Sati: Beyond the Funeral Pyre
The practice of sati was the Hindu practice that involved a widow killing herself by self-immolation right after the death of her husband. The widow would be decked up in her finest jewellery and clothes like a newlywed bride and sit on her husband's funeral pyre, ready to be united with him in a world beyond the physical world. This was regarded as an expression of her wholehearted devotion to her deceased husband. In the eyes of orthodox Hindus, this act was the way through which a widow could metamorphosize herself into a goddess, venerated by her people after she was gone. We do not find any direct sanction for the practice in sacred Hindu texts. Sati is never prescribed in the Griya Sutras or the older smritis like the Manu and Yajnavalkya Smritis. There is only one reference to sati in the Ramayana, when Vedavati informs Ravana that her mother along with the corpse of her husband Kushadhaja perished in a fire. The Mahabharata mentions that Madri performed sati. Deviki, Bhadra, Rohini, and Madri—the four wives of Vasudeva—committed sati. After Krishna's demise, his wives, Rukmani, Gandhari, Snibya, Haimavati, and Jambavati, performed sati.
Greek sources are very useful in collating information on sati in early ancient India. One of Alexander's most important historians, Aristobulus, accompanied him to India in 326 BCE and he provides knowledge about sati. He was told that it was practiced in some parts of India. He notes that while self-immolation wasn't mandatory, many widows chose to do it because they believed it would elevate their social status and hoped to escape a miserable, abandoned and lonely existence if they had chosen to live.
By the Gupta period (4th c. to 6th c. CE), we see the emergence of many Dharmashastras or Smritis, emphasizing on virtuous and dutiful wives, on the concept of ideal women. A dutiful and chaste wife was equated with a goddess. A similar notion was evident in South India. The Kannagi cult or the cult of the goddess Pattini is now part of Tamil and Malyali culture in India and Sinhalese and Tamil culture in Sri Lanka. As per the story of Silappatikaram, which is considered as one of the five great epics of ancient Tamil literature, Kannagi the devoted wife of Kovalan was so chaste that after learning the unfair execution of her unfaithful husband Kovalan by the order of the Pandyan ruler Nedunj Cheliyan I, she burned down the whole of Madurai (in present-day Tamil Nadu), the capital city of the Pandyas. Soon, she died too. Such narratives, traditions and mythology support the notion that a woman should be worshipped as a goddess if she stays faithful to her polygamous or unfaithful husband and ends her life too after his death. It is challenging to locate a tradition that honors a man who is regarded as a deity for opting to stay loyal to his adulterous wife throughout his life and sacrifice himself right after her death.
It is from the Gupta period i.e. from the Eran Pillar Inscription of Bhanugupta (Gupta king), engraved in 510 CE in Madhya Pradesh, we discovered the first epigraphic evidence of sati. The inscription states that Goparaja who was a chieftain of Bhanugupta died in a battle at Eran while fighting against the Hunas. His wife followed him onto the funeral pyre. Owing to the obsession with her chastity and the attempt to control her sexuality, Sati was seen as a solution in those days and not as an act of monstrosity. To preserve her chastity after her man was dead, and also to prove her faithfulness to her dead husband, sati was seen as evidence of her pativrata (chaste and dedicated women). She was revered and deified as Sati Mata after the painful death. The performance of sati became associated with honour for her and for her family.
Sati in Indian Mythology:
The Kamakhya Temple in Kamrup district of Assam is renowned for the worship of yoni (female genitalia) of Goddess Sati. At Deoghar in Jharkhand, the heart of Sati fell and on the site is the Hriday Temple, dedicated to this Hindu belief along with the Baidyanath Temple of Shiva. These are some of the 51 shakti pithas in the Indian subcontinent and in Tibet. As per Hindu tradition wherever the dismembered body parts of Sati fell, those places became pithas—the sacred sites of Goddess Sati and in all these places, she is believed to be constantly living in some form with Bhairava—a form of Shiva, her husband. Though the practice of Sati is banned now in India, yet the concept of worshipping Sati Goddess prevails. However, Sati in reality was performed after the death of the husband. But in mythology, Shiva was alive when Sati performed self-immolation. Unable to bear the insults inflicted on her husband by her father Daksha, Sati set herself ablaze. When Shiva learned the news of her self-immolation, he reached her father's place and took the dead body of Sati and filled with fury, began to dance the dance of destruction (tandav). Seeing that the world was going to end, Vishnu in order to stop Shiva from doing so took his sharp disk, Sudarshana Chakra and mutilated Sati's dead body into 51 parts. The text Tantra Chudamani identifies the places where her dismembered body parts fell. The Buddhist text, Hevajra Tantra too offers some details regarding shakti pithas and their locations.
