1905 India Revivals III (5 Locations)

Some of the many revivals that spread across India from 1904-1906

Background to this Series of India Revivals
From 1904-1906, revival swept across India, touching every mission station and church, regardless of the denomination. Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, Brethren, Anglicans, Christian and Missionary Alliance, London Missionary Society, and the YMCAs and YWCAs, wherever the revival was welcome, blessings came. In addition, it fostered significant unity, breaking down previous barriers between denominations.

The 1904 Sialkot, India Revival appears to have been the spark that ignited the sweeping fires. Subsequently, upon receiving reports of the 1904-1905 Welsh Revival, prayer for revival intensified to such an extent that revival in India seemed unstoppable. The outcomes are documented in the following accounts:

Background to These Revivals
The revivals at Poona, Talegaon, Allahabad, Doddballapur, and Dhond, India, were the result of the overflow coming from the 1905 Mukti Revival.

Pandita Ramabai

Failing to Share About the Mukti Revival
About a month after the 1905 Mukti Revival started, someone asked Pandita Ramabai, the leader of the Mukti Mission, to write an account of what happened. Ramabai, wanting to remain humble, refused permission. This led to a serious depression overtaking her. After praying about the depression, Ramabai sensed God telling her it was because she “refused to give glory to God by not allowing the account to be published.” When she made up her mind to allow the account to be published, the depression immediately left, and the revival story became an encouragement to many in India who were praying for a similar blessing.

Evangelism team from Mukti setting out for ministry in surrounding towns and villages

Revival Spreads to Poona
A few weeks after the account of the Mukti Revival was released, Ramabai took a team to Poona and held prayer meetings there with Christians. They held three prayer meetings per day, praying for the state of Maharashtra, India.

In addition to prayer at the meetings, Ramabai also preached, resulting in:
► Money stolen by a servant of a Church Mission Society missionary was returned.
► The children from the Methodist Boys’ School were dramatically impacted, bringing great rejoicing to the hearts of the school’s staff.
► Children from the local orphanage and schools were greatly impacted.
► Those living at the Zenana Mission Teacher Training Home were tremendously blessed.

Revival at the Zenana Mission Training Home
A few days after Ramabai’s team left Poona, two girls at that school were led to conduct special prayer meetings, with a few others joining them. On the third day, one girl experienced such deep conviction of sin that she prayed loudly in agony for hours. This spread to the other girls until the entire school of about 120 girls was in a state of revival.

Soonderbai Powar

Soonderbai Powar, the overseer at this girls home, said the following about what she witnessed:

When the Holy Spirit comes on them you can see at once. Some tremble, some laugh, some shake; shy girls, who had never opened their mouths in public, have the bands of their tongues loosed, they clap their hands and pray in a way impossible to describe. Night after night we were up till two or three in the morning. In the daytime no one rests. Whole days and nights one hears the wail and struggle of their agonising prayer, and feels pity for girls in such a state. I do not interfere for fear I might hinder God’s work. Once they get blessing, then their cry turns into joy. Oh, what prayers the little ones and Hindu girls offer! The Lord’s work is wonderful. They do not think of cooking or sleeping.

Visions
Four of the girls at the school had visions of Jesus. They were all in different locations when they had their visions, and in their separate locations:

They each began to laugh with joy and clap their hands, and their faces shone.

Spreading Revival
The revival began to spread to another group of Christians living nearby. Upon hearing of this other group, the girls prayed all night for them. The next day, several men from that group came to participate in these girls’ prayer meetings. As they entered the room, the girls, ages 8-10, ran to them and began praying intently for them. All the other girls also joined in, and the men “broke down and wept and wailed for their sins till they also received forgiveness and the Holy Spirit.”

Second Wave of Revival
A few weeks later, another wave of revival engulfed the Zenana Teacher Training Home. The female Bible teachers and schoolteachers were gathered for evening prayers, and the Holy Spirit was poured out on them at that time.

Many began to shake and tremble and were smitten down under the power of the Spirit. Many continued to shake at the time of preaching and during prayer, and some became unconscious.

