Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire (A.D. 1346 – A.D. 1646) v2.c18.s3.t3.17

v2.c18.s3.t3.17

This compulsory levy on the cruelty of man was not, however, the order of the day. Women committed sati on the death of their husbands in a fight or in war. In A. D. 1287 Kūḍali was entered, the cows captured and Beṇṇavali-Janne-guru's village ruined. Then Bommarasa of Hosaguṇḍa, "stopped the riot, fought and slew and went to svarga". His wife, whose name is effaced in the record, "gave arm and hand and went to svarga".¹ On the death of Babbeya Nāyaka's son the Mahāsāmanta Birudara-gōva, Mahādēva Nāyaka, in the reign of Ballāḷa II, his wife Bibove Nāykitti ascended the funeral pyre (bovviḷige) of her husband and became a sati.²