Sati was regarded as a barbaric practice by the Islamic rulers of the Mogul period, and many tried to halt the custom with laws and edicts banning the practice. Since its very foundation the Sikh religion has explicitly prohibited it. Over the centuries, many of India's inhabitants have disagreed with the practice of sati. To many, death may have been preferable, especially for those who were still girls themselves when their husband's died. After the death of a husband an Hindi widow was expected to live the life of an aesthetic, renouncing all social activities, shaving her head, eating only boiled rice and sleeping on thin coarse matting (Moore 2004). The alternative, anyway, was not appealing. It is little wonder that women growing up in a culture in which they were so little valued as individuals considered it the only way for a good wife to behave. Indeed, the very reference to the widow from the point at which she decided to become a "Sati" (Chaste One) removed any further personal reference to her as an individual and elevated her to a remote and untouchable context. Only if she was virtuous and pious would she be worthy of being sacrificed consequently being burned or being seen as a failed wife were often her only choices (Stein 1978). Stein (1978) states "The widow on her way to the pyre was the object (for once) of all public attention.Endowed with the gift of prophecy and the power to cure and bless, she was immolated amid great fanfare, with great veneration". Sati also carried romantic associations which some were at apparent pains to amplify. Because its proponents lauded it as the required conduct of righteous women, it was not considered to be suicide, otherwise banned or discouraged by Hindu scripture. It was deemed an act of peerless piety and was said to purge her of all her sins, release her from the cycle of birth and rebirth and ensure salvation for her dead husband and the seven generations that followed her (Moore 2004). In a country that shunned widows, sati was considered the highest expression of wifely devotion to a dead husband (Allen & Dwivedi 1998, Moore 2004). The common deciding factor was often ownership of wealth or property, since all possessions of the widow devolved to the husband's family upon her death. Historically, the practice of sati was to be found among many castes and at every social level, chosen by or for both uneducated and the highest ranking women of the times.
However, these numbers are likely to grossly underestimate the real number of satis as in 1823, 575 women performed sati in the state of Bengal alone (Hardgrave 1998). While comprehensive data are lacking across India and through the ages, the British East India Company recorded that the total figure of known occurrences for the period 1813 - 1828 was 8,135 another source gives the number of 7,941 from 1815 - 1828, an average of 618 documented incidents per year. Over the centuries the custom died out in the south only to become prevalent in the north, particularly in the states of Rajasthan and Bengal. The custom began to grow in popularity as evidenced by the number of stones placed to commemorate satis, particularly in southern India and amongst the higher castes of Indian society, despite the fact that the Brahmins originally condemned the practice (Auboyer 2002). Sati as practice is first mentioned in 510 CCE, when a stele commemorating such an incident was erected at Eran, an ancient city in the modern state of Madhya Pradesh. The term sati is derived from the original name of the goddess Sati, also known as Dakshayani, who self-immolated because she was unable to bear her father Daksha's humiliation of her (living) husband Shiva. However other forms of sati exist, including being buried alive with the husband's corpse and drowning. The best known form of sati is when a woman burns to death on her husband's funeral pyre. Sati (also called suttee) is the practice among some Hindu communities by which a recently widowed woman either voluntarily or by use of force or coercion commits suicide as a result of her husband's death. Indeed, the practice is outlawed and illegal in today's India, yet it occurs up to the present day and is still regarded by some Hindus as the ultimate form of womanly devotion and sacrifice.
In this age of ascending feminism and focus on equality and human rights, it is difficult to assimilate the Hindu practice of sati, the burning to death of a widow on her husband's funeral pyre, into our modern world. Suttee by James Atkinson, 1831, in the India Office Collection of the British Library (c) British Library Board 2009
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