The practice of sati was known in the Sanskrit world as sahagamana, or travelling together to the afterlife. The first time we come upon this ritual in Hindu scriptures is in the Mahabharata. In the Adi Parva, we have reference to the death of Pandu, following which Madri performs sati. The curious thing is that the epic informs us that Madri and Pandu are cremated twice:
- the first time in the forest, when Madri joins her dead husband on the funeral pyre,
- the second time when the corpses of Pandu and Madri are brought back to Hastinapur by Pandu’s other wife, Kunti.
How can a body be cremated twice? Is it a reference to the secondary cremation of the leftover bones? Most scholars assume so, but they do not pay attention to the story carefully.
No Vedic reference
No Vedic literature refers to sati or sahagamanai. The closest we come to it is a ritual hymn where a widow is asked to lie down next to the corpse of her dead husband and then asked to rise up to join the world of the living. This is the very opposite of the practice of sati, where a widow was burnt alive, along with her husband’s dead body.
There are reports that ancient Greeks who invaded India saw widows burning themselves in the northwest part of India near Indus river, in 300 BC, but this is not corroborated by any Indian sources. The ritual of sati was glamorised in medieval India’s warrior communities between the 5th and 15th centuries AD who raised ‘sati’ stones in honour of these women.
This practice was done as it was a matter of extreme shame to the clan when war widows were enslaved by victorious enemies. This practice was widespread in 19th century Bengali Brahmin families, where child marriage was popular. This information was exaggerated and reports inflated by Christian missionaries of the time to make India appear barbaric in European intellectual circles, and justify colonial rule in India.
The story
Pandu shoots a deer, not noticing that it is making love with its mate. The arrow kills both the male and the female simultaneously. The animals turn out to be a rishi Kindama, and his wife, who were making love in the open in animal form. The shape-shifting sage curses Pandu that if he ever touches his wife, both of them will die instantly. This is what happens later in the forest.
If Madri dies on Pandu’s touch, she could not have performed sati. Then the second funeral at Hastinapur is the correct version of the tale. The sati episode seems more like a late addition, an interpolation, an attempt by later writers trying to justify the sati practice. But in popular retellings, everyone ignores the details because the idea of sati is more theatrical, macabre and perversely glamorous.
We find sati incidents reappearing in the Mahabharata. After Krishna dies, some of his wives led by Rukmini perform sati, while others led by Satyabhama become ascetic women. Widows of Krishna’s father, Vasudeva, and his brother, Balarama, also immolate themselves after the fall of Dwarka.
However, these are all stories in later chapters. In the heart of the epic, after the great war, where millions of warriors are killed, the wives of Kauravas do not perform sati. Even in the Ramayana, no one performs sati. The widows of Vali and Ravana remarry. Tara married Sugriva, while Mandodari married Vibhishana.
So these incidents of sati in Mahabharata are clearly later additions, maybe after 500 AD, when we find the first epigraphic evidence of sati, at Eran, in Central India.
Dharmashastra revelations
Mahabharata tells the story of events that happened around 1000 BC in the western Ganga river basin. It was documented first around 100 BC and expanded over time. We know that the various Dharma-shastras were written between 300 BC and 1000 AD. The early Dharma-shastra (Gautama, Apasthamba) written before the Mahabharata was written make no references to sati.
The latter ones (Vishnu, Parasara), composed after 500 AD, refer to sati as an option and encourage widows to stay as nuns. In the latter part, we find a glamorisation of sati.
This correlates well with archaeological evidence that shows that sati stones start appearing after 500 AD and increased in frequency up to 1500 AD, in the regions controlled by Chalukyas, Pallavas, Cholas, Pandyas and finally the Vijayanagara Empire. Following invasions of Muslims, we hear of sati in military communities of Rajputs and even in the elite circles of the Marathas even in the 17th century.
Sati practice in Bengal had nothing to do with war. It had to do with child marriage, polygamy and caste rules of the elite Kulin Brahmins. Christian missionaries assumed this was a pan-Indian pan-Hindu practice and exaggerated its prevalence in European circles to justify colonial rule in India. Many Indians glamorise this practice, equate it with Hindu honour, see it as a form of Hindu resistance against Muslim rule (though the practice began long before Islam’s arrival).
What is clear is that the Mahabharata has nothing to do with it. Krishna’s wives did not do sahagamana, nor did Balarama’s wife, as some versions claim. And that Madri died the moment her husband touched her, and the curse of Kindama manifested itself.
