Widow burning sati - The custom that intrigued other cultures

The practice of sati (or suttee[1]) is a Hindu funeral custom, now very rare, in which the dead man's widow immolates herself on her husband's funeral pyre.

The term is derived from the original name of a goddess (see article on Dakshayani), who immolated herself, unable to bear the humiliation of her (living) husband. The term may also be used to refer to the widow herself. The term sati is now sometimes interpreted as 'chaste woman'.

Origin

Few reliable records exist of the practice before the time of the Gupta empire, approximately 400 AD. While a couple of instances of voluntary self immolation by women as well as men are mentioned in the Mahabharata and other works that may be considered at least partly historical accounts, it is known that large parts of these works are relatively late interpolations into an original story.

Also, the immolation or desire of self immolation is not regarded as a custom in the Mahabharata and as such the word 'sati' as a custom never occurs in the epic as compared to other customs such as the Rajasuya yagna. Rather, the instances are viewed as an expression of extreme grief on the loss of a beloved one.

Aristobulus of Cassandreia, a Greek historian who travelled to India with the expedition of Alexander of Macedon, recorded the practice of sati at the city of Taxila. A later instance of voluntary co-cremation appears in an account of an Indian soldier in the army of Eumenes of Cardia, whose two wives vied to die on his funeral pyre, in 316 BC.

The Greeks believed that the practice had been instituted to discourage wives from poisoning their husbands.

Voluntary death at funerals has been described in northern India before the Gupta empire. The original practices were called anumarana, and were not common. They were not necessarily practices that would be understood as sati at present, since it was not necessarily a widow who died.

Those who died could be anyone, male or female with a personal loyalty to the dead person. They included other relatives of the dead person, servants, followers or friends. Sometimes these deaths were because of vows of loyalty taken in life. Compare with later Japanese seppuku.

Widow burning, the practice as understood today, started to become more extensive after about 500 AD, and the end of the Gupta empire. This is sometimes ascribed to the decline of Buddhism in India, the rise of caste based societies, and the idea that sati was used to reinforce caste status. There are also suggestions that the practice was introduced into India by the Huna invaders who contributed to the fall of the Gupta empire.

At about this time, instances of sati began to be marked by inscribed memorial stones. The earliest of these is in Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, though the largest collections are some centuries later, in Rajasthan. These stones, called devli, or sati-stones, became shrines where the dead woman became an object of reverence and worship. They are most common in western India.

By about the 10th century sati, as understood today, was known across much of the subcontinent. It continued to occur, usually at a low frequency and with regional variations, until the early 19th century.

The practice

The act of sati was supposed to take place voluntarily, and from the existing accounts, most of them were indeed voluntary. The act may have been expected of widows in some communities.

The extent to which any social pressures or expectations should be considered as compulsion has been the matter of much debate in modern times. It is frequently stated that a widow could expect little of life after her husband's death, especially if she was childless. However, there were also instances where the wish of the widow to commit sati was not welcomed by others, and where efforts were made to prevent the death.

Traditionally, the funeral of any dead person would usually have taken place within a day of the death. Thus a decision by a widow to die at her husband's funeral would often have to be made quickly. In some cases, such as when the husband died elsewhere, it was still possible for the widow to die by immolation, but at a later date.

The connection with the original marriage between the widow and the deceased was emphasised. Unlike other mourners, the sati at the funeral was often dressed in marriage robes, or in other finery. Her death may have been seen as a culmination of the marriage.

In the preliminaries of the related act of Jauhar, both the husbands and wives have been known to dress in their marriage clothes and re-enact their wedding ritual, before going to their separate deaths.

There are accounts of many different approaches of the widow to her death. The majority have the widow seated or lying down on the funeral pyre beside her dead husband.

There are also many descriptions of widows who walked or jumped into the flames after the fire had been lit, and there are descriptions of widows who lit their own funeral pyres after seating themselves on it. Some written prescriptions to the practice exist; a recent one has been quoted at a mailing list.

Compulsion

Sati was supposed to be voluntary, but it is argued that it has usually not been voluntary in practice. Leaving aside the matter of social pressures, it is common understanding that many widows were physically forced to their deaths.

Pictorial and narrative accounts often describe the woman seated on the unlit pyre, and tied or otherwise restrained to keep her from fleeing after the fire was lit. Some accounts say that the woman was drugged. There is one description of men with long poles preventing a widow from fleeing the flames.

Royal funerals

Royal funerals sometimes have included the deaths of many wives and concubines. A number of examples of these occur in the history of Rajasthan.

Symbolic sati

There have been accounts of symbolic sati in some Hindu communities. A widow lies down next to her dead husband, and certain parts of both the marriage ceremony and the funeral ceremonies are enacted, but without her death.

Jauhar

The practice of jauhar, known from Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh was the collective suicide of a community. It consisted of the mass immolation of women, and sometimes also of the children, the elderly and the sick, at the same time that their fighting men died in battle. It is detailed in a separate article.

Burials

In some Hindu communities, it is conventional to bury the dead. It has been known for similar widow deaths to occur in these communities, but with the widow being buried alive with the husband, in ceremonies that are otherwise largely as in the immolation.

Prevalence

Records exist of sati across most of the subcontinent. However, there seem to have been major differences historically, in different regions, and among different communities.

Numbers

There are no reliable figures for the numbers who died by sati across the country. A local indication of the numbers is given in the records kept by the Bengal Presidency of the British East India Company.

The total figure of known occurrences for the period 1813 to 1828 is 8,135[14], thus giving an average of about 600 per year. Bentinck, in his 1829 report, states that 420 occurrences took place in one (unspecified) year in the 'Lower Provinces' of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, and 44 in the 'Upper Provinces' (the upper Gangetic plain)[15]. Given a population of over 50 million at the time for the Presidency, this suggests a maximum frequency of immolation among widows of well under 1%.

Recent incidence

Sati still occurs occasionally, mostly in rural areas. About 40 cases have occurred in India since independence in 1947, the majority in the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan. The last clearly documented case was that of Roop Kanwar. However there are claims that other more recent deaths have also been cases of Sati.

Roop Kanwar, a childless 18-year old widow, committed sati on September 4, 1987, some allege forcibly, dressed in her red wedding dress, in Rajasthan's Deorala village. Several thousand people were said to have been at the event. After her death, she was hailed as a 'sati mata', meaning pure mother.

The event quickly produced a public outcry in urban centres, pitting a modern Indian ideology against a traditional one. A much-publicised investigation led to the arrest of a large number of people from Deorala, said to have been present at the ceremony, or participants in it. Eventually, 11 people were charged.

On January 31, 2004, a special court in Jaipur acquitted all of the 11 accused in the case, observing that the prosecution had failed to prove charges that they glorified Sati.

On May 18 2006, Vidyawati, a 35-year-old woman allegedly committed sati by jumping into the blazing funeral pyre of her husband in Rari-Bujurg Village, Fatehpur district in the State of Uttar Pradesh [citation needed].

On August 21 2006, Janakrani, a 40-year-old woman, burnt to death on the funeral pyre of her husband Prem Narayan in Sagar district.