Essay:
Historical Perspective of Sati
By Shrikanth Krishnamachary
Published in IndicToday on January 14, 2019

The custom of Sati is among the widely cited and the most reviled of Hindu practices, despite being more or less extinct for nearly 190 years. Long after its ban in 1829, Sati remains in public discourse by virtue of being a polemical weapon.

Whenever there is a defense of any tradition, the common heard retort is –

“Oh…what about Sati? Was that not also a tradition? Did we not get rid of that?”

More often than not, this weapon is used rather liberally in contexts where it is out-of-place. Recently the journalist and political commentator Rajdeep Sardesai used Sati as a polemical weapon while arguing in favor of changing the rules of admission at the shrine of Shri Ayappa at Sabarimala.

Sati remains alive not just in Indian public discourse, but also continues to fascinate the West, some 300 years after modern Europeans first encountered the practice. It is used as a polemical tool by some to denigrate the rituals and culture of Santana Dharma.

For some outsiders of a feminist persuasion Sati is a convenient stick to critique the “treatment of women” in traditional India. For others of a more religious disposition, it is a stick to critique Indian religion, and make a case for the superior “Christian” civilization.

Misconceptions

In the West for much of the past 300 years, Sati has been mis-translated as the practice of “widow burning” – implicitly suggesting murder. This is despite the fact that Sati for the most part was a voluntary act. The great Harvard political philosopher, Harvey Mansfield, once invoked Sati in an interview with the Harvard review of Philosophy in 1993, while critiquing multi-culturalism in the West.

Here’s what he said –

“To appreciate another culture one should really try to see where it disagrees with ours, and why it does so. For example, why did the Hindus burn widows on the funeral pyre? It’s not enough to simply reject that out of hand as an oddity…Why did they do that? What was the reasoning behind that? …. In other words, what are the arguments on its behalf?”

To be perfectly honest, Mansfield’s questions are valid.

However the Hindu response to these questions has been somewhat confused, often defensive, and sometimes resigned, with the odd exception. Among Indian progressives / liberals, the responses have tended to border on self-flagellation. Among the more right-wing Hindus, the responses go typically like this –

Response 1: “Oh…Sati was an incredibly rare practice, exaggerated by missionaries and dishonest East India officials”

Response 2: “Oh. Sati was non-existent in Ancient India. It is a medieval practice that arose in reaction to Muslim depredations among certain royal houses”

While it is true that Sati was a rare occurrence and that its incidence increased in medieval India, these responses are not entirely honest. Firstly there is a tendency to conflate the medieval practice of Jauhar in north-west India with Sati, a much older practice that predates it by many centuries. Secondly these somewhat defensive responses do not acknowledge the long history of Sati in India and the several arguments both for and against it within the Hindu tradition over the past two millennia.

The Indian liberal reaction in contrast is one of self-flagellation. This response has its own problems. It doesn’t acknowledge the relative rarity of the practice. It is oblivious to the numerous critiques of Sati within the Hindu establishment for much of the past 1500 years. So Indian responses have mostly disappointed.

There are some exceptions like the early 20th century historian Anant Sadashiv Altekar, whose work – “The Position of Women in Hindu civilization” published in 1938, remains a classic and is well worth reading to understand Sati, among other things. This essay is an attempt to trace Sati as a practice over the past 2000+ years. While I have referred some primary sources, many of the pointers are taken from Anant Altekar’s fine work.

Widows in Vedic literature

The practice of the widow sacrificing her life upon her husband’s death is not unique to India. It has been observed among Thracians by Heredotus, Manchus in China in later times, and also among ancient Scandinavians. But these were not very widespread practices. It is quite likely that the practice was more prevalent among the warrior class and arose from the belief possibly that the departed may require all their “possessions” in the next life.

In an Indian context, what strikes us is the total absence of Sati in the Vedic period. There is neither an intellectual justification of widow self-immolation in any of the Vedic texts, nor a narrative reference to an actual occurrence. In Rig Veda, Mandala 10.18.7/8 in fact implicitly exhort the widow to live on

इमा नारीरविधवाः सुपत्नीराञ्जनेन सर्पिषा संविशन्तु
अनश्रवो.अनमीवाः सुरत्ना आ रो हन्तु जनयोयोनिमग्रे
उदीर्ष्व नार्यभि जीवलोकं गतासुमेतमुप शेष एहि
हस्तग्राभस्य दिधिषोस्तवेदं पत्युर्जनित्वमभि सम्बभूथ

Translation – Ralph Griffith

“Let these unwidowed dames with noble husbands adorn themselves with fragrant balm and unguent. Decked with fair jewels, tearless, free from sorrow, first let the dames go up to where he lieth. Rise, come unto the world of life, O woman: come, he is lifeless by whose side thou liest. Wifehood with this thy husband was thy portion, who took thy hand and wooed thee as a lover”

