There once lived a young Hindu girl in India whose life was marked by unbelievable tragedy. Her circumstances should have kept her in darkness, but that’s not how her story ended.

Ramabai Dongre’s story begins in the lush forestland of India’s modern-day Karnataka. She was born on April 23, 1858, in a small settlement called Gangamul to a Brahmin (highest caste in Hinduism) family. Though Brahmins were known for being scholarly and lovers of knowledge, it was uncommon for women to receive an education. But Ramabai’s father had unconventional ideas. He challenged these societal norms by educating all of his children, both sons and daughters. 

As a young girl, Ramabai spent hours poring over the Hindu scriptures in Sanskrit. Her love for learning was paired with her incredible memory. By age 12, she had memorized 18,000 Sanskrit verses, amazing her family and community.

Ramabai’s story turned tragic when famine ravaged India in 1876. Because she and her family lived an itinerant life, traveling through the country reciting Hindu scripture to earn money, they were forced to wander on foot for long distances without food. Ramabai watched her family slowly starve to death. She and one brother survived.

Orphaned at the age of 16, Ramabai continued in the way her father trained her. She traveled all over India earning wages from her public recitations of Hindu scripture from memory. After giving an address at Calcutta University she was awarded the title of “Pandita” which translates to “scholar.”

Although Ramabai made her living reciting Hindu scriptures, there were some aspects of her religion and culture that she despised. Hinduism devalued and abused women with practices like child marriage, which would often leave young women widowed and destitute. Ramabai advocated for these women fiercely and encouraged them to pursue education, believing it could provide both dignity and protection.

Several years later, Ramabai’s desire to bring change to her nation led her to England. Now 25 and widowed with a 2-year-old daughter, Ramabai left the familiarity of her country to pursue training to become a doctor. But this pursuit was short-lived. While in England, she was diagnosed with a hearing impairment that disqualified her from practicing medicine.

Despite the derailment of her original plans, Ramabai stayed in England where she lived with an Anglican sisterhood in Oxfordshire. It was here that she was first introduced to Jesus. 

Being a scholar, Ramabai’s journey to salvation began with study. She studied the Bible, compared the Biblical scriptures with those she had grown up memorizing and reciting, and had many conversations with believers. Over the course of a few years, Ramabai gained as much knowledge about Jesus as she could. But it was the story of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman in John 4 that turned simple knowledge of Jesus into a desire to know Him personally. 

In one of her books, she wrote,