe from the fear of poverty it was very hard for him
to leave her alone. But though Ramabai’s faith in idols had gone, her
faith in God grew stronger through the years, and she cheered the dying
boy with the words, “God will take care of me.”
Ere her brother’s death the fame of Ramabai had come to the ears of
the learned men of Calcutta, and they asked her to come and meet with
them. They questioned her, and listened to her answers, and they sat
in amazement as they heard her quote the ancient writings. They were
so moved by her learning that they gave her the right to use the title
Pandita,[7] which no woman had ever been allowed to use, and they
called her also Sarasvati, “goddess of wisdom.”
About this time a Hindu gentleman, whose ideas were like those of
Ananta, and who shared Ramabai’s horror when he thought of the life of
many Hindu women, asked Ramabai to be his wife, and very soon after her
brother’s death she was married to him. They were very happy together,
but they were not content to be happy alone. They dreamed and planned
what they could do for Hindu widows, and they even thought of opening
their own happy home to them. Soon a little daughter was born to them
to add to their gladness, and the plans for the widows were going
forward brightly, when death crossed the threshold, and Ramabai was
left a widow--a widow with no son. But the shadows of caste and custom
had already wreaked much of their vengeance on her, and now when she
might have suffered most severely, she was nearly out of their power.
Her whole thoughts were for Manorama, her little daughter, and for
Hindu widows, and her one desire was to be fit to do the best for them
she could. English women lived in happiness with their brothers and
friends. English people had opened schools and colleges in India, and
she resolved to cross the sea that she might learn from them in their
own land, things that would help her to brighten the lives of Indian
women. So the young Hindu widow with her little baby came to England.
At Wantage the wonder of Christ broke on her, and she saw that the God
in whom she had blindly trusted was He who had been shown to men in the
life and death of Jesus Christ. As Ramabai saw how great a difference
this made to her, her thoughts went out to the memory of her father,
and she answered his last words as she could not when he died, “Yes, I
will serve Him always.”
To-day Ramabai is surrounded by children. She has two homes, and they
are quite different. When she gave up her life to Christ the first
great piece of work she did in service to Him made many people think
that she was not faithful to Him, because in her first home, a home
for Hindu widows, the great shadows of caste and custom are admitted.
Perhaps at first it seems wonderful that this should be. But as Ramabai
looked round the land she saw that many other servants of Jesus Christ
had opened homes for high caste Hindu widows, and that no inch of the
door of these homes was open for caste and custom. She saw too that
only very few Hindus were willing to let their daughters learn from
those who would not allow them to follow caste rules. So she made up
her mind that she would open one home to which little Hindu child
widows might come, although they still sat in the shadow. At first
very few were allowed to come, but soon the number grew greater. The
little ones were taught many things and they were kindly cared for,
and none of their many customs were interfered with. They were allowed
to go to the bazaar to buy offerings to carry to the gods, and to have
the barber shave them in his rounds. They might fast when they wished,
and they need never hear of the faith of Jesus Christ. Ramabai did all
that she could to rob the shadows that lay on them of their darkness,
only she did not say that they must leave the shadows before they came
to her. But ever as the children lived in the Sharada Sadan, they saw
that there was one woman--a Hindu widow--on whom the shadow did not
rest, one room in which there was no gloom. The woman was Ramabai, and
the room was hers. Night and morning she held service there with her
servants and Manorama, and the door of the room was always open. It
is not easy for shadows to linger round a glowing light. Ramabai knew
that, and she waited and hoped. She did not wait in vain, for soon her
pupils began to wonder what it was that made her so different from
others, and they came to ask her about Jesus Christ and His religion.
Some of the little girls who came to her had been terribly ill-used,
and often it was a long time before she could bring a smile to the dim
eyes that had lost their childlike look, or even before she could bring
health back to the beaten, burned bodies that sometimes came into her
loving care.
It was difficult for Ramabai to get hold of those who needed her help
most. One time she heard of a little widow who was in great misery, but
the child was so stupefied with pain that she did not wish for relief
from it, or think that anyone could help her. Ramabai asked the girl
and the relations of her dead husband to come and visit her, in order
that she might win the love of the young widow, and persuade her to
stay when the others went. The relations were glad to visit Ramabai,
and they stayed for some time in a little house within the grounds
of the Sharada Sadan. Ramabai hoped that the care the child received
while she stayed there would have an effect on her, and that before
her relations left the place the widow would be eager to stay. But the
days went on, and the child was still lifeless and dull, for though
the Pandita did not know it, her relations managed to beat and ill-use
her every day. At last Ramabai felt that she could wait no longer, so
she told her guests in what was understood as the correct way, that
their visit had come to an end. Then she asked the widow if she would
stay behind. The relations did not wish her to stay, but they could
not prevent her if she said she would, and she did say so, though she
was still so dazed that Ramabai feared she would lose her after all.
On that life the early years of pain have left traces that will never
entirely go away.
When Ramabai had carried on her work in this school for eight years,
a famine broke out in Central India. She read of this famine, and the
thought of all the orphans who were left friendless by it moved her,
so that she hurried off to the famine district, and brought back with
her three hundred girls. The pupils of the Sharada Sadan welcomed the
little waifs, and made room for them within the grounds for that night.
Some time before this the Pundita had bought a farm in order to provide
for her widows’ school. The famine children were taken to this farm and
nursed back to health there. Though in the Sharada Sadan Ramabai led
the girls to Christ by indirect means only, she did not feel that she
was bound to do so in the farm home. The famine orphans were a gift to
her from God, not a loan from parents or relations, so she has from the
first been free to tell them of the love of Christ the King, for all
children, and for all in sorrow. The new home is called “Mukti,” that
is “Salvation,” and high up over the great entrance the words “Praise
the Lord” in Marathi, tell of Ramabai’s wish to call the walls of her
children’s home “Salvation” and its gates “Praise.”