The practice of sati was a funeral custom in which the widow immolated herself on her husband’s funeral pyre.
Few reliable records exist of the practice before the time of the Gupta empire, approximately 400 AD. While a couple of instances of voluntary self immolation by women as well as men are mentioned in the Mahabharata and other works. Also, the immolation or desire of self immolation is not regarded as a custom in the Mahabharata and as such the word ‘sati’ as a custom never occurs in the epic as compared to other customs such as the Rajasuya yagna. Rather, the instances are viewed as an expression of extreme grief on the loss of a beloved one.
There is an early Greek account of an instance of voluntary co-cremation however. This describes an account of an Indian soldier in Persia, whose two wives vied to die on his funeral pyre, in 316 BC.
Voluntary death at funerals has been described in northern India before the Gupta empire. The original practices were called anumarana, and were not common. They were not necessarily practices that would be understood as sati at present, since it was not necessarily a widow who died. Those who died could be anyone, male or female with a personal loyalty to the dead person. They included other relatives of the dead person, servants, followers or friends. Sometimes these deaths were because of vows of loyalty taken in life.
Widow burning, the practice as understood today, started to become more extensive after about 500 CE, and the end of the Gupta empire. This is sometimes ascribed to the decline of Buddhism in India, the rise of caste based societies, and the idea that sati was used to reinforce caste status. There are also suggestions that the practice was introduced into India by the Huna invaders who contributed to the fall of the Gupta empire.
At about this time, instances of sati began to be marked by inscribed memorial stones. The earliest of these is in Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, though the largest collections are some centuries later, in Rajasthan. These stones, called devli, or sati-stones, became shrines where the dead woman became an object of reverence and worship. They are most common in western India.
By about the 10th century sati, as understood today, was known across much of the subcontinent. It continued to occur, usually at a low frequency and with regional variations, until the early 19th century.
The act of sati was supposed to take place voluntarily, and from the existing accounts, many of them were indeed voluntary. The act may have been expected of widows in some communities. The extent to which any social pressures or expectations should be considered as compulsion has been the matter of much debate in modern times. It is frequently stated that a widow could expect little of life after her husband’s death, especially if she was childless. However, there were also instances where the wish of the widow to commit sati was not welcomed by others, and where efforts were made to prevent the death.
Traditionally, the funeral of any dead person would usually have taken place within a day of the death. Thus a decision by a widow to die at her husband’s funeral would often have to be made quickly. In some cases, such as when the husband died elsewhere, it was still possible for the widow to die by immolation, but at a later date.
The connection with the original marriage between the widow and the deceased was emphasised. Unlike other mourners, the sati at the funeral was often dressed in marriage robes, or in other finery. Her death may have been seen as a culmination of the marriage. In the preliminaries of the related act of, both the husbands and wives have been known to dress in their marriage clothes and re-enact their wedding ritual, before going to their separate deaths.
There are accounts of many different approaches of the widow to her death. The majority have the widow seated or lying down on the funeral pyre beside her dead husband. There are also many descriptions of widows who walked or jumped into the flames after the fire had been lit, and there are descriptions of widows who lit their own funeral pyres after seating themselves on it.
Sati was supposed to be voluntary, but it is argued that it has usually not been voluntary in practice. Leaving aside the matter of social pressures, it is common understanding that many widows were physically forced to their deaths.
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