Rani Rashmoni: Queen, ‘woman of the people’, temple builder

and Sri Ramakrishna’s early patron

(Published in Special Issue: Bengaliness)

If women tell the story of the nation from the mid-nineteenth century in Bengal and India, in many significant ways, then Rashmoni is certainly one such iconic figure whose life and actions had far reaching social and spiritual implications. The Rani’s dates (1793—1861) are not strictly those of the second half of the nineteenth century, but her life is characterized by the kind of energy, vision and zeal that characterizes the lives of women like Kadambini Ganguly (1861--1923), Anandi Bai Joshi (1865—1887) who were India’s first women doctors, Rasasundari Devi (1810—1900), Kailashbasini Devi (dates unavailable), Krishnabhabini Dasi (1862--1919), who were writers. The emergence of these women in the second half of the nineteenth century enacted a shift in gender paradigms which established women as having acquired greater self-sufficiency, self-articulation, and sense of social responsibilities than they had before.  

Indeed, Rani Rashmoni’s acts of social benevolence and politics of resistance to unfair practices of the British government actually outstrips the achievements of most of the doctors and writers mentioned above. Her sensitivity to the suffering of the poor, her dislike of harsh and oppressive measures, affected in tangible and immediate ways the lives of the poor with positive benefit.  Her actions have a sweep and an expanse that put her in the company of leaders whose decisions impact the lives of many.  She is also iconic from the point of view of the historic Ramakrishna movement. In The Master as I saw Him, Nivedita writes that Swami Vivekananda had been deeply impressed by the fact that a ‘...woman of the people had been, in a sense, the mother of that whole movement of which all the disciples of his Master formed parts. Humanly speaking, without the Temple of Dakshineshwar there had been no Ramakrishna, and without Ramakrishna no Vivekananda, and without Vivekananda, no Western Mission’. (234).

Born to poor parents herself, she was married into the prodigiously wealthy Das family of Janbazar. Her father in law Pritaram Das had amassed vast amounts of wealth through business in bamboo, buying goods from auctions and re-selling them to the British, as well as other business ventures.  Her husband Babu Rajchandra, well acquainted with Prince Dwarakanath Thakur, Kaliprasanna Singha, Akrur Dutta, Lord Auckland and John Bebb of the East India Company, was a person of rare social benevolence (Gambhirananda, 631). He also built the famous Babu Ghat of Kolkata as well as the Babu Road which is today the Rani Rashmoni Road.  It was at his wife’s behest, who had been shocked at the dangerous and ill-kempt condition of the banks of the Ganga that he had engaged in this act (Gambhirananda, 631). He also constructed a dwelling at Nimtala for those who were close to death and wanted to die by the side of the Ganges. He donated 10,000 rupees for upgrading the government library at Metcalfe Hall (Gambhirananda, 631). Rashmoni, who was conferred the title of ‘Rani’ by the common people of Bengal, was innately benevolent herself and continued this tradition initiated by her husband.  What is perhaps worth noting in this case is that Rashmoni was not born an aristocrat but was naturally able to imbibe a tradition of large benevolence that is characteristic of the best aristocratic traditions in 19^th century Bengal.

Among some of her most spectacular acts of social benevolence was forcing the British government to withdraw the tax on those who fished in the waters of the Ganges. When those poor fishermen who were affected by this tax appealed to her, she bought the fishing rights of the entire stretch of the Ganga from Ghushuri to Metiabaruz. She used bamboo and ropes to stall the free passage of all boats and ships which had to travel in these waters. When the British Government complained, she said that the steam from the boats and the ships was harming the lives of the fish, so she could not allow it. Whereupon, the British returned her money and withdrew the tax on the Ganga waters that the poor fishermen had to pay ( Gambhirananda, 635)

Once on Shoshti or the day before the Puja of the Goddess Durga, her priests went to the Ganga ghat (banks) singing loudly with accompanying musical instruments. It was early in the morning. Some Englishman who lived close to Babughat had his sleep disturbed. He complained to the British administration and the Rani was issued a fine. As Swami Chetanananda says in the ‘Rani Rasmani’ chapter of his They Lived with God ‘Rasmani was infuriated that the government had acted against a religious observance’(8)  She paid the fine but had wooden barricades erected at both the Janbazar and Babu Ghat ends. As a result a large part of this important road became unusable for the British.  When the British government asked her for an explanation she said that it was her property and she could do as she wished.  Later on the request of the British she had the barricades removed and her fine was also revoked by the Government. (Gambhirananda, 633-634). 

