Travels in India (Tavernier) 124: CHAPTER IX · How the women burn themselves with the bodies of their deceased husbands in India.
Travels in India (Ball) 124
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CHAPTER IX · How the women burn themselves with the bodies of their deceased husbands in India.
124.1
It is also an ancient custom among the idolaters of India that on a man dying his widow can never remarry; as soon, therefore, as he is dead she withdraws to weep for her husband, and some days afterwards her hair is shaved off, and she despoils herself of all the ornaments with which her person was adorned, she removes from her arms and legs the bracelets which her husband had given her, when espousing her, as a sign that she was to be submissive and bound to him, and she remains for the rest of her life without being of any consideration, and worse than a slave, in the place where previously she was mistress. This miserable condition causes her to detest life, and prefer to ascend a funeral pile to be consumed alive with the body of her defunct husband, rather than be regarded for the remainder of her days with opprobrium and infamy by all the world. Joined to which the Brahmins induce the women to hope that by dying in this way, with their husbands, they will live again with them in some other part of the world with more glory and more comfort than they have previously enjoyed. These are the two reasons which make these unhappy women resolve to burn themselves with the bodies of their husbands ;
124.2
to which it should be added that the priests buoy them up with the hope that at the moment when they are in the fire, before they yield up their souls, Rám will reveal wonderful things to them, and that after the soul has passed through several bodies it will attain to an exalted degree of glory for all eternity.
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But it should be remarked that a woman cannot burn herself with the body of her husband without having received permission from the Governor of the place where she dwells, and those Governors who are Muhammadans, hold this dreadful custom of self-destruction in horror, and do not readily give permission. On the other hand, it is only the women who become widows, without children, who can be reproached for not having loved their husbands if they have not had courage to burn themselves after their death, and to whom this want of courage will be for the remainder of their lives a cause of reproach. For, as for the widows who have children, they are not permitted under any circumstances to burn themselves with the bodies of their husbands ; and very far from custom obliging them, it is ordained that they shall live in order to watch over the education of their children. Those whom the Governors peremptorily refuse to grant permission to burn themselves pass the remainder of their lives in severe penances and in doing charitable deeds. There are some who frequent the great highways either to boil water with vegetables, in order to give it as a drink to passers by, or to keep fire always ready to light the pipes of those who desire to smoke tobacco. There are others among them who make a vow to eat nothing but what they find undigested in the droppings of oxen, cows, and buffaloes, and who do still more absurd things.
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The Governor, seeing that all the remonstrances he makes to these women, who are urged to burn themselves even by their relatives and by the Brahmins, are ineffectual to turn them from the damnable resolution which they have taken to die in so cruel a fashion, when his secretary indicates by a sign that he has received a bribe, at length allows them to do what they wish, and in a rage tells all the idolaters who accompany them that they may “go to the devil.” Immediately on this permission being obtained, all the music commences to make itself heard, and with the sound of drums, flutes, and other instruments of that kind, all go to the house of the deceased, and from thence, as I have said, accompany the body to the margin of a river or tank, where it is to be burned. All the relatives and friends of the widow who desires to die after her husband, congratulate her beforehand on the good fortune which she is about to acquire in the other world, and on the glory which all the members of the caste derive from her noble resolution. She dresses herself as for her wedding-day, and is conducted in triumph to the place where she is to be burnt. A great noise is made with the instruments of music and the voices of the women who follow, singing hymns to the glory of the unhappy one who is about to die.
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The Brahmins accompanying her exhort her to show resolution and courage, and many Europeans believe that in order to remove the fear of that death which man naturally abhors, she is given some kind of drink that takes away her senses and removes all apprehension which the preparations for her death might give rise to. It is for the interest of the Brahmins that these unhappy women maintain the resolution they have taken to burn themselves, for all the bracelets which they wear, both on arms and legs, with their earrings and rings, belong of right to these Brahmins, and they are searched for in the ashes after the women are burnt. According to the station and wealth of the women, the bracelets, earrings, and rings are either of gold or silver ; the poorest have them of copper and tin ; but as for precious stones, they do not wear them at all when going to be burnt.
