The Colas c28.16

c28.16

*Satī* or the self-immolation of a woman on the funeral pyre of her husband is occasionally mentioned in the inscriptions, but the references are so few that it can hardly be regarded as a common practice in the Tamil country under the Cōḷas. Gaṅgamādēviyār, the wife of Vīra-śōḷa Iḷaṅgōvēḷār, is said to have endowed a lamp before she entered the fire;²⁷ this was perhaps early in the reign of Parāntaka I. The Tiruvālangāḍu plates²⁸ mention the case of Vānavan-mahādēvi, the queen of Sundara Cōḷa, recorded in more detail in an earlier Tamil inscription of the reign of her celebrated son Rāja-rāja I.²⁹ The language of these inscriptions, together with the absence of any other instance of a Cōḷa queen practising *satī*, shows that the action of Vānavan-mahādēvi was indeed applauded, but not often imitated. Three instances of women from among the nobility and the common folk committing *satī* come from Mysore country. In 1057, a man killed a relative of the king in a wrestling contest, and was sentenced to death; his wife, Dekabbe, the daughter of a chieftain of Nuṅganāḍ, followed him in spite of violent opposition from her parents, and the whole story is recorded in the form of a pathetic Kannaḍa poem in *Kāvya* style.³⁰ The two remaining instances occurred in 1067 and 1068, one of them being just recorded as a fact,³¹ while the other is mentioned incidentally in an endowment of a charity by the son of the deceased couple for their spiritual benefit.³² A reverse instance of a father commemorating the death of his son and daughter-in-law who committed *satī* also occurs in the Mysore country in A.D. 1088.³³ Nothing can more truly illustrate the tragic conflict of feelings in a mind torn between the dread of physical suffering and the eagerness to live up to an inhuman standard of duty than the pathetic declaration of a woman, recorded in an inscription of the reign of Vīrarājēndra from South Arcot; she avers that if she lived after the death of her husband, she should become the slave of the other wives of her husband and utters imprecations against those who seek to persuade her to refrain from immolating herself, nay even against people who do not come forward to bind and throw her into the fire, imprecations too shocking to be transcribed here.³⁴ Such a record could be only understood to indicate the prevalence of an atmosphere normally unfavourable to the practising of *satī*.