It is obvious from the incidents narrated above that she was very sensitive to the needs of the poor and unhesitant to take bold and extraordinary moves to alleviate their distress even when it involved her in conflicts and confrontation with the colonizing authority. In this she is exemplary in terms of her courage. There were few women of her time, except perhaps the Rani of Jhansi who could play a public role and dispense with public responsibilities with so much courage and decisiveness. She creates a very powerful model of womanhood within the context of contemporary India. With women like Rani Rashmoni, Nawab Faizunnessa of Comilla (Ray, 54), Begum Shamshi Firdaus Mahal of Murshidabad (Ray, 54) Rani Swarnamoyee of Kasimbazar  new models for women’s public philanthropy were created and new historiographies of women in India were consequently made possible.  Of all the names mentioned above, it is Rani Rashmoni who was not aristocratic by lineage and who belonged more definitively to the first half of the nineteenth century than the second.

Even when compared to the great women devotees within the Ramakrishna Movement, Rashmoni far outstrips all, in the degree and level of her interface with the greater world outside the home. If new dynamics of ‘ghar’ and ‘bahir’ were being created at that time then Rashmoni certainly creates a very compelling example of how a village woman, defying restrictions of both caste and gender, could play such a decisive role in determining policy and a politics of resistance to colonial authority. However during the time of the Sepoy Mutiny she extended help to the British by providing them with ‘food, livestock and other necessities’( Chetanananda, 9). These women, as well the ones mentioned early on in the paper, define important historical moments, and were responsible for causing a radical shift in the common perception of women as actors and movers. Of course, she was empowered by wealth, as was the Rani of Jhansi, yet, at the same time she demonstrates uncommon boldness, as well as unwavering confidence in her decisions. Of course, many of these decisions were also taken in consultation with her youngest son-in-law, Mathur Nath Biswas who was the manager of her vast estates.  

Courage and boldness notwithstanding, she was extremely traditional in the expression of her spiritual inclinations and expressions. Rani Rashmoni fulfilled all the social obligations of the zamindar in an elaborate and grand manner. A large part of this was holding various pujas in her estate or in her house. Her hosting of   Durga Puja, Jagaddhatri Puja, Dol Utsav, Rash Utsav, Lakshmi Puja, Basanti Puja, Kartik Puja and Saraswati Puja, were more or less all spectacular affairs, with many gifts given to the poor, to Brahmins, and many modes of traditional enjoyment provided for those participating in these festivals (Gambhirananda, 634).

She was used to hearing her father read out from the Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Puranas when she was a child and continued the practice of having scripture read every day at her in-laws‘ residence. She must have been well versed in the scriptures because she personally directed the stone carvings of various inscriptions from the Upanishads and other holy texts of Indian tradition at various places of the Dakshineshwar temple. She was innately pious and never missed a day of the performance of daily puja to Raghunath Ji her practice of japam.  

If we move out of the contexts of historical documentation and  cultural analysis  and enter the world of hagiography, even then one would come across notions that the Rani had to be truly exceptional in terms of spiritual merit, to be the builder of that temple in which Sri Ramakrishna was the pujari and where he achieved the greatest consummation of his spiritual nature or genius. And such karmic logic and philosophies would not be irrelevant, because only great preparedness in one life or several can facilitate such effective action. The link between the Rani and Sri Ramakrishna is profound, because it was within these temple precincts, that the entire lila of Sri Ramakrishna, or the divine drama centred on him, was played out. It was here that some of the greatest personalities of Calcutta at that time, congregated and gathered and it is principally around these interactions and observations of Thakur’s daily life that ‘M’ wrote his great hagiographical cum historical text, the Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita.

From available sources like Swami Gambhirananda, Swami Chetanananda as well Sishutosh Samanta one learns that Rani Rashmoni received a vision of the Divine Mother Kali while  about to set out on a journey to Varanasi in 1847. The vision instructed her to build a temple dedicated to Mother Kali on the banks of the Ganga.  She had great difficulty in procuring land. No one sold her any in the Bally and Uttarpara areas (Chetananda,11). Eventually she bought 20 acres at Dakshineshwar, part of which had a bungalow in which an Englishman had once lived and the other part was an abandoned Muslim graveyard which had the remains of a Muslim holy man (Chetanananda, 11--12).

It took her seven to eight years to build the temple which was completed in 1855. It was Rashmoni’s desire that afternoon food be cooked every day at the temple and offered to the Deity. However caste restrictions made this difficult. No Brahmin priest would be willing to perform this worship of offering. Rani Rashmoni sent out letters to various pundits asking for an opinion. They all replied in the negative.  Eventually Sri Ramakrishna’s older brother Ramkumar Chatterjee passed the opinion that if the temple be made over to a Brahmin then the food could be offered. The Rani was delighted and spent a huge sum of money having the deity installed. This installation was accomplished on the tithi of the Snan Jatra (31.5.1855) of Jagannath, Balaram and Subhadra. Rashmoni spent 50,000 rupees for the land, 160,000 rupees for building an embankment, 900,000 for the temple complex which had a Radha Krishna temple and twelve Shiva temples besides the main Kali temple.  She spent 200,000 for the dedication ceremony.

