VIDYASAGAR, ISWAR CHANDRA ( A g writer and social reformer of Bengal, was born at Birsinha in the Midnapur district in 182o, of a Kulin Brahman family. He was re moved to Calcutta at the age of nine, was admitted into the Sanskrit College, and carried on his studies in the midst of priva tions and extreme poverty. In 1839 he obtained the title of Vidyasagar ( ="Ocean of learning") after passing a brilliant examination, and in 185o was appointed head pundit of Fort William College. In 1846 appeared his first work in Bengali prose, The Tales of a Betal. This was succeeded by his Sakuntala, 1855, and by his great work, The Exile of Sita, 1862.
As a social reformer and educationist, too, Iswar Chandra made his mark. He associated himself with Drinkwater Bethune in the cause of female education; and the management of the girls' school, called after Bethune, was entrusted to him in 1851. And when Rosomoy Datta resigned the post of secretary to the Sans krit College of Calcutta, a new post of principal was created, and Iswar Chandra was appointed to it. He simplified the method of learning Sanskrit ; and thus rendered a great service to Sanskrit learning of that ancient tongue among his countrymen. Under
the education scheme of 1854 he established aided schools in Bengal. In 1858 he resigned his appointment under government. He became manager of a private college at Calcutta.
But he now turned to practical reform. He had discovered that the ancient Hindu scriptures did not enjoin perpetual widowhood, and in 1855 he startled the Hindu world by his work on the Remarriage of Hindu Widows. Such a work, from a learned and presumably orthodox Brahman, aroused a storm of indignation. He appealed to the British government to declare that the sons of remarried Hindu widows should be considered legitimate heirs. The act was passed in 1856, and some years after Iswar Chandra's own son was married to a widow. In the last years of his life Iswar Chandra wrote works against Hindu polygamy. He was as well known for his lavish charity and wide philanthropy as for his educational and social reforms. He received the C.I.E. in 1880.
He died on July 29, 1891. (R. C. D.)