Sati in European Accounts:
Many foreign travellers visiting India give information on the practice and they describe that on many occasions sati was performed willingly by widows owing to the status of women in their society and that it appeared as though it was not forced. In actuality, the widow was led to feel that her existence as a widow would be of no consequence following her husband's death. However, she would be revered and worshipped as a Sati goddess if she died on her husband's funeral pyre. Ralph Fitch, an English merchant who visited India in 1583 highlights the pitiable condition of the widows who would reject the custom of self-immolation. He writes, “The wives here doe burne with their husbands when they die ; if they will not, their heads be shaven, and never any account is made of them afterwards.” Nicholas Withington, a 17th c. British factor records that as soon as a woman was widowed, she had to shun her jewellery, shave her head, ‘is not suffred to eate, drinke, or keepe companye with anye bodye’, etc. and in this way, she had to spend the rest of her life. According to Edward Terry, it was because of the pitiable condition a widow which she was subjected to after the death of her husband and the general outlook of the society towards her that she would willingly opt for ending her life by self-immolation rather than suffering throughout the rest of her life. Terry was an English chaplain to the East India Company who joined Sir Thomas Roe, the English ambassador of the English King, James I to the court of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir in 1615. He writes:
Their widowes marrie not ; but, after the losse of their husbands, cut their haire and spend all their life following as neglected creatures ; whence, to bee free from shame, many yong women are ambitious to die with honor (as they esteem it), when their fiery love brings them to the flames (as they thinke) of martyrdome most willingly ;following their dead husbands unto the fire, and there imbracing are burnt with them ; but this the doe voluntary, not compelled. The parents and friends of those women will most joyfully accompanie them, and when the wood is fitted for this hellish sacrifice and begings to burne, all the people assembled shoute and make a noyse, that the screeches of this tortured creature may not bee heard.
William Hawkins explains that many widows opting for sati believed that they were doing this to demonstrate her loyalty to their respective dead husbands as pativratas. Hawkins was an English naval commander who is known for commanding the first East India Company ship called Hector to Surat located in the western coast of India in 1608 and successfully securing commercial privileges from Jahangir. He mentions,
The custome of the Indians is to burne their dead […] at their burning many of their wives will burne with them, because they will bee registred in their books for famous and most modest and loving wives, who, leaving all worldly affaires, content themselves to live no longer then their husbands. I have seene many proper women brought before the King, whom (by his commandment) none many burne without his leave and sight of them ; I meane those of Agra. When any of these commeth, hee doth perswade them with many promises of gifts and living if they will live, but in my time no perswasion could pervaile, but burne they would. The King, seeing that all would not serve, giveth his leave for her to be carried to the fire, where she burneth alive with her dead husband.
Niccolao Manucci, a Venetian traveller who visited the Mughal Empire during the reigns of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, witnessed sati in places like Rajmahal (in modern-day Jharkhand), Agra, etc. At Agra he, with a young Armenian man, saved the life of a woman from committing sati. The Armenian guy married the widow after baptizing her. When Pietro Della Valle, an Italian composer and writer visited Surat and Cambay, he himself witnessed no real case of sati and he credited it to the stern discouragement of the practice by the Mughals. Though they had not actually put any ban on its practice but a woman intending to perform sati was required to first obtain a license from the governor of her district and the governor was very particular to grant it only when he was convinced that she was going to do it only out of her free will and there was no pressure on her from her kith and kin. However, when he was in a place he mentions as ‘Ikkeri’, he had the chance to see a local Hindu funeral. The corpse was dressed as though it was still living, carried while seated in a chair, and secured to keep it from toppling over. The dead body was placed on the funeral pyre in this state. And he noticed the widow of the deceased man about to become a Sati. He was thrilled and dismayed to learn that the widow was preparing to commit suicide. He made a fruitless attempt to talk her out of it, but she calmly and collectedly debated the point. There was nothing he could do to stop it. Valle writes that he was ‘highly rejoiced, save for his pity for the victim, to have witnessed a suttee…’
Withington had seen the performance of sati multiple times and the first time he saw it, it was with his agent and some other Englishmen in Surat which was one of the major Medieval Indian port cities. And unfortunately, the widow was a child, probably a 10-year-old girl and “had never layen with her husband.” Her husband was a soldier and he died while fighting in a battle. He was cremated in the place where he breathes his last. But his clothes and turban were brought home as sati was not necessarily performed with the widow’s husband’s dead body. There were occasions when his belongings were enough to make her undertake sati. As the girl was happily preparing to set herself on fire, an order from the governor of Surat was made that she was to be prohibited from killing herself because her marriage with her husband was not consummated. Her friends went to the governor and bribed him with gifts. The governor reversed his order and permitted the child to become a Sati mata (goddess). After the incident, Withington’s agent was so horror-stricken that he made a resolution that he would never again see a woman burning herself alive this way. According to Withington, the family of the widow and not the kin of her deceased husband showed enormous eagerness in forcing her to do this because ‘it a greate disgrace to their familie if shee should denye to bee burned…’. If a widow was willing to burn herself, but ‘feelinge the scorching heate, leape out of the fyer, her father and mother will take her and bynde her and throwe her into the fyer and burne her per force ; but such weaknesse seldome happeneth amongste them.’