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I have seen women burnt in three different ways, according to the customs of different countries. In the Kingdom of Gujarat, and as far as Agra and Delhi, this is how it takes place : On the margin of a river or tank, a kind of small hut, about 12 feet square, is built of reeds and all kinds of faggots, with which some pots of oil and other drugs are placed in order to make it burn quickly. The woman being seated in a half-reclining position in the middle of the hut, her head reposing on a kind of pillow of wood, and resting her back against a post, to which she is tied by her waist by one of the Brahmins, for fear lest she should escape on feeling the flame. In this position she holds the dead body of her husband on her knees, chewing betel all the time ; and after having been about half an hour in this condition, the Brahmin who has been by her side in the hut goes outside, and she calls out to the priests to apply the fire; this the Brahmins, and the relatives and friends of the woman who are present, immediately do, throwing into the fire some pots of oil, so that the woman may suffer less by being quickly consumed. After the bodies have been reduced to ashes, the Brahmins take whatever is found in the way of melted gold, silver, tin, or copper, derived from the bracelets, earrings, and rings which the woman had on; this belongs to them by right, as I have said.
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In the Kingdom of Bengal women are burnt in another manner. A woman in that country must be very poor if she does not come with the body of her husband to the margin of the Ganges in order to wash it after he is dead, and to bathe herself before being burnt. I have seen them come to the Ganges more than twenty days’ journey, the bodies being by that time altogether putrid, and emitting an unbearable odour. There was one of them who, coming from the north, near the frontiers of the Kingdom of Bhutan, with the body of her husband which she had conveyed in a carriage, travelled all the way on foot herself, without eating for fifteen or sixteen days, till she arrived at the Ganges, where after having washed the body of her husband, which stank horribly, and having bathed herself also, she had herself burnt with him with a determination which surprised those who saw it. I was there at the time. As throughout the length of the Ganges, and also in all Bengal, there is but little fuel, these poor women send to beg for wood out of charity to burn themselves with the dead bodies of their husbands. There is prepared for them a funeral pile, which is like a kind of bed, with its pillow of small wood and reeds, in which pots of oil and other drugs are placed in order to consume the body quickly.
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The woman who intends to burn herself, preceded by some drums, flutes, and hautboys, and dressed in her most beautiful ornaments, comes dancing to the funeral pile, and having ascended it she places herself, half-lying, half-seated. Then the body of her husband is laid across her, and all the relatives and friends bring her, one a letter, another a piece of cloth, this one flowers, that one pieces of silver or copper, saying to her, give this from me to my mother, or to my brother, or to some relative or friend, whoever the dead person may be whom they have most loved while alive. When the woman sees that they bring her nothing more, she asks those present three times whether they have any more commissions for her, and if they do not reply she wraps all they have brought in a taffeta, which she places between her lap and the back of the body of her defunct husband, calling upon the priests to apply fire to the funeral pile. This the Brahmins and the relatives do simultaneously. As there is, as I have remarked, but little wood in the Kingdom of Bengal, as soon as these miserable women are dead and half burnt, their bodies are thrown into the Ganges with those of their husbands, where they are eaten by the crocodiles. I should not forget here an evil custom which is practised among the idolaters of the same Kingdom of Bengal.
124.9
When a woman is delivered, and the infant, as often happens, is unwilling to take to its mother’s breast in order to suckle, it is carried outside the village and placed in a cloth, which is tied by the four corners to the branches of a tree, and is thus left from morning to evening. In this way the poor infant is exposed to the crows, which come to torment it, and some have been found whose eyes have been torn out of their heads, which is the reason why many idolaters are seen in Bengal who have but one eye, and others who have both injured or altogether gone. In the evening the infant is taken to see whether it is willing to suckle during the following night, and should it happen that it still refuses the breast, it is taken back on the following day to the same place; this is done for three days in sequence, after which, if the infant is altogether unwilling to take the breast, in the belief that it is a demon, it is cast into the Ganges, or into some other river or tank which is closer at hand. In the places where there are many monkeys these poor children are not so exposed to the attacks of crows, for this reason, that as soon as a monkey discovers a nest of these birds he climbs the tree, and throws the nest on one side and the eggs on the other.
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On the other hand, there are among the English, Dutch, and Portuguese charitable persons who, moved to compassion for the misfortune of these infants, remove them when they are thus exposed and hung in a tree, and take care to have them brought up as I have one day seen an example of at Hugly; this is done in the places near their factories. Let us see now what is the practice along the coast of Coromandel when women are going to be burnt with the bodies of their deceased husbands. A large hole of 9 or 10 feet deep, and 25 or 30 feet square, is