History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c32.35

v2.c32.35

The Śuddhitattva sets out the procedure of widow burning.¹⁴⁸⁴ The widow bathes and puts on two white garments, takes *kuśa* blades in her hands, faces the east or north, performs ācamana (sipping water); when the brāhmaṇas say ‘om, tat sat’ she remembers the God Nārāyaṇa and refers to the time (month, fortnight, *tithi*) and then makes the *saṁkalpa* (declaration of resolve) set out below. She then calls upon the eight *lokapālas* (guardians of the quarters), the sun, the moon, the fire &c. to become witnesses to her act of following her husband on the funeral pyre, she then goes round the fire thrice, then the brāhmaṇa recites the Vedic verse 'imā nārīr &c.' (Ṛg. X. 18. 7) and a Purāṇa verse 'may these very good and holy women who are devoted to their husbands enter fire together with the body of the husband,' the woman utters 'namo namaḥ' and ascends the kindled pyre. The long-winded preamble of the saṁkalpa 'arundhatī...patipūtatvakāmā' is based upon the verses of Aṅgiras quoted above (in *n.* 1477). The Śuddhitattva as printed is corrupt but it appears that it read the last quarter of Ṛg. X. 18. 7 as 'ārohantu jalayonim-agne' (let them ascend the watery seat or origin, O fire!) meaning probably 'may fire be to them as cool as water'. Some writers have charged the brāhmaṇa priest-hood (or Raghunandana) with having purposely changed the reading of the verse Ṛg. X. 18. 7 in order to make it suit the rite of immolating oneself in fire (i. e. 'agne' or 'agneḥ' was substituted for 'agre'). But this charge is not sustainable. That the verse Ṛg. X. 18. 7 as it actually is was held to refer to widow burning centuries before Raghunandana follows from the fact that even the Brahmapurāṇa¹⁴⁸⁵ and Aparārka (quoted above on p. 628) take it in that sense. It was therefore not necessary to alter the reading. Further even if some priests or Raghunandana had changed it that fact would have been detected in no time, as in those days there were thousands of people who knew every syllable of the Ṛgveda by heart. Therefore it must be admitted that either the MSS. are corrupt or Raghunandana committed an innocent slip. That mantra was not addressed to widows at all, but to ladies of the deceased man's household whose husbands were living and the gṛhyasūtra of Āśv. made use of it with that meaning. Raghunandana, a profound student of dharmaśāstras and smṛtis (and often styled Smārta-bhaṭṭācārya), could not have been ignorant of what Āśv. said. The procedure as prescribed in the Nirṇayasindhu¹⁴⁸⁶ of Kamalākarabhaṭṭa, whose mother became a *satī* and who pays a very tender and touching reverence to her memory in his works, is somewhat different and it is followed by the Dharmasindhu.