Sati In Hindu Essay

The term sati has wide ranges of definition depending on what language is spoken; in Hindu it means a village Mother goddess (satimata) who self-sacrificed her self on her husband’s funeral, the incarnation of goddess Parvati (wife of Shiva) and sati also means a virtuous woman, a woman bonded to her husband who will go where ever her husband goes and death is no exception. In the eyes of westerners, sati (spelled suttee) is a suicidal act where widows are burnt along with the corpse of her husband. But in Hindu, sati does not mean the ritual but the woman itself, a sati is a good woman, a woman who is completely devoted to her husband. Sati is a non-widow woman, and it is a way to avoid widowhood, because in Hindu the husband is considered
not dead until the cremation, so to avoid widowhood the wife joins the cremation of her husband. The Rajput, people from Rajasthan, India, mainly performed this ritual. And in the times of caste system, the elite class mainly performed this ritual. Usually, when this ritual is taking place, people will come to see the ritual, as it is believed to be both blessings and a curse. In most cases, the ritual takes place by force, the widows are forced to sit on their husband’s pyre, and they are either drugged or tied. Some family carry out this ritual for the sole purpose of the economic benefits, because the many partisans gives offerings and worships the widow as a goddess (satimata), and the family takes all the offerings and keep it for themselves. And the practice is stronger in the rural areas of India, where the people are mostly illiterate. In stories, the wife is shown to be happy and carrying her husband’s head on her lap.

“The word sati is a Sanskrit feminine participle derived from the verb “to-be”, the verb connotes not only what is- the existential realities of life- but what ought to be: life’s essentials, the things that make it good.”

The origin of the ritual goes way back, in the epics of the Hindu, Sati (incarnation of Parvati) was the daughter of Daksha and he wife of Shiva.
When her father insulted her husband Shiva refusing to include him in his sacrifice, the enraged Sati sacrifices herself in the fire. As she was much bonded with her husband and was loyal to him, but she later reincarnated as Parvati and the pair married again. So because of this, the people believe by burning the widow with her husband, she shows her duty as a wife, love and belief that they will be united together in future incarnation. After, a widow is sacrificed in the fire; people built temple or shrine on the cremation ground to worship the satimata and one of the widow-turned goddess is Rani Satimata (also known as Narayani Satimata), a seventeenth century Rajput woman who carried out sati. To the people who participate in the cremation or the ritual the Sati is both a blessing and a curse. People come to witness the ritual expecting sat - a palpable force of virtue and truth will come from the mouth of the widow in types of blessing and curse. The people believe the widow will bless the good and faithful and curse the bad and ones who defy what is right or who stands athwart in her path. According to the old traditions and the law of manu, a pativatra
is a good wife. She protects her husbands in two ways by serving him, by helping him becomes what he ought to be and by performing ritual vows (fasting is one of the main vows). But if her husband predeceased her, the wife is blamed for the death by not pleasing the god by fasting or by any means (fasting pleases the gods and the gods helps her by protecting her husband). So the wife is suspected of not being loyal or being completely devoted to her husband, so to escape the allegations she must take another vow to die as a sati and she becomes sativrata (one who joins her husband in the afterlife). And it is said when she sits on the pyre of her husband, fire will burst from her body (no third party required to light the fire) thus burning them because the sacrifices she took as a pativrata built up in her body as sat and turns into heat or fire inside her. So when she learns of her husband’s death the heat begins to consume her and she becomes too hot (people who touch them burns) and she turns into fire on her husband’s pyre. It is believed the woman becomes powerful) gaining the power to curse and establish prohibition) between the time of her sati vow and sati’s death. Women in India wears white dress, after her husband have passed, so people try not to make the widow angry as she may give srap (curse) to the other person who behaved badly and the curse will last for generations, so people mostly give respects to widows and there are many stories about this. And then woman becomes Satimata after the completion of her sati vow and many women looks up to her and worship her. The sati vow became popular throughout India (even spread to some pat of Asia), other people other than Rajput have taken the sati vows, but the Rajput women considered them to be not real, as the motivation of other people are usually to make names, money and for fame, so Rajput women believe them to be fake sati.