Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.697

c7.697

Of the accounts of the classical authors those of Strabon and Diodorus Siculus are most important². The combat between the two widows of the Indian army officer Keteus for the honour of being allowed to burn herself with his body reminds us of the above mentioned row in the Mah. Alberuni (2,155 f.) says that the Indian widow has only the choice between death and self-immolation but prefers the latter alternative on account of the evil treatment they receive; the widows of kings are always burnt even against their will. We have graphic descriptions of later instances of widow-burning till its abolition by Lord Bentinck in the year 1829, e. g. the clear description of the self-immolation of his aunt by I. C. Bose, The Hindoos as they are 273-277. Outside the British dominion this custom continued for some time longer. Thus in 1839 many widows were burnt with the famous Ranjit Singh. In Nepal even in 1877 at the death of the Maharaja Jang Bahadur his widow became Satī. If the entire development of this custom is examined, the later and conditional sanction of the Satī in the Sanskrit literature, the fact that it was chiefly practised only among the princes and the Rajput chiefs—even now in Amber in Rajputana the place where the widows of the princes used to be burnt is pointed out—the sacrifice of the favourite servant along with the favourite wives,—all this seems to show that as among other nations here too the widow-burning was originally practised only by the royal families and was spread only gradually among the mass and was at last received into the official law of the Brahmans.