Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official by William Sleeman

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CHAPTER 4

A Suttee[1] on the Nerbudda.

We took a ride one evening to Gopalpur, a small village situated on
the same bank of the Nerbudda, about three miles up from Bheraghat.
On our way we met a party of women and girls coming to the fair.
Their legs were uncovered half-way up the thigh; but, as we passed,
they all carefully covered up their faces. 'Good God!' exclaimed one
of the ladies, 'how can these people be so very indecent?' They
thought it, no doubt, equally extraordinary that she should have her
face uncovered, while she so carefully concealed her legs; for they
were really all modest peasantry, going from the village to bathe in
the holy stream.[2]

Here there are some very pretty temples, built for the most part to
the memory of widows who have burned themselves with the remains of
their husbands, and upon the very spot where they committed
themselves to the flames. There was one which had been recently
raised over the ashes of one of the most extraordinary old ladies
that I have ever seen, who burned herself in my presence in 1829. I
prohibited the building of any temple upon the spot, but my successor
in the civil charge of the district, Major Low, was never, I believe,
made acquainted with the prohibition nor with the progress of the
work; which therefore went on to completion in my absence. As suttees
are now prohibited in our dominions[3] and cannot be often seen or
described by Europeans, I shall here relate the circumstances of this
as they were recorded by me at the time, and the reader may rely upon
the truth of the whole tale.

On the 29th November, 1829, this old woman, then about sixty-five
years of age, here mixed her ashes with those of her husband, who had
been burned alone four days before. On receiving civil charge of the
district (Jubbulpore) in March, 1828, I issued a proclamation
prohibiting any one from aiding or assisting in suttee, and
distinctly stating that to bring one ounce of wood for the purpose
would be considered as so doing. If the woman burned herself with the
body of her husband, any one who brought wood for the purpose of
burning him would become liable to punishment; consequently, the body
of the husband must be first consumed, and the widow must bring a
fresh supply for herself. On Tuesday, 24th November, 1829, I had an
application from the heads of the most respectable and most extensive
family of Brahmans in the district to suffer this old woman to burn
herself with the remains of her husband, Ummed Singh Upadhya, who had
that morning died upon the banks of the Nerbudda.[4] I threatened to
enforce my order, and punish severely any man who assisted; and
placed a police guard for the purpose of seeing that no one did so.
She remained sitting by the edge of the water without eating or
drinking. The next day the body of her husband was burned to ashes in
a small pit of about eight feet square, and three or four feet deep,
before several thousand spectators who had assembled to see the
suttee. All strangers dispersed before evening, as there seemed to be
no prospect of my yielding to the urgent solicitations of her family,
who dared not touch food till she had burned herself, or declared
herself willing to return to them. Her sons, grandsons, and some
other relations remained with her, while the rest surrounded my
house, the one urging me to allow her to burn, and the other urging
her to desist. She remained sitting on a bare rock in the bed of the
Nerbudda, refusing every kind of sustenance, and exposed to the
intense heat of the sun by day, and the severe cold of the night,
with only a thin sheet thrown over her shoulders. On Thursday, to cut
off all hope of her being moved from her purpose, she put on the
dhaja, or coarse red turban, and broke her bracelets in pieces, by
which she became dead in law, and for ever excluded from caste.
Should she choose to live after this, she could never return to her
family. Her children and grandchildren were still with her, but all
their entreaties were unavailing; and I became satisfied that she
would starve herself to death, if not allowed to burn, by which the
family would be disgraced, her miseries prolonged, and I myself
rendered liable to be charged with a wanton abuse of authority, for
no prohibition of the kind I had issued had as yet received the
formal sanction of the Government.

On Saturday, the 28th, in the morning, I rode out ten miles to the
spot, and found the poor old widow sitting with the dhaja round her
head, a brass plate before her with undressed rice and flowers, and a
coco-nut in each hand. She talked very collectedly, telling me that
'she had determined to mix her ashes with those of her departed
husband, and should patiently wait my permission to do so, assured
that God would enable her to sustain life till that was given, though
she dared not eat or drink'. Looking at the sun, then rising before
her over a long and beautiful reach of the Nerbudda river, she said
calmly, 'My soul has been for five days with my husband's near that
sun, nothing but my earthly frame is left; and this, I know, you will
in time suffer to be mixed with the ashes of his in yonder pit,
because it is not in your nature or usage wantonly to prolong the
miseries of a poor old woman'.

'Indeed, it is not,--my object and duty is to save and preserve them
[_sic_]; and I am come to dissuade you from this idle purpose, to
urge you to live, and to keep your family from the disgrace of being
thought your murderers.'

