Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s6.1

v2.c27.s6.1

The Immolation of Women.—We now proceed to consider another trait of Rajput character, exemplified in the practice of female immolation, and to inquire whether religion, custom, or affection has most share in such sacrifice. To arrive at the origin of this rite, we must trace it to the recesses of mythology, where we shall discover the precedent in the example of Sati, who to avenge an insult to Iswara, in her own father’s omission to ask her lord to an entertainment, consumed herself in the presence of the assembled gods. With this act of fealty (sati) the name of Daksha’s daughter has been identified; and her regeneration and reunion to her husband, as the mountain-nymph Mena, or Parvati, furnish the incentive to similar [634] acts. In the history of these celestial beings, the Rajputni has a memorable lesson before her, that no domestic differences can afford exemption from this proof of faith: for Jupiter and Juno were not more eminent examples of connubial discord than Mena and Siva, who was not only alike unfaithful, but more cruel, driving Mena from his Olympus (Kailas), and forcing her to seek refuge in the murky caverns of Caucasus. Female immolation, therefore, originated with the sun-worshipping Saivas, and was common to all those nations who adored this the most splendid object of the visible creation. Witness the Scythic Gete or Jat warrior of the Jaxartes, who devoted his wife, horse, arms, and slaves, to the flames; the “giant Gete” of Scandinavia, who forgot not on the shores of the Baltic his Transoxianian habits; and the Frisian Frank and Saxon descended from him, who ages after omitted only the female. Could we assign the primary cause of a custom so opposed to the first law of nature with the same certainty that we can prove its high antiquity, we might be enabled to devise some means for its abolition. The chief characteristic of Satiism is its expiating quality: for by this act of faith, the Sati not only makes atonement for the sins of her husband, and secures the remission of her own, but has the joyful assurance of reunion to the object whose beatitude she procures. Having once imbibed this doctrine, its fulfilment is powerfully aided by that heroism of character inherent to the Rajputni; though we see that the stimulant of religion requires no aid even in the timid female of Bengal, who, relying on the promise of regeneration, lays her head on the pyre with the most philosophical composure.