History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c32.23

v2.c32.23

The rewards promised to a *satī* were as follows: Śaṅkha and Aṅgiras¹⁴⁷⁷ say 'she who follows her husband in death dwells in heaven for as many years as there are hair on the human body, viz. 3½ crores of years. Just as a snake-catcher draws out a snake from a hole by force, so such a woman draws her husband from (wherever he may be) and enjoys bliss together with him. In heaven she being solely devoted to her husband and praised by bevies of heavenly damsels sports with her husband for as long as fourteen Indras rule. Even if the husband be guilty of the murder of a brāhmaṇa or of a friend or be guilty of ingratitude, the wife who dies (in fire) clasping his body, purifies him (of the sin). That woman, who ascends (the funeral pyre) when the husband dies, is equal to Arundhatī in her character and is praised in heaven. As long as a woman does not burn herself in fire on the death of her husband she is never free from being born as a woman (in successive births)'. Hārīta says 'that woman who follows her husband in death purifies three families, viz. of her mother, of her father and of her husband'. The Mit. after quoting the above passages adds that this duty of anvārohaṇa is common to the women of all castes from the brāhmaṇa to the cāṇḍāla, provided they are not pregnant or they have no young children (at the husband's death)'.¹⁴⁷⁸