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Updated: May 19, 2025
The physical contrast between the Hindustanis and the Bengalis is complete; their languages are as near akin and as mutually unintelligible as English and German, yet in religion, in their notions on Government, in very much of their way of life, they are indistinguishable to the European. Indian widows sometimes sacrifice themselves on the husband's funeral pile. Such a victim is called Sati.
The custom of Sati has been outlawed; but the spirit of Sati still dominates the womanly heart of the Hindu wife. It is this beautiful blending of piety and wifely devotion which has been the song of Hindu poets, and the admiration of the Hindu community, from time immemorial. It is true that a wife dare not utter the name of her husband. The name of the husband of a Hindu woman was Faith.
The 'suttee, as the English called the Sanscrit word sati meaning 'a virtuous wife, was a Hindu institution which required that a faithful wife should burn herself on the funeral pyre with the body of her deceased husband; or if he died at a distance from his home, that she should sacrifice herself on one of her own." "How horrible!
When a messenger went or came to the palace, he turned aside from the way to come to me; for I helped every man. I gave water to the thirsty, I set on his way him who went astray, and I rescued the robbed. The Sati who went far, to strike and turn back the princes of other lands, I ordained their goings; for the Prince of the Tenu for many years appointed me to be general of his soldiers.
It was, indeed, a custom instituted by man, enforced by religious rewards and penalties, with a view to reveal the woman as the abject subject of her husband. And yet she glorified that custom and often transmuted it into the most sublime exhibition of wifely devotion. Hear the description of a Sati, given by a Hindu, the subject of which was his own aunt.
In the foregoing remarks I have alluded to the fact that Akbar allowed liberty of conscience in so far as that liberty did not endanger the lives of others. He gave a marked example of this in his dealing with the Hindu rite of Satí.
In order to visit Lower Nubra and return to Leh we were obliged to cross the great fords of the Shayok at the most dangerous season of the year. This transit had been the bugbear of the journey ever since news reached us of the destruction of the Sati scow. Mr.
Van Horn held up his hand. "Too much hurry you fella Nau-hau. Him fella Sati buy 'm slop chest along plantation two tens pounds and one fella pound. Belong Sati he finish altogether two tens pounds and six fella pounds." "What name stop two tens pounds and six fella pounds?" Nau-hau continued inflexibly. "Stop 'm along me," the captain answered curtly.
"Sati," Van Horn read, his finger marking the place, his eyes alternating watchfully between the writing and the black chief before him, while the black chief himself speculated and studied the chance of getting behind him and, with the single knife-thrust he knew so well, of severing the other's spinal cord at the base of the neck. "Sati," Van Horn read.
Van Horn asked, pointing to an old man in a canoe alongside. "Him father belong Sati?" "Him father belong Sati," Nau-hau affirmed. Van Horn motioned the old man in and on board, beckoned Borckman to take charge of the deck and of Nau-hau, and went below to get the money from his strong-box. When he returned, cavalierly ignoring the chief, he addressed himself to the old man.
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