The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c9.62

c9.62

The enthusiastic advocacy of the Satī custom by medieval commentators began to have an appreciable effect on society only after about 1300 a. d. Among the Karnatak inscriptions published in the *Epigraphia Carnatica* there are only 11 cases of Satīs during the period 1000-1400 a. d., but 41 during the period 1400-1600 a. d. Most of these Satīs, however, belonged to the Nayak and the Gauda classes, which formed the main fighting community of southern India. Two of them belonged to the Jain sect¹; it is clear that some Jains had also begun to feel that they ought not to lag behind Hindus in the matter. Inscriptions, however, record only very few cases of Brahmana widows becoming Satīs; it is obvious that the lifting of the canonical ban had not yet succeeded in popularising the custom in the priestly order.