Chapter XV. Satī (Self-immolation of Widows)

Volume II: Part I pp. 624–636

Chapter XV. Satī (Self-immolation of Widows)

The word is often written as ‘suttee’ in English works and paperṣ This subject is now of academic interest in India, since for over a hundred years (i. e. from 1829 ) self-immolation of widows has been prohibited by law in British India and has been declared to be a crime. A portion of sec. 1 of the Regulation XVII of 1829 passed by the Governor-General Lord William Bentinck is set out below. We are now in a position to take a dispassionate view of the practice, to trace its origin and follow its working down to the date of its being declared illegal. It is not possible in the space available here to go into all detailṣ Those interested may read the latest book on the subject by Mr. Edward Thomsoṇ¹ The burning of widows was not peculiar to Brahmanism, as many are prone to believe, but the custom owes its origin to the oldest religious views and superstitious practices of mankind in general. The practice of widow burning obtained among ancient Greeks, Germans, Slavs and other races ( vide 'Die Frau' pp. 56, 82-83 and Schrader's 'Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan People,' English Translation of 1890, p. 391 and Westermarck's 'Origin and Development of Moral Ideas', 1906, vol. I, pp. 472-476 ), but was generally confined to the great ones, the princes and nobleṣ

There is no Vedic passage which can be cited as incontrovertibly referring to widow-burning as then current, nor is there any mantra which could be said to have been repeated in very ancient times³ at such burning nor do the ancient gṛhyasūtras contain any direction prescribing the procedure of widow burning. It therefore appears probable that the practice arose in Brahmanical India a few centuries before Christ. Whether it was indigenous or was copied from some non-Aryan or non-Indian tribes cannot be demonstrateḍ None of the dharmasūtras except Viṣṇu contains any reference to satī. The Manusmṛti is entirely silent about it. It is stated in Strabo ( XV. 1. 30 and 62 ) that the Greeks under Alexander found satī practised among the Cathaei in the Punjab and that that practice arose from the apprehension that wives would desert or poison their husbands ( Hamilton and Falconer's Translation vol. III ). The Viṣṇu-dharmasūtra⁴ says ‘On her husband's death the widow should observe celibacy or should ascend the funeral pyre after hiṃ' The Mahābhārata, though it is profuse in the descriptions of sanguinary fights, is very sparing in its references to widow burning. Mādrī, the favourite wife of Pāṇḍu, burnt herself with her husband's body.⁵ In the Virāṭa-parva Sairandhrī is ordered to be burnt with Kīcaka,⁶ just as in ancient times it is said there was a custom to bury a slave or slaves along with the deceased ruler. The Mausala parva ( 7. 18 ) says that four wives of Vasudeva, viz. Devakī, Bhadrā, Rohiṇī and Madirā burnt themselves with him and (chap. 7.73-74) that Rukmiṇī, Gāndhārī, Śaibya, Haimavatī, Jāmbavatī among the consorts of Kṛṣṇa burnt themselves along with his body and other queens like Satyabhāmā went to a forest for tapas. The Viṣṇupurāṇa also says that eight queens of Kṛṣṇa, Rukmiṇī and others, entered fire on the death of Kṛṣṇa.⁷ The Śāntiparva ( chap. 148 ) describes how a kapotī ( female pigeon ) entered fire on the death of her husband the birḍ⁸ In the Strīparva ( chap. 26 ) the Great Epic describes the death ceremonies performed for the fallen Kauravas, but no mention is made of any widow immolating herself on the funeral pyre though the chariots, clothes and weapons of the warriors are said to have been consigned to fire. From the above it appears that the practice was originally confined to royal families and great warriors even in India and that cases of widow burning were rare. Several texts are cited by Aparārka from Paithīnasi, Aṅgiras, Vyāghrapād which apparently forbid self-immolation to brāhmaṇa widowṣ⁹ The authors of digests explain away these passages by saying that they only prohibit self-immola- tion by a brāhmaṇa widow on a funeral pyre different from that of the husband i. e. a brāhmaṇa widow can burn herself only on the funeral pyre of her husband and if his body is cremated elsewhere in a foreign land, his widow cannot, on hearing of his death, burn herself later. They rely on the text of Uśanas that a brāhmaṇa widow should not follow her husband on a separate funeral pyre. The Veda-Vyāsa-smṛti (II.53) says that a brāhmaṇa wife should enter fire, clasping the dead body of her husband; if she lives (after her husband) she should give up adorning her hair and emaciate her body by austeritieṣ¹⁰ In the Rāmāyaṇa,¹¹ (Uttarakāṇḍa 17. 15) there is a reference to the self-immolation of a brāhmaṇa woman (the wife of a brahmarṣi and mother of Vedavatī, who when molested by Rāvaṇa burnt herself in fire). The Mahābhārata (Stri- parva 23. 34 ff.) on the other hand describes how Kṛpī, the wife of Droṇa, the brāhmaṇa commander-in-chief of the Kauravas, appeared with dishevelled hair on the battle-field on the death of her husband, but does not say that she burnt herself.¹² It appears therefore that the burning of brāhmaṇa widows began much later than that of kṣatriya widowṣ

