Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati, who passed away
on 5 April 1922, at Kedgaon, Bombay Presidency, British India, aged 63, was an
Indian social reformer and Christian missionary. She was the first woman to be
awarded the titles of Pandita as a Sanskrit scholar and Sarasvati
after being examined by the faculty of the University of Calcutta. She
was one of the ten women delegates of the Congress session of 1889.
During her stay in England in early 1880s she converted to Christianity. After
that she toured extensively in the United States to collect funds for destitute
Indian women. With the funds raised she started Sharada Sadan for child widows.
In the late 1890s, she founded Mukti Mission, a Christian charity at Kedgaon village,
forty miles east of the city of Pune. The mission was later named Pandita
Ramabai Mukti Mission.