Another personality related to the Rani and deeply and integrally linked to Sri Ramakrishna’s life prior to 1871 was the Rani’s son-in-law Mathur Nath Biswas (1815--1871). As Sishutosh Samanta says of Mathur Nath in Rani Rashmoni r Antaheen Jibanbrittye (Part III), ‘before 1882 was there any other great devotee of Sri Ramakrishna?’ (76) (translation mine). Samanta says that within Ramakrishna literature, Mathur Nath Biswas has been identified as that householder disciple who was his most preeminent ‘rasaddar’ or ‘provider of food’. Although the word ‘food’ is used as the most basic reference in this translation, ‘rasaddar’ actually means ‘provider of household expenses’. In the later part of Thakur’s life, after the passing away of Mathur Nath Biswas, Sri Ramakrishna’s most noteworthy ‘rassadars’ were Shombhucharan Mallick,  Balaram Bose and Surendranath Mitra. It was Mathur Nath Biswas who recognized in the young Sri Ramakrishna, a vast spiritual potential, and thus in spite of the young pujari’s very eccentric and odd ways of worship, backed him wholeheartedly, and also became his ardent devotee. Mathur was twenty one years older to Sri Ramakrishna.

Sri Ramakrishna became the priest of the Kali temple within a year or so of the dedication of the temple. As Chetanananda says,‘the love and respect which Rani Rasmani and Mathur had for Sri Ramakrishna and the support they gave him were quite amazing when on realizes how strange his behaviour was at that time and how much criticism about him came to them from other temple officials’ (15).

One incident that has become a byword of the Ramakrishna-Rashmoni relationship is when Sri Ramakrishna slapped Rani Rashmoni for being unmindful while he sang devotional songs to Mother Kali. Even though all the temple attendants present were outraged the Rani accepted Sri Ramakrishna’s censure of her because she knew that she had been preoccupied with thoughts of the outcome of a court case while the puja went on. This ability to accept the truth with humility, goes even further to win our respect for this woman who could have easily chosen to be offended since she after all, was Sri Ramakrishna’s patron.

Rashmoni died in 1861. Before that she transferred the land in Dinajpur that she had bought for maintenance of the Dakshineshwar temple, to the temple Trust. The great immersion of the Rani in the spiritual thought and culture of India is borne out by the inscriptions that she had carved on stone at various points of the temple precincts. At the entrance to the temples are these quotations from the Svetasvatara Upanishad:

That eternal and indivisible Brahman is present in all living creatures, is the secret self of all selves, is all pervasive, and is the cause of everything. He is the refuge of all. He is beyond all attributes, he is the eternal witness of all that happens and consciousness supreme (Samanta, 47).

He is the Lord of all Ishwaras, of all Devas, the supreme Master among all Masters, the owner of the universe, we know Him ( Samanta, 47).

Rashmoni’s life provides food for a great deal of thought which may not be exhausted in an essay of this length. On the one hand she fulfilled the demands of traditional Indian womanhood in being an obedient and loving daughter completely given to the principles of hard work and humility that characterize the life of the poor in Indian society. When she became a daughter-in-law in one of Kolkata’s wealthiest families, she fulfilled that role too with finesse and grace. She could never be faulted with having adopted extravagant and lavish habits. She was often the inspiration behind many of the altruistic ventures of her husband Rajchandra. When she came into her own, she exhibited rare independence and acumen in handling her own affairs and her vast estate. After her husband’s early demise, Prince Dwarakanath Tagore came to see her saying that he could offer his services as manager of her estate. She first asked him whether he had returned the money that the Prince owed her husband. After it was satisfactorily returned through a land deal, she politely told Dwarakanath that to act as manager to her estate was too far beneath him and would make her extremely uncomfortable (Chetanananda, 6-7). 

Rashmoni is multifaceted and many splendored. She creates new models of womanhood and gives opportunities for new historiographies of women in India. Her life is woven in a fabric that makes her ‘pratahsmaraneeya’ or ‘worthy of remembrance everyday’.

Works Cited:

Chetanananda, Swami. They Lived with God. St Louis, Missouri: The Vedanta Society of St. Louis. 1989.

Gambirananda, Swami. Sri Ramakrishna Bhaktamalika. Kolkata: Udbodhan Office. First Complete Edition, June, 2005.

Samanta, Shishutosh. Rani Rashmoni-r Antahhen Jiban Brittwe. Kolkata: Basanti Press, 2009.

Ray, Bharati. Early Feminists of Colonial India: Sarala Devi Chaudhurani, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2002.

Sister Nibedita.  The Master as I saw Him. Kolkata: Udbodhan Office. 34^th Reprint, 2014.