SUTTEE' (an from the Sanskrit sail, a virtuous wife) means the practice which prevailed in India, of a wife burning herself on the funeral pile, either with the body of her husband, or separately, if he died at a distance.
The practice of suttee is based by the orthodox Hindus on the injunctions of their Sa'stras, or sacred books, and their can be no doubt that various passages in their Pura nas (q.v.) and codes of law countenance the belief which they entertain of its merito riousness and efficacy. Thus, the Brahma-Purana says: " No other way is known for a virtuous woman after the death of her husband; the separate cremation of her hus band would be lost (to all religious intents). If her lord die in another country, let the faithful wife place his sandals on her breast, and, pure, enter the fire. The faithful widow is pronounced no suicide by the recited text of the rigveda." Or the code of Vycisa: the power of that widow who, learning that her husband has deceased, and been burned in another region, speedily casts herself into the fire," etc. Or the code of Angiras: " That woman who, on the death of her husband, ascends the same burning pile with him, is exalted to heaven, as equal in virtue to Arundliatt (the wife of Vasishtlia). She who follows her husband (to another world) shall dwell in a region of joy for so many years as their are hairs on the human body, or 35 millions. As a ser pent-catcher forcibly draws a snake from his hole, thus drawing her lord (from a region of torment), she enjoys delight together with him. The woman who follows her hus band to the pile expiates the sins of three generations on the paternal and maternal side of that family to which she was given as a virgin No other effectual duty is known for virtuous women, at any time after the death of their lords, except casting themselves into the same fire. As long as a woman (in her successive transmigrations) shall decline burning herself, like a faithful wife, on the same fire with her deceased lord, so long shall she be not exempted from springing again to life in the body of some female am rnal. When their lords have departed at the fated time of attaining heaven, no other way but entering the same fire is known for women whose virtuous conduct and whose thoughts have been devoted to their husbands, and who fear the dangers of sepa ration." See for other quotations, H. T. Colebrooke, _Digest of Hindu Law, vol. ii. p. 451, ff. (Loud. 1801); and his "Essay on the Duties of a faithful Hindu Widow," reprinted from the Asiatic Researches, in his Miscellaneous Essays, vol. i. (Loud. 1837). But how
ever emphatically these and similar passages recommend a wife to burn herself together with her deceased husband, it should, in the first place, be observed, that mane, who among legislators of ancient India, occupies the foremost. rank, contains no words which enjoin, or even would seem to countenance, this cruel practice; and, secondly, that no injunction of any religious work is admitted by the orthodox Hindus as authoritative, unless it can show that it is taken from or based on, the revealed hooks, the Vedas (see Snun). An attempt has of late years been made by raja liadhakfint.Deb, to show that, in a text belonging to a particular school of the black Yajurveda (see VEDA), there is really a passage which would justify the practice of suttee; but in the controversy which ensued on this subject between him and the late prof. H. H. Wilson, it clearly trans pired that the text cited by the learned raja is of anything but indubitable canonicity; moreover, that there is a verse in the rigveda which, if properly read, would enjoin a widow not to burn herself, but, afterhaving attended the funeral ceremonies of her hus band, to return to her home, and to fulfill her domestic duties; and it seems, at the same time, that merely from a misreading of a single word of this verse from the rigveda, that interpretation arose which ultimately led to a belief and an injunction so disastrous in their results. See H. H. Wilson, " On the supposed Vaidik Authority for the Burning of Hindu Widows, and on the Funeral Ceremonies of the HinduS," reprinted from the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. xvi., in his woi'ks, vol. ii., edited by Dr. Host (Loud. 1862). That an immense number of widows have fallen victims to this erroneous interpretation of the oldest Vedic text, is but too true. Some fifty years ago, how ever, the East India company took energetic measures to suppress a practice which it was perfectly justified hi looking upon as revolting to all human feelings, and which it would have likewise been entitled to consider as contrary to the spirit of the Vedic religion. This practice may now be said to have been successfully stopped; for though, from habit and superstition, even nowadays cases of suttee occur, they are extremely rare, and all reports agree that the enlightened natives everywhere, except, perhaps, in certain native states, support the action of government to repress this evil of bygone times.