Withington observes that Sati was very popular among the Rajputs. He narrates the usual manner in which Rajput women performed Sati and that they viewed it as a matter of honour and pride.
When the Rasbooche dies, his wife, when his bodye goes to bee burned, accompanieth him, attired with her beste arrayments and accompanied with her frends and Kyndred, making much joye, having musicke with them. And cominge to the place of burning, the fyer beeinge made, stitch downe, having twice or thrice incompassed the place. Firste, whee bewayleth her husband’s death, and rejoycinge that shee is nowe reddye to goe and live with him agayne ; and then imbraceth her frends and sitteth downe on the toppe of the pile of wood and dry stickes, rocking her husband’s head in her lappe, and soe willeth them to sett fyer on the wood ; which beeinge done, her frends throwe oyle and divers other things, with sweete perfumes, uppon her ; and shee indures the fyer with such patience that it is to bee admired, beeinge loose and not bounde.
An English priest named John Ovington in A Voyage to Surat in the Year 1689 observes that remarriage of women was not permitted while this was not the case for men. Fidelity was expected from women alone whereas "wanton husbands" practiced polygamy and married several women, often as young as six or seven before they attained puberty. He records, 'But with this Additional Severity upon the young Maids, whose Husbands die before they cohabit, that they are obliged to a disconsolate Virginity all the Days of their Lives ; and must never contract with another Man, tho' they are unfortunately Widows at Six or Seven Years of Age.’ He discovered the reason for early marriage of women: ‘But the Reason alledg’d by them for these Infant Marriages, is, because they esteem it a matter of more Decency to approach their Brides in their purer state, before they come to riper Years.’ In his account, Ovington also emphasizes the rationale behind the Brahmin priests' staunch defense of the institution. The priest, according to him, was "always a Gainer by her Death." If she refused to burn herself alive, she was tonsured and that she knew 'might appear Contemptible and Infamous for ever after'. To die beside her deceased spouse, a widow would don a bridal gown and bedecked in all of her priceless jewelry, sitting on a funeral pyre. According to Ovington, the priest would go for the gold and silver in the ashes after the widow was reduced to ashes "because he only had power to touch the Ashes" and "made his Property after her Death." Ovington mentions that the introduction of sati was motivated by the libidinous nature of women, who, in their excessive lust, frequently poisoned their current husbands in order to create room for a new lover. As women were thought to be lusty and deceptive by nature, sati helped to check such bad intentions of women, therefore preventing a wife from poisoning her man.
Ralph Fitch makes a very interesting observation in his account regarding the system of sati and that for the Hindus, killing a living creature was an act of sin, but when the husband of a Hindu woman would die, his widow was to perform sati. To quote him:
They have a very strange order among them. They worshippe a cowe, and esteeme much of the cowes doung to paint the walles of their houses. They will kill nothing, not as much as a louse ; for they holde it a sinne to kill any thing. They eate no flesh, but live by rootes and rye and milke. And when the husbande dieth, his wife is burned with him, if shee be alive ; if shee will not, her head is shaven, and then is never any account made of her after. They say if they should be buried, it were a great sinne, for of their bodies there would come many wormes and other vermine, and when their bodies were consumed, those wormes would lacke sustenance, which were a sinne ; therefore they will be burned.
According to Dutch merchant and traveller Francisco Pelsaert, many widows did not burn themeselves and "there is no such reproach as is asserted by many,". Nonetheless, Pelsaert notes that among the Rajputs, Khatris, and Banyas of Agra, there were two or three incidents of sati per week. Nonetheless, Pelsaert notes that among the Rajputs, Khatris, and Banyas of Agra, there were two or three incidents of sati per week. He saw a scenario where the widow, who was barely eighteen and the mother of a child performed sati.
