A brilliant Sanskrit scholar, Ramabai Donge earned the title "Pandita" as a twenty-year-old orphaned woman in 1878 India. Determined to follow in her Hindu father's belief that women could be scholars, Ramabai used her fame to argue for the education of women. along with the need for female physicians.
Widowed four years later with a baby, she met Christians who introduced her to the Bible, encouraged her to speak about women's needs, and helped her to travel to England. Baptized in England, Pandita Ramabai received university training with the aim of advancing Indian women's opportunities. Traveling to America, she visited educational models, particularly kindergartens, and returned to India to open a school for child widows, needy women, and orphans.
During this time, she wrote Testimony, which confirmed her Christian beliefs and joy that Jesus loved women just as much as men.
Within a few years, her school grew, and she established the Mukti Mission outside of Bombay, where the mission provided education, vocational training, and a profound Christian witness. As famine swept India in the early 20th century, Ramabai ultimately collected nearly 3000 needy women and children to the mission--which is still helping educate needy women and children today.
Pandita Ramabai sparked a Christian revival in 1905 and spent the last fifteen years of her life translating the entire Bible into the Marathi language--one of the major Indian dialects. She died in 1922.
The Indian government honored her contribution to the education of women in 1984 with a postage stamp.