The burning of a widow on the death of her husband is called sahamaraṇa or sahagamana or anvārohaṇa (when she ascends the funeral pyre of her husband and is burnt along with his corpse), but anumaraṇa occurs when, after her husband is cremated elsewhere and she learns of his death, the widow resolves upon death and is burnt with the husband's ashes or his pādukās (sandals) or even without any memento of his if none be available¹³ (vide Aparārka p. 111 and Madana-pārijāta p. 198). In the Kumārasambhava (IV. 34) of Kālidāsa, Rati, the wife of Kāma who was burnt by Śiva, speaks of throwing herself into fire, but is held back by a heavenly voice. In the Gāthāsaptaśatī (VII. 33) there is a reference to a woman being decked for anumaraṇa (Nirp. eḍ). The Kāmasūtra VI. 3.53 speaks of anumaraṇa. It has been shown (at p. 579) how Varāhamihira admires women for their courage in being burnt with their husbandṣ The Harṣacarita (Ucchvāsa 5 ) describes how Yaśomatī, the chief queen of king Prabhākaravardhana and mother of Harṣa, consigned herself to fire when the king was dying. But this is not a proper case of satī, as she burnt herself even before her husband dieḍ In another passage of the Harṣacarita (V, in the description of night) the glory of moon-lotuses is said to be laughing like a woman intent on anumaraṇa, who is decked with ear ornaments and wears garlands on her heaḍ¹⁴ Bāṇa in his Kādambarī in a most eloquent and well-reasoned passage condemns anumaraṇa.¹⁵ The Bhāgavatapurāṇa¹⁶ I. 13. 57 speaks of Gāndhārī's burning herself on the death of her husband, Dhṛtarāṣṭra. The Rājatarangini cites in several places (e. g. VI. 107, 195 ; VII. 103, 478 ) examples of sati.

In numerous epigraphic records reference is made to the practice of sati. Among the earliest is the one in 191 of the Gupta era (510 A. D.) in the Gupta Inscriptions (eḍ by Fleet) p. 91. Vide also the Eran posthumous stone pillar Inscription of Goparāja which says that his wife accompanied him on the funeral pyre when he was killed in battle; I. A. vol. IX. p. 164 (Nepal Inscription of 705 A. D., where Rājyavati, widow of Dharmadeva, bids her son Mahādeva to take up the reins of government that she may follow her husband); the Belaturu Inscription of śaka 979 of the time of Rājendradeva Cola (E. I. vol. VI, p. 213) where a śūdra woman Dekabbe, on hearing of her husband's death, burnt herself in spite of the strong opposition of her parents who then erected a stone monument to her; E. I. vol. 14 p. 265, 267 where a grant is made in śaka 1103 to a temple by Sinda Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Rācamalla on a request by two satis, widows of his general Becirāja; E. I. vol. 20, p. 168 (of Ceḍi saṁvat 919) which refers to three queens that became satis; E. I. vol X, p. 39 where the Temara gate stone inscription of śaka 1246 speaks of Māṇikyadevī as sati on the death of her husband Āmana who was an officer of king Hariścandra; E. I. vol. 20 p. 58 (Mistra Deoli Inscription in Jodhpur when two queens of a Gohila Rāṇā became satis); E. I. vol. 16, p. 10, ṇ 4 and p. 11, ṇ 2 for sati records of śaka 1365 and 1362. In an article on ' Satī memorial stones ' in J. B. O. R. S. vol. 23, p. 435 ff. it is shown how the memorial stones usually bear the figure of the upraised arm and of the sun and the moon on either side and a group of starṣ Among the well-known latest historical examples of sati is that of Ramābāī, wife of the Peshwa Madhavrao I, in 1772 A. D. The Jauhar practised by the Rajput ladies of Chitor and other places for saving themselves from unspeakable atrocities at the hands of the victorious Moslems are too well-known to need any lengthy notice.