'I am not afraid of their ever being so thought: they have all, like
good children, done everything in their power to induce me to live
among them; and, if I had done so, I know they would have loved and
honoured me; but my duties to them have now ended. I commit them all
to your care, and I go to attend my husband, _Ummed Singh Upadhya_,
with whose ashes on the funeral pile mine have been already three
times mixed.'[5]

This was the first time in her long life that she had ever pronounced
the name of her husband, for in India no woman, high or low, ever
pronounces the name of her husband,--she would consider it
disrespectful towards him to do so; and it is often amusing to see
their embarrassment when asked the question by any European
gentleman. They look right and left for some one to relieve them from
the dilemma of appearing disrespectful either to the querist or to
their absent husbands--they perceive that he is unacquainted with
their duties on this point, and are afraid he will attribute their
silence to disrespect. They know that few European gentlemen are
acquainted with them; and when women go into our courts of justice,
or other places where they are liable to be asked the names of their
husbands, they commonly take one of their children or some other
relation with them to pronounce the words in their stead. When the
old lady named her husband, as she did with strong emphasis, and in a
very deliberate manner, every one present was satisfied that she had
resolved to die. 'I have', she continued, 'tasted largely of the
bounty of Government, having been maintained by it with all my large
family in ease and comfort upon our rent-free lands; and I feel
assured that my children will not be suffered to want; but with them
I have nothing more to do, our intercourse and communion here end. My
soul (_pran_) is with _Ummed Singh Upadhya_: and my ashes must here
mix with his.'

Again looking to the sun--'I see them together', said she, with a
tone and countenance that affected me a good deal, 'under the bridal
canopy!'--alluding to the ceremonies of marriage; and I am satisfied
that she at that moment really believed that she saw her own spirit
and that of her husband under the bridal canopy in paradise.

I tried to work upon her pride and her fears. I told her that it was
probable that the rent-free lands by which her family had been so
long supported might be resumed by the Government, as a mark of its
displeasure against the children for not dissuading her from the
sacrifice; that the temples over her ancestors upon the bank might be
levelled with the ground, in order to prevent their operating to
induce others to make similar sacrifices; and lastly, that not one
single brick or stone should ever mark the place where she died if
she persisted in her resolution. But, if she consented to live, a
splendid habitation should be built for her among these temples, a
handsome provision assigned for her support out of these rent-free
lands, her children should come daily to visit her, and I should
frequently do the same. She smiled, but held out her arm and said,
'My pulse has long ceased to beat, my spirit has departed, and I have
nothing left but a little _earth_, that I wish to mix with the ashes
of my husband. I shall suffer nothing in burning; and, if you wish
proof, order some fire, and you shall see this arm consumed without
giving me any pain'. I did not attempt to feel her pulse, but some of
my people did, and declared that it had ceased to be perceptible. At
this time every native present believed that she was incapable of
suffering pain; and her end confirmed them in their opinion.

Satisfied myself that it would be unavailing to attempt to save her
life, I sent for all the principal members of the family, and
consented that she should be suffered to burn herself if they would
enter into engagements that no other member of their family should
ever do the same. This they all agreed to, and the papers having been
drawn out in due form about midday, I sent down notice to the old
lady, who seemed extremely pleased and thankful. The ceremonies of
bathing were gone through before three [o'clock], while the wood and
other combustible materials for a strong fire were collected and put
into the pit. After bathing, she called for a 'pan' (betel leaf) and
ate it, then rose up, and with one arm on the shoulder of her eldest
son, and the other on that of her nephew, approached the fire. I had
sentries placed all round, and no other person was allowed to
approach within five paces. As she rose up fire was set to the pile,
and it was instantly in a blaze. The distance was about 150 yards.
She came on with a calm and cheerful countenance, stopped once, and,
casting her eyes upward, said, 'Why have they kept me five days from
thee, my husband?' On coming to the sentries her supporters stopped;
she walked once round the pit, paused a moment, and, while muttering
a prayer, threw some flowers into the fire. She then walked up
deliberately and steadily to the brink, stepped into the centre of
the flame, sat down, and leaning back in the midst as if reposing
upon a couch, was consumed without uttering a shriek or betraying one
sign of agony.

A few instruments of music had been provided, and they played, as
usual, as she approached the fire, not, as is commonly supposed, in
order to drown screams, but to prevent the last words of the victim
from being heard, as these are supposed to be prophetic, and might
become sources of pain or strife to the living.[6] It was not
expected that I should yield, and but few people had assembled to
witness the sacrifice, so that there was little or nothing in the
circumstances immediately around to stimulate her to any
extraordinary exertions; and I am persuaded that it was the desire of
again being united to her husband in the next world, and the entire
confidence that she would be so if she now burned herself, that alone
sustained her. From the morning he died (Tuesday) till Wednesday
evening she ate 'pans' or betel leaves, but nothing else; and from
Wednesday evening she ceased eating them. She drank no water from
Tuesday. She went into the fire with the same cloth about her that
she had worn in the bed of the river; but it was made wet from a
persuasion that even the shadow of any impure thing falling upon her
from going to the pile contaminates the woman unless counteracted by
the sheet moistened in the holy stream.

I must do the family the justice to say that they all exerted
themselves to dissuade the widow from her purpose, and had she lived
she would assuredly have been cherished and honoured as the first
female member of the whole house. There is no people in the world
among whom parents are more loved, honoured, and obeyed than among
the Hindoos; and the grandmother is always more honoured than the
mother. No queen upon her throne could ever have been approached with
more reverence by her subjects than was this old lady by all the
members of her family as she sat upon a naked rock in the bed of the
river, with only a red rag upon her head and a single-white sheet
over her shoulders.