So clearly there is no explicit encouragement to the woman to ascend the funeral pyre here. In the Atharva Veda (Book 18), there is another hymn, which is even more unambiguous in encouraging the widow to have a family. Here is the verse

इयं नारी पतिलोकं वृणाना नि पघत उप त्वा मर्त्य प्रेतम ।

धर्मं पुराणमनुपालयन्ती तस्यै प्रजां द्रविणं चेह धेहि ॥

Translation from Hindi (Ram Sharma Acharya)

“O Dead man. This lady who cares for your lineage to continue, is practicing her Swadharma, and is now going to come near you. But let her in future have kids, grandkids, and prosperity”

This suggests that while the lady was present near the pyre and lay beside her husband in a symbolic way, after the funeral she was encouraged to live on and even remarry if necessary. So it is clear that at least in the early to middle Vedic period, there was no mention of Sati, nor was it likely practiced.

Even the later layers of Vedic literature like the Brahmanas and Upanishads do not mention Sati or anything even approaching it. In the Asvalayana Grihya Sutra, we have this verse, which in the latter part interestingly cross-references the Rig Veda verse we have already encountered.

तामुत्थापयेध्येवरः पतिस्थानीयोऽन्तेवासी जरध्यासो

“उधीर्षःव नारि अभि जीवलोकम्” इति

Translation (Hermann Oldenberg)

“After the wife lies beside the corpse at the funeral, her brother-in-law, being a representative of her husband, or a pupil of her husband, or an aged servant, should cause her to rise from that place with “Arise, O wife, to the world of life”.

What’s interesting is that the Rig Vedic injunction referred to earlier in the thread (Arise to the world of life) is invoked in this Grihya Sutra verse many centuries later. This shows the consistency of thought at work over a very long period of time.

Rig Veda Mandala X probably belongs to an epoch that is definitely some centuries preceding 1000 BCE. While Asvalayana Grihya Sutra is a much later text probably belonging to 600-700 BCE. Yet you see a verse in the latter referencing the former, to drive home the same positive point.

In roughly the same epoch, in the Taittareya Āranyaka text, we come across this verse –

धनुर्हस्तादाददाना मृतस्य श्रियै क्ष्त्त्त्रायौजसे बलाय

अत्रैव त्वमिह वयँ सुशेवा विश्वास्स्पृधो अभिमातीर्जयेम

Translation (paraphrasing Altekar’s):

“On returning from the funeral pyre, the widow brings back with her the husband’s instruments like bow, jewels, etc. We hope the widow and her relatives can lead a prosperous life”

The early Buddhist literature (Pali canon) does not discuss Sati either. So it is clear that Sati was most likely non-existent in the centuries succeeding Buddha (5th to 3rd century BCE). Sati is not mentioned by Megasthenes and Kautilya (~300BCE). Nor is it prescribed in the early orthodox Smritis of Manu and Yajnavalkya (dated variously between 300BCE and 300CE).

Niyoga in pre-classical India

In fact right up to the beginning of the Common Era, widows were not just encouraged to live on, but there was also the practice of Niyoga wherein a relative of the dead husband could potentially be authorized to have a kid with the dead man’s wife if he died childless. But post 300BCE criticisms started brewing in orthodox Hindu society against Niyoga – a practice admittedly liable to great misuse.

Here’s Manu on Niyoga. He first describes Niyoga but also condemns it, which suggests that even in his time, the practice was not totally extinct.

देवराद् वा सपिण्डाद् वा स्त्रिया सम्यक्नियु क्तया ।
प्रजेप्सिताऽऽधिगन्तव्या सन्तानस्य परिक्षये ॥ ५९ ॥

Translation (Ganganath Jha):

“On failure of issue, the woman, on being authorized, may obtain, the desired offspring, either from her younger brother-in-law or a ‘Sapiṇḍa’ “

विधवायां नियुक्तस्तु घृताक्तो वाग्यतो निशि ।
एकमुत्पादयेत् पुत्रं न द्वितीयं कथं चन ॥ ६० ॥

“He who has been authorized in regard to a widow shall, anointed with clarified butter and with speech controlled, beget, at night, one son,—and on no account a second one”

But notice Manu here –

विधवायां नियोगार्थे निर्वृत्ते तु यथाविधि
गुरुवत्च स्नुषावत्च वर्तेयातां परस्परम्

“When the purpose of the ‘authorization’ in regard to the widow has been accomplished, the two should behave towards each other like an elder and a daughter-in-law”

But Manu was not happy with Niyoga, and positively discourages it

ततः प्रभृति यो मोहात् प्रमीतपतिकां स्त्रियम्
नियोजयत्यपत्यार्थं तं विगर्हन्ति साधवः

“Whenever anyone, through folly, ‘authorizes’ a woman whose husband is dead, to beget children,—him th