Sati in Medieval Indian Persian Accounts:
By the time of the Mughals, sati was an established social institution. Persian chroniclers during the Medieval India do not provide any detailed information on the sati system. A Mughal primary source, Maasir-ul-Umara highlights the reason for committing sati by Hindu widows. It informs that most of them were just following the established custom ‘without being moved by love’.
Abul Fazl, the Mughal court chronicler during the reign of Akbar writes that on five occasions women performed sati:
i. Those who died on learning the death of their husbands and were burnt by their kin.
ii. Those who out of love and devotion for their husbands voluntarily opted to burn themselves to death.
iii. Those who were frightened of castigation surrendered themselves to die this way.
iv. Those who thought that Sati was sanctioned by tradition.
v. Those who were coerced into burning themselves alive by their relatives.
Mughal Emperor Jahangir in his memoirs Tuzuk i Jahangiri writes that he forbade the practice in case it was coerced or when a widow had children to look after.
In the practice of being burnt on the funeral pyre of their husbands, as sometimes exhibited among the widows of the Hindus, I had previously directed, that no woman who was the mother of children should be thus made a sacrifice, however willing to die; and I now further ordained, that in no case was the practice to be permitted, when compulsion was in the slightest degree employed, whatever might be the opinion of the people.
However, keeping in mind the religious sentiments of the majority of his subjects who were Hindus, Jahangir did not attempt to fully eradicate the ritual of widow-burning. He tactfully adds:
In other respects they were in no wise to be molested in the duties of their religion, nor exposed to oppression or violence of any manner whatever.
Sati in British Colonial Period in India:
Between 1815 and 1828 there were 8,134 cases of sati in British India. Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the 'Father of Modern India' as a child saw his sister-in-law performed sati and that how petrified she was. He tried to save her by protesting against this social evil, but he failed to persuade his elders to unfollow the custom. But the incident motivated him to urge the British administration in India to outlaw the practice of sati. Finally, all his efforts became instrumental in influencing the first Governor-General of British India, Lord William Bentinck to pass a law called the Bengal Sati Regulation in 1829 to prohibit Sati. Following the British Crown's direct takeover of India in 1861, Queen Victoria imposed a nationwide ban on sati.
Sati in Post-Independent India:
In the year 1987, the tradition of sati once more came into limelight when a Rajput woman, Roop Kanwar who was only 18-year-old performed sati at Deorala village in the district of Sikar, Rajasthan. Even though she is still venerated in her village, this caused such a huge uproar nationwide that the Indian Government passed the Rajasthan Sati Prevention Ordinance in the same year. Afterwards, the Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act was passed by the Government in 1987.
Thus, the Indian Government has, indeed, put an official ban on the practice of sati but the worship of Sati endures. Certain communities hold the widows who self-immolated in high regard as symbols of sacrifice and fidelity. They are worshipped as the goddess Sati, the Hindu mythological consort of Lord Shiva. There are still shrines and temples dedicated to Sati scattered around the nation, where devotees pay their respects to such widows.
References:
Abul Fazl Allami, Akbarnama, tr. H. Beveridge, Low Price Publications, Delhi, 1902-39.
A Pepys of Mogul India 1653-1708 Being an Abridged Edition of the “Storia Do Mogor” of Niccolao Manucci, transl. William Irvine, Low Price Publication, Delhi, 5th edition, 1913.
Aziz Ahmed, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1964.
Bernier, Francois, Travels in the Mogul Empire, 1656-68, tr. Irving Brock, Low Price Publications, New Delhi, 1934.
Early Travels in India 1583-1619, ed. William Foster, Oxford University Press, London, 1921.
Edward Farley Oaten, European Travellers in India During the Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, the Evidence Afforded by them with Respect to Indian Social Institutions and the Nature and Influence of Indian Governments, Low Price Publications, Delhi, 1909.
Nawab Samsam-ud-daula Shah Nawaz and Abdul Hayy, The Maasir-ul-umara, Janaki Prakashan, New Delhi, 1979.
Om Prakash Mishra and S. Pradhan, Sati Memorials and Cenotaphs of Madhya Pradesh- A Survey, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Vol. 62 (2001), pp. 1013-1019, Indian History Congress, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44155841
John Ovington, A Voyage to Surat in the Year 1689, ed. H. G. Rawlinson, Oxford University Press, London, 1929.
Susil Chaudhary, Sati as Social Institution and the Mughals, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Vol. 37 (1976), pp. 218-223, Indian History Congress, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44138937
The Baburnama, Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor, ed. and tr. Wheeler M. Thackston, The Modern Library, New York, 1996, rep. 2002.
The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri or Memoirs of Jahangir, tr. Alexander Rogers and ed. Henry Beveridge, Low Price Publications, Delhi, rep. 2006.
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