In the Indian Antiquary vol. 35 p. 129 there is a paper on ' Sati immolation which is not sati ', where several examples of men who killed themselves out of devotion to their masters or for other causes are cited and it is pointed out how stone monuments (called māstikkal i. e. stone monument for mahāsati a great sati, and 'virakkal' for brave and devoted men) are erected in memory of satīs and meṇ The Harṣacarita (V. 3rd para from end) describes how many of the king's friends, ministers, servants and favourites killed themselves on the death of Prabhākaravar- dhana. The Rājataraṅgiṇī VII. 481 narrates how when the queen of king Ananta became a satī on her husband's death, her litter- carrier and some other men and three of her dāsīs followed her in death. There is the example of a mother burning herself on the funeral pyre of her son (vide Rājataraṅgiṇī VII. 1380). We shall see later on that suicide at holy places like Prayāga was practised for attaining heavenly worlds and blisṣ Life seems to have been deemed of small account in those ages and though the death of women or men on the funeral pyre of the husband or for their masters appears to us sophisticated people of modern days as very horrible, it did not so appear to the ancientṣ Satī was not in historic times a practice imposed by priests or men on unwilling womeṇ It somehow grew and it is improper to say that men imposed it on womeṇ It may be that examples of satī occurred because of the force of popular sentiment. It was first confined to kings and nobles, because the lot of the wives of conquered kings and warriors was most miserable in all countries as well as in India. Vengeance for the truculence of their husbands was wreaked on the poor wives by carrying them as captives and making them work as slaveṣ Manu (VII. 96) allows a soldier to retain women ( probably ‘slaves’ ) conquered by him along with other booty. When queen Yaśomatī narrates to her son Harṣa the great honour and glory that was hers during the reign of her husband king Prabhākaravardhana, she refers to the fact that the wives of the enemies defeated by her husband waved chowries over her.¹⁷ From kings the practice spread among brāhmaṇas, though as shown above, several smṛtikāras disapproved of the practice among brāhmaṇa wiveṣ Once it took root learned commentators and digest writers were found to support it with arguments and promises of future rewardṣ Even in modern times we can secure learned writers to support any pet theory of a coterie or clique. When Manchester and Liverpool were prosperous, English economists preached the doctrine of free trade and `laissez fire` to all nations, but in more difficult times we have now the apotheosis of Empire Preference and discriminating preference for home-made goodṣ Manu IV. 178 asks people to do whatever their forefathers diḍ The rewards promised to a satī were as follows: Śāṅkha and Angiras ¹⁸ say 'she who follows her husband in death dwells in heaven for as many years as there are hair on the human body, viz. 3½ crores of yearṣ Just as a snake-catcher draws out a snake from a hole by force, so such a woman draws her husband from (wherever he may be) and enjoys bliss together with hiṃ In heaven she being solely devoted to her husband and praised by bevies of heavenly damsels sports with her husband for as long as fourteen Indras rule. Even if the husband be guilty of the murder of a brāhmaṇa or of a friend or be guilty of ingratitude, the wife who dies (in fire) clasping his body, purifies him (of the sin). That woman, who ascends (the funeral pyre) when the husband dies, is equal to Arundhati in her character and is praised in heaveṇ As long as a woman does not burn herself in fire on the death of her husband she is never free from being born as a woman (in successive births)'. Hārīta says 'that woman who follows her husband in death purifies three families, viz. of her mother, of her father and of her husband'. The Mit. after quoting the above passages adds that this duty of anvārohaṇa is common to the women of all castes from the brāhmaṇa to the cāṇḍāla, provided they are not pregnant or they have no young children (at the husband's death )'.¹⁹

