Rassundari Devi

Rassundari Devi (Bengali: রাসসুন্দরী দেবী) (1809-1899) was a Bengali woman who is identified as the author of first full-fledged autobiography[1] in modern Bengali literature. She is among the earliest woman writers in Bengali literature.

Rashsundari Devi
Born1800
Potajiya, Pabna District, British India
Died1899
OccupationHouse wife
LanguageBengali
NationalityIndian
CitizenshipBritish India

Rashsundari Devi was born in West Bengal and the first Indian woman to write an autobiography and the first Bengali to write an autobiography. Aamar Jiban (My Life), her autobiography, was published in 1876.[2]


Biography

Rasssundari Devi was born in 1800 in the village of Potajia, in Pabna district.[2] Her father, Padmalochan Roy, died when Rasssundari was a small child. She never saw her father and was raised by her mother and relatives. Formal education was not given to girls of the time. She used to be around a boy's school run by a missionary woman in her father's house. By listening to the lessons going on at school Rasssundari learned the letters of the Bengali language.

At age 12 she married Sitanath Sarkar from Ramdia village, Rajbari, Faridpur.[3] She was a religious Vaishnavite by faith. With limited formal schooling, she learned to read driven by Bhakti (devotion), out of her keen desire to read Valmiki Purana and Chaitanya Bhagavata. She bore 12 children, of whom 7 died early. Her husband died in 1868.[4] Her son Kishori Lal Sarkar became an advocate at Calcutta High Court and is the author of several noteworthy works.[5] Rassundari died in 1890.

Writings

In 1876 Rassundari's autobiography Amar Jiban (My Life) was published. The book is in two parts, the first of which, consisting of sixteen shorter compositions narrated her autobiography. The second part, published in 1906, contained fifteen shorter compositions, each repceded by a dedicatory poem.[6]

Jyotirindranath Tagore praised the book for the 'wonderful train of events' and its 'simple sweetness' of expression. Dinesh Chandra Sen called her prose an 'epitome of simple prose compositions of the bygone era'.[7] Her book was translated into Hindi as Mera Jeevan.

References
  1. Deepa Bandopadhyay. "নারীর লেখা নারীর wr কথা". Archived from the original on 2015-05-19.
  2. Tharu, Susie J.; Lalita, Ke (1991-01-01). Women Writing in India: 600 B.C. to the early twentieth century. Feminist Press at CUNY. p. 190. ISBN 9781558610279.
  3. ফরিদ আহমেদ. "পিঞ্জরাবদ্ধ এক বিহঙ্গীর ডানা ঝাপটানোর গল্প।".
  4. Amin, Sonia (2003). "Dasi, Rassundari". In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal, Ahmed A. (eds.). Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (First ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. Archived from the original on 16 March 2008.
  5. Hindu system of moral science (1895, 3rd revised and enlarged ed. 1912), Hindu system of religious science and art, or the revelations of rationalism and emotionalism (1898), Hindu system of self-culture of the Patanjala Yoga Shastra (1902), Mimansa rules of interpretation as applied to Hindu law (1909), An introduction to the Hindu system of physics, being an exposition of Kanad-Sûtras relating to the subject (1911).
  6. Tharu, Susie J.; Lalita, Ke (1991-01-01). Women Writing in India: 600 B.C. to the early twentieth century. Feminist Press at CUNY. p. 191. ISBN 9781558610279.
  7. Dinesh Chandra Sen. Vanga Sahitya Parichaya or Selections from the Bengali Literature: Volume II. Calcutta.
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