Rashsundari Devi's autobiography, the first of its kind by any Bengali woman, Amar Jiban is the testimony of a 19th century Bengali woman's ordeals. It not only highlights the theme of women's education through her yearning for knowledge of letters; it also calls for equal spiritual status for women as she personally yearns for God. She chooses to rewrite her life in this autobiography, broadly in alignment with God's life. She attributes to God every good or bad thing happening around, even her life with transgressions. The chapter showcases how the re-presented self of Rashsundari follows the broad religious codes, yet not in the customary way and her personalized fantastic experiences, like precognitive dreams, help her mould the shape of her God. The author invokes the guru-shishya dynamics and looks through the glass of a few religious texts of Hinduism, especially the Bhagavad Gita, to analyse whether she transgresses from the whole religious system or actually encodes her discontent uniquely on the bedrock of religious following, adherence, and devotion.
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Rashsundari (the protagonist of the text; henceforth used as the same if not mentioned otherwise) is introduced to the idea of god by her mother in the context of fear. She is suggested to chant his name so that the god, Dayamadhav can hear her and come and save her. Next time when we hear about her ordeal with god, Dayamadhav listens to the prayer and saves her along with her brother from the graveyard. This is when she is told by her mother about the non-conflicting relationship of Dayamadhav with the Parameshwara. The god is invoked for the third time when she is being married off and her mother sends with Rashsundari the treasure of god⸻ that she would hold close to her heart all her life⸻ that she would build up a very personal relation with. The protagonist does not get exposed to any customary god. Rather she gets the idea and aid of god from her mother. Though the names of god bear gendered connotations, her and her mother’s approach is a non-gendered, individualistic one. Rashsundari herself approaches the god in a “cerebral way” (Sarkar, 2014) and presents it in a non-gendered language. Their idea of these gods⸻ first Dayamadhav and then Parameshwara⸻ silently indicates the knowledge, she must have acquired through the popular religious tales and folktales.
Rashsundari builds up the narrated self on principles from that sacrosanct text that was and still is revered highly and followed by not just different sects of Hinduism, including Vaishnavism that Rashsundari’s family followed, but also orthodox ones⸻ Shrimad Bhagavad Gita. This can be a conscious or unconscious attempt, given her devotion to follow the ways of god. She might not have been aware of this parallel while having the experience, but it can be expected that the author Rashsundari could have had some sort of direct or indirect knowledge about Bhagavad Gita and other sacred texts. She approaches the religion and religious instructions as an individual and not a woman. The Gita clearly states which kind of devotee the Lord likes most:
Chatur-vidhā bhajante māṁ janāḥ sukṛitino ’rjuna
Arto jijñāsur arthārthī jñānī cha bharatarṣhabha
Teṣhāṁ jñānī nitya-yukta eka-bhaktir viśhiṣhyate
Priyo hi jñānino ’tyartham ahaṁ sa cha mama priyaḥ
(Bhagavad Gita, Verses 7.16-7.17)
Translation: O Arjuna, scion of the Bharataas, four types of pious people worship me⸻ the distressed, the inquisitive, the profit-minded and the wise. Among them the wise ones who are steadfastly and exclusively devoted to me are special; for I am very dear to them and they are dear to me.
And Rashsundari chooses this supreme path of wisdom to reach god. In the next two verses of this seventh chapter, it is pointed that those “who have made me (god) alone as their supreme goal” knowing “Vasudeva is everything” are the rarest souls and liked by god most (Ramasukhadas, 2012).