Page:Sketches of some distinguished Indian women.djvu/62

50 Among the Mahratta freebooters who distinguished themselves in the earlier wars of their people, was one of the name of Joshee, who, as a reward for his services, received from his chief the grant of a large tract of land and several villages in the neighbourhood of Poonah, and here his descendants continue to reside to the present day.

It was in the old palace at Poonah, which had been the home of many generations of Joshees, that the subject of the present sketch was born in March 1865. Her father, Gunpatrao Amritaswar Joshee, was a rich landowner of Kalyan, a town lying a little to the north of Bombay, and was a man looked up to and respected by all his high-caste neighbours. He had married a kinswoman of his own, Gungabai Joshee, whose father and uncle lived in Poonah. The uncle was a distinguished physician, and it was in order to have the benefit of his advice that Gungabai Joshee had returned to her old home. Here her little daughter was born, and here she was named Jamuna, or Jumna, after the sacred river, a name which means the "daughter of the sun."

Her childhood passed happily enough between her grandfather's house at Poonah and her father's house at Kalyan, and in both she was a great favourite, showing even in her earliest days a bright and intelligent disposition. Her father was peculiarly devoted to her, and had her constantly with him. He was