on the subject till she called out 'Sat, sat, sat',57 when her husband breathed his last with his head in her lap on the bank of the Nerbudda, to which he had been taken when no hopes remained of his surviving the fever of which he died.
Charles Harding, of the Bengal Civil Service, as magistrate of Benares, in 1806 prevented the widow of a Brahman from being burned. Twelve months after her husband's death she had been goaded by her family into the expression of a wish to burn with some relic of her husband, preserved for the purpose. The pile was raised to her at Rāmnagar,58 some two miles above Benares, on the opposite side of the river Ganges. She was not well secured upon the pile, and as soon as she felt the fire she jumped off and plunged into the river. The people all ran after her along the bank, but the current drove her towards Benares, whence a police boat put off and took her in.
She was almost dead with the fright and the water, in which she had been kept afloat by her clothes. She was taken to Harding; but the whole city of Benares was in an uproar, at the rescue of a Brahman's widow from the funeral pile, for such it had been considered, though the man had been a year dead. Thousands surrounded his house, and his court was filled with the principal men of the city, imploring him to surrender the woman; and among the rest was the poor woman's father, who declared that he could not support his daughter; and that she had, therefore, better be burned, as her husband's family would no longer receive her. The uproar was quite alarming to a young man, who felt all the responsibility upon himself in such a city as59 Benares, with a population of three hundred thousand people,60 so prone to popular insurrections, or risings en masse very like them. He long argued the point of the time that had elapsed, and the unwillingness of the woman, but in vain; until at last the thought struck him suddenly, and he said that 'The sacrifice was manifestly unacceptable to their God—that the sacred river, as such, had rejected her; she had, without being able to swim, floated down two miles upon its bosom, in the face of an immense multitude; and it was clear that she had been rejected. Had she been an acceptable sacrifice, after the fire had touched her, the river would have received her'. This satisfied the whole crowd. The father said that, after this unanswerable argument, he would receive his daughter; and the whole crowd dispersed satisfied.61
The following conversation took place one morning between me and a native gentleman at Jubbulpore soon after suttees had been prohibited by Government:—
'What are the castes among whom women are not permitted to remarry after the death of their husbands?'
'They are, sir, Brahmans, Rājpūts, Baniyās (shopkeepers), Kāyaths (writers).'
'Why not permit them to marry, now that they are no longer permitted to burn themselves with the dead bodies of their husbands?'
'The knowledge that they cannot unite themselves to a second husband without degradation from caste, tends strongly to secure their fidelity to the first, sir. Besides, if all widows were permitted to marry again, what distinction would remain between us and people of lower caste? We should all soon sink to a level with the lowest.'
'And so you are content to keep up your caste at the expense of the poor widows?'
'No; they are themselves as proud of the distinction as their husbands are.'
'And would they, do you think, like to hear the good old custom of burning themselves restored?'
'Some of them would, no doubt.'
'Why?'
'Because they become reunited to their husbands in paradise, and are there happy, free from all the troubles of this life.'
'But you should not let them have any troubles as widows.'
'If they behave well, they are the most honoured members of their deceased husbands' families; nothing in such families is ever done without consulting them, because all are proud to have the memory of their lost fathers, sons, and brothers so honoured by their widows.62 But women feel that they are frail, and would often rather burn themselves than be exposed all their lives to temptation and suspicion.'
'And why do not the men burn themselves to avoid the troubles of life?'
'Because they are not called to it from Heaven, as the women are.'
'And you think that the women were really called to be burned by the Deity?'
'No doubt; we all believe that they were called and supported by the Deity; and that no tender beings like women could otherwise voluntarily undergo such tortures—they become inspired with supernatural powers of courage and fortitude. When Dulī Sukul, the Sihōrā63 banker's father, died, the wife of a Lodhī cultivator of the town declared, all at once, that she had been a suttee with him six times before; and that she would now go into paradise with him a seventh time. Nothing could persuade her from burning herself. She was between fifty and sixty years of age, and had grandchildren, and all her family tried to persuade her that it must be a mistake, but all in vain. She became a suttee, and was burnt the day after the body of the banker.'
'Did not Dulī Sukul's family, who were Brahmans, try to dissuade her from it, she being a Lodhī, a very low caste?'
'They did; but they said all things were possible with God; and it was generally believed that this was a call from Heaven.'
'And what became of the banker's widow?'
'She said that she felt no divine call to the flames. This was thirty years ago; and the banker was about thirty years of age when he died.'
'Then he will have rather an old wife in paradise?'
'No, sir; after they pass through the flames upon earth, both become young in paradise.'
'Sometimes women used to burn themselves with any relic of a husband, who had died far from home, did they not?'
'Yes, sir, I remember a fisherman, about twenty years ago, who went on some business to Benares from Jubbulpore, and who was to have been back in two months. Six months passed away without any news of him; and at last the wife dreamed that he had died on the road, and began forthwith, in the middle of the night, to call out "Sat, sat, sat!" Nothing could dissuade her from burning; and in the morning a pile was raised for her, on the north bank of the large tank of Hanumān,64 where you have planted an avenue of trees. There I saw her burned with her husband's turban in her arms, and in ten days after her husband came back.'
'Now the burning has been prohibited, a man cannot get rid of a bad wife so easily?'
'But she was a good wife, sir, and bad ones do not often become suttees.'
'Who made the pile for her?'
'Some of her family, but I forget who. They thought it must have been a call from Heaven, when, in reality, it was only a dream.'
'You are a Rājpūt?'
'Yes.'
'Do Rājpūts in this part of India now destroy their female infants?'
'Never; that practice has ceased everywhere in these parts; and is growing into disuse in Bundēlkhand, where the Rājās, at the request of the British Government, have prohibited it among their subjects. This was a measure of real good. You see girls now at play in villages, where the face of one was never seen before, nor the voice of one heard.'
'But still those who have them grumble, and say that the Government which caused them to be preserved should undertake to provide for their marriage. Is it not so?'
'At first they grumbled a little, sir; but as the infants grew on their affections, they thought no more about it.'65
Gurcharan Baboo, the Principal of the little Jubbulpore College,66 called upon me one forenoon, soon after this conversation. He was educated in the Calcutta College; speaks and writes English exceedingly