The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c9.26

c9.26

In the original portion of the Rāmāyaṇa there is no case of Satī. In the Uttarakāṇḍa (17, 14) we find Vedavatī's mother becoming a Satī; but this story is more legendary than historical and the book where it occurs is admittedly a later addition, being as modern as about 500 a. d. In the original kernel of the epic, we find that when Rāvaṇa by means of his magic raised before the eyes of Sītā the illusion of the fall of Rāma, she expressed the wish to be burnt along with her husband (VI, 32, 32). This passage also is probably a later interpolation, for none of the wives of Daśaratha or Rāvaṇa are represented in the epic as accompanying their husbands on the funeral pyre.