“Goddess” Of Wisdom

In the early 20th Century, though India had been the target of long-term missionary efforts since the early 1900s, these efforts had done little to change it from its resolutely Hindu foundation. This ancient religion dominated every sphere of life, and from a young age, children born into the privileged caste were taught to study the Hindu texts carefully.

Pandita Ramabai was only twelve years old when she had memorised some 18,000 verses from the Hindu Puranas. Her family was so committed to their religious devotion that her father impoverished their family by hosting religious pilgrimages.

Ramabai’s mother, father, and sister were so weakened by poverty-induced hunger that they would eventually die. Pandita was sixteen.

Though they had been a resolutely Hindu family, Pandita’s father had advocated for women’s education against the wishes of most Hindu leaders.

Under her parent’s influence, Ramabai vowed to help society’s most vulnerable women, especially widows and Orphans. She spoke publicly on their behalf, impressing Calcutta’s wise men with a level of learning practically unknown for an Indian woman then.

The wise men called her “Goddess of Wisdom.” It was said of her, “She was unimagined—a woman of purest Brahman birth, twenty years old and unmarried, beautiful and impossibly learned.” “She dazzled India.”

To aid in her advocacy, Ramabai studied English in Poona with a Christian woman, and she was soon invited to visit England. She was warned, before she left, by several of her friends, against converting to Christianity.

While in England, Ramabai visited a rescue shelter for women and was profoundly affected. She had never known Hindus to care for women in that way.

The Anglican women shared with Ramabai how Jesus had treated the Samaritan woman He met at Jacob’s well. The story of the woman at the well stirred something deep within her, and after studying the scriptures for herself, Ramabai was baptised, along with her little girl.

Ramabai, delighted by the good news of her Saviour, said of Him, “What good news for me, a woman, a woman born in India, among Brahmans who hold out no hope for me and the likes of me! The Bible declares that Christ did not reserve this great salvation for a particular caste or sex.”

Pleas for her to return home soon led Ramabai to return to India, where she started a school in Mumbai for high-caste widows. She did not evangelise them initially but prayed daily for spiritual inquiries and made the Bible available alongside other religious texts.

One woman converted, prompting Brahmans to withdraw twenty-five other widows from the school. Ramabai continued, undeterred, to fight for the women’s cause. She even fought government opposition to save hundreds of widows suffering during a great famine in 1896.

Ramabai, soon after this engagement with the government, bought a hundred-acre farm that she named Mukti, meaning “salvation.” There she protected 1,350 women and children.

It was at Mukti that this woman, already fluent in six languages, began to learn Greek and Hebrew, using these skills to produce a translation of the Bible for her people.

At Mukti, Ramabai also began to pray for Revival in India. Starting in 1905, she and the woman of Mukti gathered to pray for Indian and Global Revival.

At first, about 250 women met regularly. Eventually, those 250 became 550, and they began meeting twice daily to pray for Revival. Within two months, their prayer movement, and God’s gracious response, led to 1,200 conversions.

Revival had swept through Mukti, and from it were born zealous new Christians eager to share the gospel wherever they travelled.

But Mukti was not the only Revival that shook India in those days. In Northeast India, the Assam Revival was taking place as well. This Revival started in Khasi Hills, a district in the Indian state of Meghalaya, and eventually spread to the surrounding Indian states of Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, Assam and Nagaland.

What a remarkable woman! What a remarkable story! What an awesome God!

In sharing this story, I hope to get you to ask, “why not us?” And, “why not now?” If God revived a people and a nation back then, can He not do it again?

If we can get honest for just a moment, we can admit, in light of those questions, that deep down, we believe all the great works of God belong to former generations, never to be experienced again.

But what history shows us, and more importantly what the Scriptures teach us, is that when God’s people petition Him for His presence, He responds powerfully. YHWH delights to revive and will revive us if we corporately, diligently, and prayerfully pursue His presence.