Sheela Daga was born in 1944 in Kathgodam, a beautiful and peaceful part of north India Uttarakhand. At the age of 5, her father sent her to the famous Gurukul for girls in Dehradun. For the next 13 years, she was educated there in both the traditional and modern way. It is rare today that children read Mahabharata, Ramayana and many other epics but at that time it was compulsory. She became proficient in Sanskrit, Hindi and English.
In 1962 she was awarded a Vidyalankara degree, which is nowadays equal to Batchelor Degree, from Kanya Gurukul Mahavidyalaya, Dehradun. Sheela continued her studies and achieved an M.A. from Agra University in 1963.
As it was a duty of all women of that time, she got married to the person she never met and started her family life in Alwar. She gave birth to the beautiful boy and girl and raised them for the 18 years.
But her thirst for knowledge did not let her rest. After getting permission from her children and family, she continued studies, and within no time she was awarded by M.Phil. Degree on Rg Veda and in 1988 PhD on Rg Veda and Atharva Veda, both from Delhi University.
In the same University, she also got diplomas in English Hindi translation and German Language.
After the PhD she joined the Mahabharata Project, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India and became a Research Fellow from 1990-1994.
While pursuing the PhD, she was teaching in various colleges until 1996 when she became the principal in Kanya Gurukul Mahavidyalaya, 2nd Campus, Haridwar. Two years later, in 1998 she joined Sanskrit Department in Delhi University, and till 2003 she was holding various teaching posts when she reached retiring age.
But it is not easy to retire the one who waited for 18 years to study and did it with such excellence. Dr Sheela Daga was not the one to retire. She started teaching children and women in various villages. She raised awareness about various social evils and tried to eradicate them.
Since 2017 she is living in Bharat Mata Mandir Ashram in Haridwar where, among everything else, she is the editor of Bharat Mata Magazine, and continues to write books.
