Rassundari Devi ( bn, রাসসুন্দরী দেবী) (c. 1809-1899) was a Bengali woman who is identified as the author of first full-fledged

autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...

in modern

Bengali literature Bengali literature ( bn, বাংলা সাহিত্য, Bangla Sahityô) denotes the body of writings in the Bengali language and which covers Old Bengali, Middle- Bengali and Modern Bengali with the changes through the passage of time ...

. She is among the earliest woman writers in Bengali literature. Rashsundari Devi was born in

Eastern Bengal Eastern Bengal may refer to: * East Bengal ur, , common_name = East Bengal , status = Province of the Dominion of Pakistan , p1 = Bengal Presidency , flag_p1 = Flag of British ...

and was the first Indian woman to write an autobiography and the first

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

to write an autobiography. '' Aamar Jiban'' (''My Life''), her autobiography, was published in 1876.

Biography

Rashsundari Devi was born c. 1809 in the village of Potajia, in

Pabna Pabna ( bn, পাবনা) is a city of Pabna District, Bangladesh and the administrative capital of the eponymous Pabna District. It is on the north bank of the Padma River and has a population of about . Etymology * According to the histo ...

district. 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 boys' school run by a missionary woman in her father's house. By listening to the lessons going on at school Rashsundari learned the letters of the

language. At age 12 she married Sitanath Sarkar from Ramdia village, Rajbari, Faridpur. She was a religious

Vaishnavite Vaishnavism ( sa, वैष्णवसम्प्रदायः, Vaiṣṇavasampradāyaḥ) is one of the major Hindu denominations along with Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism. It is also called Vishnuism since it considers Vishnu as the ...

by faith. With limited formal schooling, she learned to read driven by

Bhakti ''Bhakti'' ( sa, भक्ति) literally means "attachment, participation, fondness for, homage, faith, love, devotion, worship, purity".See Monier-Williams, ''Sanskrit Dictionary'', 1899. It was originally used in Hinduism, referring to d ...

(devotion), out of her keen desire to read ''Valmiki Purana'' and ''

Chaitanya Bhagavata Śrī Caitanya-bhāgavata ( bn, চৈতন্য ভাগবত) is a hagiography of Caitanya Mahāprabhu written by Vrindavana Dasa Thakura (1507-1589 CE). It was the first full-length work regarding Chaitanya Mahaprabhu written in Bengali l ...

''. She learned how to read and write in the flickering light of candles at night. She bore 12 children, of whom 7 died early. Her husband died in 1868. Her son Kishori Lal Sarkar became an advocate at

Calcutta High Court The Calcutta High Court is the oldest High Court in India. It is located in B.B.D. Bagh, Kolkata, West Bengal. It has jurisdiction over the state of West Bengal and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The High Court buildi ...

and is the author of several noteworthy works. Rassundari died in 1899..

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 preceded by a dedicatory poem.

Jyotirindranath Tagore Jyotirindranath Tagore ( bn, জ্যোতিরিন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 4 May 1849 – 4 March 1925) was a playwright, a musician, an editor and a painter. He played a major role in the flowering of the talents of his you ...

praised the book for the 'wonderful train of events' and its 'simple sweetness' of expression.

Dinesh Chandra Sen Rai Bahadur Dinesh Chandra Sen ( bn, দীনেশ চন্দ্র সেন) (3 November 1866 – 20 November 1939)Sengupta, Subodh Chandra (ed.) (1988) ''Sansad Bangali Charitabhidhan'' (in Bengali), Kolkata: Sahitya Sansad, p.208 was a ...

called her

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...

an 'epitome of simple prose compositions of the bygone era'. Her book was translated into

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

as ''Mera Jeevan''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Devi, Rassundari 1809 births 1899 deaths 19th-century Indian biographers 19th-century Indian women writers 19th-century Indian non-fiction writers Bengali writers Bengali-language writers Indian autobiographers People from Pabna District Women writers from West Bengal