The forms varied. In Bengal, the living and dead bodies were stretched on a pile, and strong ropes and bamboos were thrown across. so as to prevent any attempt to rise. In Orisan, the funeral pyre was below the level of the ground, and the woman threw herself into it. In the Dekhau, the woman Bat down on the pyre with her husband's head in her lap, and retnained there until suffocated or crushed by the fall of a heavy roof of logs of wood, which was fixed by corda to posts at the corners of the pile. Itt the year 1817, 706 widows performed satl in Bengal. In 1818, 839 satis were returned as havittg occurred in the Bengali Provinces. • Ward relates that while at Allahabad au officer savv one morniug 16 females drown themselves. Each had a large empty earthen pan slung by a cord over each shoulder. A Brahman supported each SIZ she went over the side of the boat, and held her up till she, by turning the pan aside, had filled it, when he let her go, and she sank, a few bubbles of air rising to the surface of the water.
The widows of the weaver caste buried them selves alive.
It was common at Benares to set up, hy the side of the river, stone monuments to the memory of widows who have been. hurtled with the bodies of deceased hushands. Persons coining front bathing bow to these stones, and sprinkle water on them, repeating the words Sati, sati, i.e. chaste.
About the year 1860, the Dehli Gazette Rion Moiled that in Central India a woman had been persuaded to consent to the sacrifice and pro ceeded, after the usual ceremonies, to' the pyre, accompanied by her friends and relatives. When she was on the top of the pile, and the flames began to ascend, her resolution nave way, and, screaming with teiror, she leapetrto the ground and tried to nut away. The attendants tried to cut her down ; she was struck with sticks, and wounded in two places with swords, but she ran down to the river's edge, where she concealed herself under some bushes. Here she was dis covered, and thrown into the river (the Parwati), when) elle was drowned. 3Iany of those con cerned in this infamous outrage were apprehended, and tried ttt Goonalt, in the neighbourhood of which station the occurrence took place. A nearly similar crime was perpetrated in 1858, in the Farrakhabad district, without a single one of the criminals being convicted or punished.
A writer in the Madras Times, in 1862, remarked that on the occasion of the death of the maharani of Udaipur, a sati took place in which the life of a slave girl was wantonly destroyed. Letters front Central India after that date conveyed the intelligence that another ca.se of a somewhat similar description had since taken place at the cretnation of the remains of the thakur of nova in Sirolti. The persons implicated were placed in confinement, and were to be punished agreeably to the penalties entered to be inflicted by thc Government for such offences.
Sikhs.—Tlit‘ practice of sati forms no part of thc institutions of the Siklia, and was rare arnongsl them. The GranCh says, They are not stub. who perish in the flames, 0 Nand: ! Satis those who live of a broken heart.' But again The loving wife perishes with the ',body of her husband. But were her thoughts bent upon God, her sorrows would be alleviated.' An exception occurred in 1805 in the town of 13tirialt. When the Sikh raja Suchet Singh died, there were 300 women in his palace, all of whom were sacrificed with the deceased's re mains. Also on the demise of Ranjit SMgh, the four ranis—Koondun, daughter of Raja Sumsar Chund ; Hinderi, daughter of Mian Puddinn Singh, of Nompur ; Rajkunwur, daughter of Sirdar Jey Singh, of Chynpur ; and Baant Ali— deterrnined to burn, in spite of the entreaties and remonstrances of Khuruk Singh and his minis ters, who guaranteed their rank and property. The corpse having been washed with Ganges water, and placed on a bier of sandal-wood, decorated with gold flowers, was carried, the day after his death, to the place of cremation, before the gates of the palace Hazaribagh, followed by the four ranis in their richest dresses, loaded with jewels of immense value, walking in a measured step, attended by Brahmans and Sodees (Sikh priests), singing the holy hymns of Nanuk, in the same form, and with the same ceremonies, which were beheld in these very parts (on the banks of the Ravi) by the army of Alexander the Great more than 2000 years before, and which are described by the Greek and Roman writers with a minute fidelity which would suit a tuodern sati. The funeral pile was made of sandal wood, and when the procession reached it, an affecting scene took place. Rani Koondun, the principal widow, took the hand of Dhean Singh, and, placing it on the breast of the corpse, made him swear never to betray or desert Khuruk Singh, or his son Nou Nehal Singh, or forget the interests of the Khalsa ; and Khuruk Singh, in like manner, svi,ore not to betray or desert Dhean Singh. Besides the fatal curse of a sati, the torments incurred by the slaughter of a thousand cows were imprecated on the head of him who violated Ms oath. Rani Koondun then mounted the pyre, sat down beside the body of her late husband, which was in a sitting posture, and placed his head in her lap. The other ranis, two of them only sixteen years of age, and of extra ordinary beauty, with five, some say seven, Kash mir slave girls (one of them the lovely Lotus, who had attracted tbe admiration of the mission in 1838), followed the example, seating themselves around the corpse, with every token of satisfaction in their countenance. At the hour fixed by the Brahmans, in the presence of all the troops at the ca.pital and an immense crowd of spectators, in
