Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (26 September, – 1820-29 July, 1891) was a writer, social reformer and educator from India.
Books by, or about, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar*
Fun Facts about Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar:
1. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was born at Birsingha village in Paschim Medinipur District, India. His parents, Thakurdas Bandyopadhyay and Bhagavati Devi, where Hindu Brahims.
2. When he was 9 years old he went to live in Calcutta and felt very comfortable being with his large family. The relationship and affection he got from the women in the family were extremely important to his future work of championing women’s causes.
3. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar loved to study, and it’s said that when he couldn’t afford a gas lamp at home, he used to study outside under a streetlamp. His hard work and brilliant mind paid off with several scholarships.
4. He married Dinamayee Devi at the age of 14, as was the custom at the time. The couple had one son, Narayan Chandra Bandyopadhyaya.
5. To support his family, Mr. Vidyasagar taught part-time. He graduated from Sanskrit College, Calcutta after 12 years with a degree in Sanskrit Grammar, Literature, Dialectics. In 1839, when he was 19 years old, he passed the Sanskrit law examination. Two years later he started working at Fort William College as head of the Sanskrit department.
6. Mr. Vidyasagar stayed at Fort William College for five years before joining the Sanskrit College and University where he wrote a report suggesting changes to the education system at the time.
7. The report cased a lot of issues with his boss. Maybe because he wrote it after a year on the job?
B. One of the causes Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar championed was legislation to allow widows to remarry. He also worked, and managed, to pass legislation which makes the age of consent of the consummation of marriage to be 12 years old.
9. To this day, Mr. Vidyasagar is appreciated and admired for his efforts to modernize Bengali prose, as well as simplifying the alphabet.
10. After his death, a BBC poll named him ninth on the “greatest Bengali of all times” list, and the Indian Post Office issued a commemoration stamps in his honor in 1970 and 1998.
Books by, or about, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar*
Zohar – Man of la Book
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Sources:
Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar | Wikipedia
Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar | Reformer, Philanthropist, Humanitarian | Britannica
