The High Caste Hindu Woman

Pundita Ramabai’s landmark book The High Caste Hindu Woman, was published by J. B. Rodgers Printing Co., Philadelphia, in 1887. It has an introduction by Rachel L. Bodley (Dean of Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania). Its seven chapters describe the life of a high caste Hindu woman, and analyse Hindu sacred texts – such as the ‘code of Manu’ – which prescribe the rules for that life.Ramabai Sarasvati was a social reformer who advocated the education and emancipation of women. She was born on April 23, 1858 in a Chitpavan Brahmin family, in what is now Karnataka’s Chikmagalur district. Born Ramabai Dongre, she was conferred the titles ‘Pandita’ (this book spells it as Pundita) and ‘Sarasvati’ for her scholarship in Sanskrit at Calcutta University in the year 1878...