There were old commentators who were opposed to the practice of satī. Medhātithi on Manu V. 157 (Kāmam tu &c.) compares this practice to śyenayāga which a man performed by way of black magic to kill his enemy. He says ²⁰ that though Angiras allowed ' anumarana ' it is suicide and is really forbidden to womeṇ Just as the Veda says ' śyenanābhicaran yajet ' and yet śyenayāga is not looked upon as dharma, but rather as adharma ( vide Śabara on Jaimini I. 1. 2 ), so, though Angiras speaks of it, it is really adharma; and that a woman who is in a hurry and extremely anxious to secure heaven quickly for herself and her husband might act according to Angiras, still her action is aśāstriya ( not in accordance with the śāstras ); besides anvārohaṇa is opposed to the Vedic text ' one should not leave this world before one has finished one's allotted span of life '.' The Mit. on Yāj. I. 86 combats these argumentṣ It says that śyenayāga is no doubt undesirable and therefore adharma, but that is so because the object of śyenayāga is injury to another. Anugamana on the other hand is not so; there the result promised is heaven which is a desir able result and which is enjoined by śruti in such sentences as ' one should sacrifice a white goat to Vāyu if one desires prosperity '. Similarly the smṛti about anugamana is not opposed to the śruti quoted, the meaning of which is different; that śruti means ' one should not waste one's life for securing heavenly bliss which is fleeting and insignificant as compared with the supreme bliss of Brahma knowledge '. As the woman in anumarana desires only heaven, she is not doing anything cont rary to the śruti textṣ This is the reasoning of the Mitākṣarā which looks like special pleading. Aparārka p. 111, the Madana pārijāta p. 199, Par. M. II. part I pp. 55-56 follow the reasoning of the Mit. and add that the Vedic text about the allotted span of life is a general rule, while the smṛti about anumarana is a special or exceptional śāstra and so there is no contradiction as the rule applies to all cases outside the excepted one. The Madanapārijāta ( p. 200 ) further explains that the texts about purifying a husband guilty of brāhmaṇa murder are not to be taken literally but only as hyperbolically extolling anvārohaṇa. The Sṃ C. also expressly says that anvārohaṇa,²¹ though re-commended by the Viṣṇu Dh. S. (25. 14) and Angiras, is inferior to brahmacarya (leading a celibate life), since the rewards of anvārohaṇa are inferior to those of brahmacarya. As against this may be cited the extreme view of Angiras ‘for all women there is no other duty except falling into the funeral pyre, when the husband dieṣ’²² The Śuddhitattva remarks that this extreme or sweeping statement is made by way of belauding sahamaraṇa.

We saw above that brāhmaṇa widows were only allowed anvārohaṇa, but not anumarana. There were other restrictions enjoined by the smṛtis on all widows ‘wives who have a child of tender years, who are pregnant, who have not attained puberty and who are in their monthly course do not mount the funeral pyre of their husbands’ ²³—from the Bṛhan-Nāradīya purāṇa. There is a similar verse of Bṛhaspati. The wife who was in her course was allowed to burn herself after she bathed on the fourth day.

Āpastamba (verse) prescribes the Prājāpatya penance for a woman who having first resolved to burn herself on the funeral pyre turns back from it at the last moment.²⁴ The Rājatarangiṇī (VI. 196) refers to a queen who having pretended to have resolved on becoming satī ultimately regretted the step and turned back.