Soon after the battle of Trafalgar I heard a young lady exclaim, 'I
could really wish to have had a brother killed in that action'. There
is no doubt that a family in which a suttee takes place feels a good
deal exalted in its own esteem and that of the community by the
sacrifice. The sister of the Raja of Riwa was one of four or five
wives who burned themselves with the remains of the Raja of Udaipur;
and nothing in the course of his life will ever be recollected by her
brother with so much of pride and pleasure, since the Udaipur Raja is
the head of the Rajput tribes.[7]

I asked the old lady when she had first resolved upon becoming a
suttee, and she told me that about thirteen years before, while
bathing in the river Nerbudda, near the spot where she then sat, with
many other females of the family, the resolution had fixed itself in
her mind as she looked at the splendid temples on the bank of the
river erected by the different branches of the family over the ashes
of her female relations who had at different times become suttees.
Two, I think, were over her aunts, and one over the mother of her
husband. They were very beautiful buildings, and had been erected at
great cost and kept in good repair. She told me that she had never
mentioned this her resolution to any one from that time, nor breathed
a syllable on the subject till she called out 'Sat, sat, sat',[8]
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
Ramnagar,[9] 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 as[10]
Benares, with a population of three hundred thousand people,[11] 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.[12]

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, Rajputs, Baniyas (shopkeepers), Kayaths
(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.[13] 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 Duli Sukul, the
Sihora[14] banker's father, died, the wife of a Lodhi 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 Duli Sukul's family, who were Brahmans, try to dissuade her
from it, she being a Lodhi, 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
Hanuman,[15] 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 Rajput?'

'Yes.'

'Do Rajputs 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 Bundelkhand, where the Rajas, 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.'[16]

Gurcharan Baboo, the Principal of the little Jubbulpore College,[17]
called upon me one forenoon, soon after this conversation. He was
educated in the Calcutta College; speaks and writes English
exceedingly well; is tolerably well read in English literature, and
is decidedly a _thinking man_. After talking over the matter which
caused his visit, I told him of the Lodhi woman's burning herself
with the Brahman banker at Sihora, and asked him what he thought of
it. He said that 'In all probability this woman had really been the
wife of the Brahman in some former birth--of which transposition a
singular case had occurred in his own family.

'His great-grandfather had three wives, who all burnt themselves with
his body. While they were burning, a large serpent came up, and,
ascending the pile, was burnt with them. Soon after another came up,
and did the same. They were seen by the whole multitude, who were
satisfied that they had been the wives of his great-grandfather in a
former birth, and would become so again after this sacrifice. When
the "sraddh", or funeral obsequies, were performed after the
prescribed intervals,[18] the offerings and prayers were regularly
made for _six souls_ instead of four; and, to this day, every member
of his family, and every Hindoo who had heard the story, believed
that these two serpents had a just right to be considered among his
ancestors, and to be prayed for accordingly in all "sraddh".'

A few days after this conversation with the Principal of the
Jubbulpore College, I had a visit from Bholi Sukul, the present head
of the Sihora banker's family, and youngest brother of the Brahman
with whose ashes the Lodhi woman burned herself. I requested him to
tell me all that he recollected about this singular suttee, and he
did so as follows:

'When my eldest brother, the father of the late Duli Sukul, who was
so long a native collector under you in this district, died about
twenty years ago at Sihora, a Lodhi woman, who resided two miles
distant in the village of Khitoli, which has been held by our family
for several generations, declared that she would burn herself with
him on the funeral pile; that she had been his wife in three
different births, had already burnt herself with him three times, and
had to burn with him four times more. She was then sixty years of
age, and had a husband living [of] about the same age. We were all
astounded when she came forward with this story, and told her that it
must be a mistake, as we were Brahmans, while she was a Lodhi. She
said that there was no mistake in the matter; that she, in the last
birth, resided with my brother in the sacred city of Benares, and one
day gave a holy man who came to ask charity salt, by mistake, instead
of sugar, with his food. That, in consequence, he told her she
should, in the next birth, be separated from her husband, and be of
inferior caste; but that, if she did her duty well in that state, she
should be reunited to him in the following birth. We told her that
all this must be a dream, and the widow of my brother insisted that,
if she were not allowed to burn herself, the other should not be
allowed to take her place. We prevented the widow from ascending the
pile, and she died at a good old age only two years ago at Sihora. My
brother's body was burned at Sihora, and the poor Lodhi woman came
and stole one handful of the ashes, which she placed in her bosom,
and took back with her to Khitoli. There she prevailed upon her
husband and her brother to assist her in her return to her former
husband and caste as a Brahman. No soul else would assist them, as we
got the then native chief to prohibit it; and these three persons
brought on their own heads the pile, on which she seated herself,
with the ashes in her bosom. The husband and his brother set fire to
the pile, and she was burned.'[19]