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Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar
Date of birth:	September 26, 1820(1820-09-26)
Place of birth:	Midnapore,West Bengal, India
Date of death:	July 29, 1890

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (Bengali: ঈশ্বর চন্দ্র বিদ্যাসাগর Ishshor Chôndro Biddashagor) (1820-1891), born Ishwar Chandra Bandopadhyaya (Bengali: ঈশ্বর চন্দ্র বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায়, Ishshor Chôndro Bôndopaddhae), was a Bengali polymath and a pillar of the Bengal Renaissance. He was an academic, philosopher, educator, printer, entrepreneur, writer, translator, reformer and philanthropist. His efforts to simplify and modernize Bangla prose were significant. He also rationalised and simplified the Bengali alphabet and type which had remained unchanged since Charles Wilkins and Panchanan Karmakar had cut the first Bangla types in 1780.

Born at the village of Birsingha in Midnapore, (now part of West Bengal, India) to a poor Brahmin family, his childhood was poor but full of learning, as his father was a teacher of Sanskrit and wanted his son to follow his profession. Vidyasagar's early education was at the village pathshala or traditional school. He graduated in 1839 in Hindu law, for which he received the title 'Vidyasagar' (Ocean of knowledge). Two years later he took a job as head pundit (Sanskrit teacher) at Fort William College. In 1846 he joined Sanskrit College as Assistant Secretary. A year later he and his friend Madan Mohan Tarkalankar set up the Sanskrit Press and Depository, a print shop and bookstore (see below). In 1849 Vidyasagar tangled with Rasamoy Dutta, then Secretary of Sanskrit College. One of the issues Vidyasagar fought for was whether Sanskrit College should remain a Brahmin preserve or whether boys from lower castes could study there. Vidyasagar wanted not only lower caste boys but also women of all communities to receive the best education, and he was not afraid to say so in the teeth of opposition from the Hindu establishment.

Perhaps Vidyasagar's greatest legacy is the result of his unflinching campaign to better the situation of Indian women, particularly in his native Bengal. But unlike other reformers, Vidyasagar did not seek to set up alternative societies or systems of manners; he worked for transformation of orthodox Hindu society from within.

Vidyasagar almost singlehandedly introduced the practice of widow remarriage to mainstream Hindu society, where previously it had only occurred sporadically among progressive members of the Brahmo Samaj). The prevailing custom of Kulin Brahmin or polygamy allowed elderly men (often on the verge of death) to marry many teenage girls or even infants, supposedly to spare their parents the shame of having an unmarried girl attain puberty in their house. The girls were usually abandoned soon after marriage and left behind in their parental homes, where also they were tortured heartlessly with orthodox rituals .

Therefore , Vidyasagar took the initiative to propose and push through the Widow Remarriage Act no XV of 1856. He also encouraged his son to follow his footsteps.

Vidyasagar was a great linguist . He discovered the Bengali alphabet and their uses. Vidyasagar also reformed Bengali typography into an alphabet of twelve vowels and 40 consonants.

 Vidyasagar overall has contributed a tremendous amount of literature to the Bengali society and the Sanskrit press.The Vidyasagar Mela, a fair dedicated to spreading education and social awareness, has been held in his memory every year from 1994. Since 2001, it has been held simultaneously in Calcutta and Birsingha.