The Śuddhitattva sets out the procedure of widow burning.²⁵ The widow bathes and puts on two white garments, takes kuśa blades in her hands, faces the east or north, performs ācamana (sip-ping water); when the brāhmaṇas say ‘om, tat sat’ she remembers the God Nārāyaṇa and refers to the time (month, fortnight, tithi ) and then makes the saṃkalpa ( declaration of resolve ) set out below. She then calls upon the eight lokapālas (guardians of the quarters ), the sun, the moon, the fire &c. to become witnesses to her act of following her husband on the funeral pyre, she then goes round the fire thrice, then the brāhmaṇa recites the Vedic verse ‘ imā nārir &c.’ (Rg. X. 18. 7) and a Purāṇa verse ‘ may these very good and holy women who are devoted to their husbands enter fire together with the body of the husband,' the woman utters ' namo namaḥ ' and ascends the kindled pyre. The long-winded preamble of the saṃkalpa ' arundhatī...patīputvatvakāmā' is based upon the verses of Aṅgiras quoted above (in ṇ 1477). The Śuddhitatva as printed is corrupt but it appears that it read the last quarter ‘ ārohantu jalayonim-agne ’ ( let them ascend the watery seat or origin, O fire !) meaning probably ‘ may fire be to them as cool as water’. Some writers have charged the brāhmaṇa priest-hood ( or Raghunandana ) with having purposely changed the reading of the verse Rg. X. 18. 7 in order to make it suit the rite of immolating oneself in fire (i. e. ‘agne ’ or ‘agneḥ ’ was substituted for ‘agre ’). But this charge is not sustainable. That the verse Rg. X. 18. 7 as it actually is was held to refer to widow burning centuries before Raghunandana follows from the fact that even the Brahmapurāṇa²⁶ and Aparārka ( quoted above on p. 628 ) take it in that sense. It was therefore not necessary to alter the reading. Further even if some priests or Raghunandana had changed it that fact would have been detected in no time, as in those days there were thousands of people who knew every syllable of the Ṛgveda by heart. Therefore it must be admitted that either the MSS. are corrupt or Raghunandana committed an innocent slip. That mantra was not addressed to widows at all, but to ladies of the deceased man's household whose husbands were living and the gṛhyasūtra of Āśv. made use of it with that meaning. Raghunandana, a profound student of dharmaśāstras and smṛtis (and often styled Smārta-bhattācārya ), could not have been ignorant of what Āśv. saiḍ The procedure as prescribed in the Nirnayasindhu²⁷ of Kamalākarabhatta, whose mother became a sutī and who pays a very tender and touching reverence to her memory in his works, is somewhat different and it is followed by the Dharmasindhu.

It appears from all accounts of travellers and others that widow-burning prevailed more in Bengal during the centuries immediately preceding its abolition than anywhere else in India.²⁸ If that was so, there were certain good reasons for that state of thingṣ In the whole of India, except Bengal, the widows of members in a joint Hindu family are only entitled to maintenance and have no other rights over the property of the family. In Bengal, wherever the Dāyabhāga prevails, the widow of a sonless member even in a joint Hindu family is entitled to practically the same rights over joint family property which her deceased husband would have haḍ This must have frequently induced the surviving²⁹ members to get rid of the widow by appealing at a most distressing hour to her devotion to and love for her husbanḍ This rule of the widow’s right was not for the first time propounded by Jīmūtavāhana; he makes it clear that he followed a predecessor called Jītendriya. The figures given above lend support to the view expressed here, since Benares, where the rights of widows were insignificant, was responsible for a small number of satis only. It is impossible, however, to believe that the number of widows in ordinary stations of life burning themselves was very large at any time or that most of the widows that did so were coerced into doing it. There is a good deal of epigraphic and other evidence particularly in other parts of India that relatives tried to dissuade the widow from taking the step. Even in Bengal the number of satis must never have been very large. Colebrooke, who had spent the best part of his life in Bengal and who was a profound Sanskrit scholar, observes in a paper written about 1795 A. D. ‘Happily the martyrs of this superstition have never been numerouṣ It is certain that the instances of the widow’s sacrifices are now rare’³⁰. The very fact that there was no disturbance of peace or ebullition of popular feeling or even any great verbal protest from the vast Hindu population (except a petition to the Privy Council) against Bentinck’s sweeping measure indicates two things, viz. that the burning of widows was a rare occurrence and that people were not very keen on observing the practice nor had they any very deep-seated convictions about its absolute religious necessity.³¹

Modern India does not justify the practice of satī, but it is a warped mentality that rebukes modern Indians for expressing admiration and reverence for the cool and unfaltering courage of Indian women in becoming satis or performing the jauhar for cherishing their ideals of womanly conduct. If Englishmen can feel pride in their ancestors who grabbed one fourth of the world’s surface or if Frenchmen can feel pride in the deeds of their Emperor Napoleon who tried to enslave the whole of Europe and yet are not held up to ridicule or rebuke, there is no reason why poor Indians cannot express admiration for the sacrifices which their women made in the past, though they may condemn the institution itself which demanded such terrible sacrifice and suffering.