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Baba Padmanji: An Autobiography
1892 · 152 pages
Baba Padmanji: An Autobiography
by Baba Padmanji
The autobiography of Baba Padmanji, born in 1831 to a Konkani-Marathi family of the Kasar (brazier) caste in Belgaum. He opens with the daily texture of caste in a Brahmin street and traces a conversion that took years rather than a moment — chapter titles like "Gradual Change of Mind" name the book's honest shape. Baptized in 1854, disowned, and only slowly reconciled with his father, he went on to become the most prolific Christian author in the Marathi language.
The changed life
Not a Brahmin but a brazier's son, he weighed Christianity over years, was baptized in 1854 at the cost of his family and caste, and became the foremost Marathi Christian author, ordained in the Free Church of Scotland in 1867.
Summary
Baba Padmanji: An Autobiography (Christian Literature Society, 1892, edited by J. Murray Mitchell) is the first-person account of a nineteenth-century Marathi writer's passage from Hinduism to Christianity. Padmanji was born in 1831 in Belgaum to a family of the Kasar, or brazier, caste — not Brahmin — and the social distance the neighbouring Brahmins kept from his family is a thread he returns to throughout the early chapters.
Educated at a mission school in Belgaum and later at Elphinstone College and the Free Church Institution in Bombay, he describes a change of mind that unfolded gradually rather than in a single moment. His chapter titles — "Gradual Change of Mind," "Gradual Increase of Light" — are the book's honest shape. He was baptized in 1854, was disowned for it, and was reconciled with his father only slowly over the years that followed.
The autobiography closes on the kindness he eventually met from his relatives, one of its quietest and best passages. Around this personal story stands a remarkable public life: Padmanji became the most prolific Christian author in Marathi, publishing more than a hundred titles and running his own press in Bombay, where he died in 1906.
Who was Baba Padmanji?
Baba Padmanji Mule (1831–1906) was a Marathi author, reformer, and Christian convert. Born in Belgaum to a Konkani-Marathi family of the Kasar (brazier) caste, he was educated in mission and government institutions in Belgaum and Bombay and was baptized in 1854. He was ordained in the Free Church of Scotland in 1867.
He became the leading Christian writer in the Marathi language, with over a hundred titles to his name. His novel Yamuna Paryatan (1857), an attack on the treatment of Hindu widows, is counted among the earliest novels written in any Indian language, and in 1877 he produced the first New Testament translation with commentary made by Indian Christians rather than European missionaries. This autobiography is his own account of the long road that brought him to the faith he spent his life writing for.
Common questions
- Was Baba Padmanji a Brahmin convert?
- No. He was born into the Kasar, or brazier, caste — not Brahmin — and the early chapters dwell on the social distance the neighbouring Brahmins kept from his family. His caste is a distinction he returns to throughout the book.
- Was his conversion sudden?
- No. He describes a change that took years rather than a moment, reflected in chapter titles such as "Gradual Change of Mind" and "Gradual Increase of Light." He was baptized in 1854, was disowned, and was reconciled with his father only slowly.
A note on the text. Baba Padmanji: An Autobiographyis in the public domain. What you're buying is our edition — the careful typesetting and design. The original text is also available free here.