Many journeys, many selves: the travels of Margaret Elizabeth Noble

Abstract

This article focuses on three travel texts written by Margaret Elizabeth Noble (1867–1911), an Irish school teacher who came to India and was initiated into the spiritual Order of Sri Ramakrishna. As an educationist, her social work consisted in setting up a school for girls that functions to this day in Baghbazar, a locality of old Calcutta. She became involved in the Indian nationalist movement and actively participated in several underground activities against British colonial rule. This was the reason that she had to operate from outside the Mission itself though personally she remained dedicated to the spiritual vows that she had taken. Her response to Indian civilisation and culture and her critique of colonial administration do not function within the paradigms of gender and race relations usually assigned to the British women who travelled to and in India. Her travelogues explore India and her culture while inscribing the ambivalent identities that shaped her personality, thoughts and vocation.

Keywords:

• India
• women’s travel writing
• Calcutta
• spirituality
• colonialism
• Swami Vivekananda

Notes

1 Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (1838–1894), the composer of India's national song, was a prominent novelist, satirist and journalist writing in Bengali. From 1858 to 1891, the year of his retirement, he held posts of deputy magistrate and deputy collector in the British administrative set-up in the Bengal Presidency.

2 The Adi Shankaracharya was a Hindu theologian and philosopher of the eighth century CE. He propagated doctrines of the Adwaita Vedanta and Shaivism refers to the cult of Lord Shiva, one of the chief Gods in the Hindu pantheon.

3 The Mahabharata is an ancient Indian epic written by the sage Vyasa, composed probably anytime between the Rig Vedic age and later Vedic times. The Ramayana is another Indian epic written by the sage Valmiki that probably pre-dates the Mahabharata.

4 Kedarnath is a Hindu shrine in the Garhwal Himalayas in the modern Indian state of Uttarakhand dedicated to Lord Shiva. It is not directly accessible by road and involves an uphill trek. Legends attribute the ancient temple to the Pandava dynasty in the early epic age which was later revived by the Adi Shankaracharya. Badrinath or Badrinarayan is also a Hindu temple in the Garhwal Himalayas dedicated to Lord Vishnu. The shrine is accessible only in the summer months as it remains snow bound in winter. The Vedic texts mention the temple though some accounts suggest that till the eighth century CE it was a Buddhist vihara and changed into a Hindu site by the Adi Shankaracharya.

5 Rudra, the vedic deity, is the personification of terror. The frightening manifestation of the divine is considered as sacred as other forms and in the Svetaswatara Upanishad is equated with Shiva or Mahadeva.