SUTTEE

Sanskrit sati former Indian custom of a widow burning herself, either on the funeral pyre of her dead husband or soon after his death. Sometimes, the wife was immolated before the husband's expected death in battle, and it was then called jauhar. Some authorities feel the etymological connection between the Sanskrit term sati, which means chaste wife and which is also the name of a Hindu goddess, and the practice of widow self-immolation is erroneous. The custom possibly has links with ancient beliefs that a man needed his companions in the afterlife as well as in this world. During the medieval period the hardships encountered by widows in traditional Hindu society may have contributed to its spread. Numerous suttee stones, memorials to the widows who died in this way, are found all over India, the earliest dated AD 510. The first reference to the practice in a Sanskrit text is in the Mahabharata, in which some queens undergo suttee; but it is mentioned by the 1st-century-BC Greek author Diodorus Siculus in his account of the Punjab (Pajab) in the 4th century BC. In the Muslim period the Rajputs practiced jauhar to save women from dishonour by foes, most notably at Chitorgarh. The larger incidence of suttee among the Brahmins of Bengal, particularly during 16801830, was due indirectly to the Dayabhaga system of law (c. 1100), which prevailed in Bengal and which gave inheritance to widows. At its best, suttee was committed voluntarily, but cases of compulsion, escape, and rescue are known. Steps to prohibit it were taken by the Mughal rulers Humayun and his son Akbar, and it was abolished in British India in 1829. Instances of it continued to occur in Indian states for more than 30 years.