Locations mentioned in this account

Revival Comes to Dhond
At the same time revival was happening at Mukti and the Zenana Training Home, the Boys’ Christian Home in Dhond experienced revival. Many at the girls’ school in Mukti had been praying for the boys’ school at Dhond. In early September 1905, the leaders at that boys’ school gave this report:

All praise to our prayer-hearing God. The Holy Spirit has been poured out here, and many of our Christian boys have been greatly revived and others brought to repentance. A week ago one of our faithful Christian boys, about fifteen or sixteen years of age, got under a burden of prayer for others. Other boys joined in with him, and they prayed together till midnight. At 3:30 next morning they were again heard engaged in prayer, and when the usual 5 a.m. prayer meeting assembled, instead of the dozen or so who had been in the habit of attending this meeting, which is quite voluntary, a third of the school came in en masse, about a hundred, as they had already been engaged in prayer.

On that day there was much blessing, but on the Tuesday, which, being the first Tuesday in the month, was our regular prayer day, the interest was so great that the whole day was given up to prayer. Waves of prayer would come over the meeting, when all would pray at once. A good many wept and confessed their sins, others kept on praying for mercy as though they could not believe the Saviour could ever forgive them or have mercy upon them.

The prayer meetings continued like this for several days, then they subsided, but behind them was left the residual effect of genuinely revived children who were making restitution for things stolen and confessing sins they had committed.

Result of the Revival
Some of the older students were assembled into evangelistic ministry teams and were sent out to surrounding villages, preaching the Gospel.

Dinner time at Mukti

Rescued famine boys at Poona school

Before and After:
Famine victim
becomes evangelist

India Famines
India has disproportionately suffered from famine, resulting in tens of millions losing their lives. In the context of this revival account, the most recent famine occurred in 1899-1901, and physical and economic recovery took years. Victims of these famines were often taken in by Christian mission orphanages, schools, and hospitals.

Revival among Famine Victims
On October 9, 1905, revival came to the Famine Orphanage in Allahabad (Prayagraj). This outpouring of the Holy Spirit lasted a little over a month. Then, after a short interval, a second wave came, leaving transformed lives in its wake.

There was another famine rescue home under the guidance of the Mukti Mission in the town of Doddballapur. This location near Bangalore also experienced an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Minnie Abrams

Evangelistic Teams in Talegaon
A famine girls orphanage in Talegaon was visited at the first part of September by an evangelistic team from the Mukti Mission, led by American missionary Minnie Abrams. After a week of ministry, breakthrough came, and similar scenes took place as what had been witnessed at Mukti, during the revival there (review the Mukti Revival account). The interest spread to the Hindu population, creating fear and awe among them.

Abrams became a powerful speaker and leader of revival, and her words then still hold true for anyone today wanting revival:

If you want revival you have to pour your life out. That is the only way. That is the way Jesus did. He emptied Himself; He poured out His life; and He Poured out His life’s blood.

Primary Source
► Revival in India by Helen S. Dyer

Secondary Sources
► A History of Missions in India by Julius Richter
► Abrams, Minnie F. (1859-1912) by Boston University School of Theology
► Christian Missions and Social Progress by James S. Dennis
► Evangelical Awakenings in Southern Asia by J. Edwin Orr
► Indian Pentecost: Christianity Today by Edith Blumhofer
► Minnie Abrams: Lessons from the Pentecostal Revival in India by Darrin Rodgers
► Pandita Ramabai: Her Vision, Her Mission and Triumph of Faith by Helen S. Dyer
► Pandita Ramabai, the Mukti Revival and Global Pentecostalism by Allan Anderson
► Pandita Ramabai: The Story of Her Life by Helen S. Dyer
► Scattered Seeds by Mrs. Malcolm Ross
► The Flaming Tongue by J. Edwin Orr
► The High-Caste Hindu Woman by Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati
► The Pandita Ramabai Story by Pandita Ramabai
► Walker of Tinnevelly by Amy Wilson-Carmichael
► World Atlas of Christian Missions by James S. Dennis
► Zenana Missions by Wikipedia

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