Sati Pratha in India: Origins and History of Suttee
Sati practice is one of the major abominations of our culture, which has been rightfully banned. Our culture gets a lot of criticism that such a thing was practiced in our country. However we should realize that all the cultures had similar ill practices in the past such as witch burnings and female genital mutilation. This by no means justifies the practice of Sati, but it also does not mean that only Indian culture had stupid traditions, all cultures have some bad practices. In any case the truth still remains that the abhorrent practice of Sati was practiced it India, and the question I want to address is why?
When we look at Sati now, it is very difficult for us to remove our modern day perspective from it. With the current gynocentric view of the world most of us look at it as practice forced on the helpless widows. Also to add an emotional effect on it the popular media also mostly portrays it as forced. However the reality is that many women performed Sati voluntarily. The question that normally arises then is why?
A lot of people look at the story of Rani Padmavati and point the blame towards Muslim rulers. These people are confusing Sati with Jauhar. There is a big distinction between Sati and Jauhar. Jauhar was mass suicide performed by women to avoid capture by Muslim invaders. Sati, on the other hand, was performed by an individual widow. So blame cannot be placed on Muslim invaders for the practice. Especially when we know that the practice became popular between 5th to 7th century AD. In fact Mughal emperors Akbar, Jehangir and Aurangzeb took actions to ban Sati practice. Moreover there are cases of Muslim widows in Kashmir performing sati as well.
Sati gets its name from the story in Shiva puaran where sati immolates herself at her father’s Daksa;s yajna as a revenge for the dishonor of Shiva. In Ramayan also Sita had to undergo fire ordeal to prove her chastity. But again there is no direct correlation. Sati happens when the husband dies but Ram never dies in Ramayan. If you look at Ramayana and Mahabharata you can see many pious women who lost their husbands and did not perform Sati. So blame cannot be placed on Hindu tradition as well. None of the ancient Hindu scriptures encourage that a woman should perform sati. The medieval Hindu and Sikh bhakti schools were against Sati practice. There was never an institutional system in place to enforce the practice of sati; it was mostly a cultural practice that gained prominence by itself. Also we must understand that the practice was not generalized all across India, instead it was confined to just few specific regions in the country and isolated to specific groups of people.
To really understand the practice, why it came to being and how did women voluntarily jumped into the funeral pyre, you have to think like a common person living in that age. In the old times people were not just concerned with their affairs in this world, but also the next and therefore people were always worried about their actions and its consequence in the next world
All cultures have honored a chaste woman, who is dutiful to her husband. Our culture especially puts a very strong emphasis on this. It has always been believed that a dutiful wife will attain highest position in here afterlife. Her commitment to her husband gave her so much strength that she could bring back her husband from the clutches of death. The concept was beautifully depicted in the story of Savitri and Satyavan. So when a woman’s husband died, it was generally thought that there must have been something lacking in the woman’s commitment. As a consequence, to repent for her apparent wrongdoing, whatever it was and ensure better circumstances in her next life, the women used to perform Sati. This used to be her fire ordeal, just as depicted in Ramayan.
There were three stages for a woman under this way of thinking
Pativrata: Is the stage when the husband of a woman is alive and she is dutiful to him.
Sativrata: After the husband dies then the culpability used to fall on the wife. If the woman vows to perform sati then she becomes sativrata. It was generally believed that after this vow, she is endowed by supernatural powers, where she could bless and curse others.
Satimata: Once she performs the Sati, she becomes Satimata and becomes the deity for her family and the family worships her for protection to the family.
As you can see there is a prestige associated with performing Sati (Think about all the adoration and respect that a woman would have gotten on vowing to practice Sati) and of course the redemption from all sins and the ascension to divinity is there. Therefore in those times when we did not understand the world that well, some woman used to practice Sati.
