sati - 駭客任務

The Tradition of Sati in India
by Dr. Jyotsna Kamat

Sati (Su-thi , a.k.a. suttee) is the traditional Hindu practice of a widow

immolating herself on her husband's funeral pyre.


"Sati" means a virtuous woman. A woman who dies burning herself on her

husbands funeral fire was considered most virtuous, and was believed to

directly go to heaven, redeeming all the forefathers rotting in hell, by this"

meritorious" act. The woman who committed Sati was worshipped as a Goddess,

and temples were built in her memory.


Sati was prevalent among certain sects of the society in ancient India, who

either took the vow or deemed it a great honor to die on the funeral pyres of

their husbands. Ibn Batuta (1333 A.D.) has observed that Sati was considered

praiseworthy by the Hindus, without however being obligatory. The Agni Purana

declares that the woman who commits sahagamana goes to heaven. However,

Medhatiti pronounced that Sati was like suicide and was against the Shastras,

the Hindu code of conduct. It is believed that they were not coerced, although

several wives committed Sati. The majority of the widows did not undergo Sati.


Maha-sati stones (hero-stones) were erected in memory of brave women who

committed sati and are periodically worshipped. There are not many instances

of remarriage of widows in Indian history and it is believed that women

preferred death to the cursed life a widow (see: Origins of the Sati System).


Many hero-stones claim that the wife has committed Sati out of tremendous

love for husband, so they can be together after death, but these are not

historically substantiated. One finds a large number of satis committed just

after the war (like the Johar in Rajasthan (map - topics), when the women

must have died to protect their honor from the invading enemies after their

men perished in the battlefield.


Indian leader Rajaram Mohan Roy, through his organization Brahmo Samaj was

among the first who fought to eliminate Sati. The ritual of sati was banned by

the British Government in 1829 (see a timeline of Sati). However, it took a

large scale social reforms by Dayananda Saraswati(of Arya Samaj), Mahatma

Gandhi and the like to actually stop the practice (see: Timeline of Sati).

In the modern times, there was one instance of a Sati reported in Rajasthan

(late 1980s), and another in Madhya Pradesh (in year 2002) that caused a lot

of controversy and social turmoil.


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Sati seemed to be Indian of origin, so I thought an India legend might suit
her character better.

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