Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.694

c7.694

The 5. Ucchvāsa of the Harṣacarita describes in details how even before the death of the king Prabhākaravardhana his consort Yaśomatī along with other queens prepares to follow him in death as Satī and cannot be swayed from her determination even by the pursuations of her son Harṣa. After the cremation of the royal couple also several faithful friends, servants and ministers of the deceased king accept death by hurling themselves from a high rock. Also in Bāṇa’s Kādambarī (169) Mahāśvetā has a pile of wood raised for herself in order to follow her deceased beloved. The Satī is also frequently mentioned in the proper sources of history—the inscriptions. Probably the oldest example known till now of a pillar raised to the memory of the burning of a widow is of the year 509-510 A.D.², that is, older than the Satī described in the Harṣacarita by about a century. The Satī of a queen of Nepal is mentioned in a Nepalese inscription of the year 705¹.