cluding several British officers, the pile was lighted, one account states by Khuruk Singh, another by the rani Koondun, and without a shriek or groan being heard, the living and the dead were reduced t,o ashes. It is said the Raja Dbean Singh inade four several attempts to jump upon the burning mass, but was withheld by the people about him. A witness of this appalling spectacle relates that a small cloud appeared in the sky over the pile, and that he saw (perhaps thought lie saw) a few drops fall upon the smouldering embers, as if the very elements wept at the closing scene of this dismal tragedy. The ashes were conveyed in a palanquin of gold, in grand procession, accompanied by Khuruk Singh (in a plain white nmslin dress), Dhean Singh, and Kushal Singh, to the Ganges, and committed to that holy river. • Archipelago.—Bali and Lombok in the Archi pelago largely profess Brahmanism. Sati still continues to prevail in Bali to an extent that India never knew, and the slaves of a great man are also consumed on his funeral pile. The widows are often despatched by a kris. In Lombok, wives may suffer themselves to be burned or krissed after the death of their husbands. The former is the more rare. The wives of the rajas, however, must suffer themselves to be burned. When a. raja dies, some women are always burned, even should they be but slaves. The wives -of the priests never kill themselves. An eye-witness thus relates how a gusti, who died at Atnpanan, having left three wives, one of them resolved to let herself be krissed, against the will of all on both sides of her family. The woman was still young and beautiful ; she had no children. They- told me that a woman who under such circumstances suffered herself to be killed had indeed leved her husband. She intended to accompany him on his long journey to the gods, and she hoped to be his favourite in the other world. The clay after the death of the gusti, his wife took many baths ; she was clothed in the richest manner ; she passed the day with relatives and friends, drinking, chewing sirih, aud praying. About the middle of the space before the house they had erected two scaffoldings or platforms of bamboo of the length of a man, and three feet above the ground. Under these they had dug ft small pit to receive the water and the blood that should flow. In a small house at one side, and opposite these frameworks, were two others entirely similar. This house was immedi ately behind the bali-bali. At four o'clock in the afternoon men brought out the body of the gnsti, wrapped in fine linen, and placed it on the left of the two central platforms. A priest of Mataram removed the cloth from the body, while young persons hastened to cover the private parts of the dead with their hands. They threw much water over the corpse, washed it, combed the hair, and covered the whole body- with champaka and Kananga flowers. They then brought a white net. The priest took a silver cup filled with holy water (called chor), on which he strewed flowers. He first sprinked the deceased with this water, and then poured it through the net on the body, which he blessed, praying, singing, and making various mystical and symbolical motions. He afterwards powdered the body with flour of coloured rice and chopped flowers, and placed it on dry mats. 1Voinen brought out the wife of the gusti on their crossed arms. She was clothed with a piece of white linen only. Her hair was crowned with flowers of the Chrysanthemum Indicum. She was quiet, and betrayed neit-her fear nor regret. She placed herself standing before the body of her husband, raised her arms on high, and made a prayer in silence. Women approached her and presented to her small bouquets of kembang spatu and other flowers. She took them one by one and placed them between the fingers of her hands raised above her head. On this the women took tlibm away and , dried them. On receiving and giving back each bouquet, the wife of the gusti turned a little to the right, so that when she had received the whole she liad turned quite round. She prayed anew in bilence, Nvent to the corpse of her husband, kisaed it on the head, the breast, below the navel, the knees, the feet, and returned to her place. They took off her rings. She crossed her arms on her breast. Two women took her by the arms. Her brother (this time a brother by adoption) placed himself before her, and asked her with a soft voice if she was determined to die, and when she gave a sign of assent with her head, he asked her forgiveness for being obliged to kill her. At once he seized his kris, and stabbed her on the left side of the breast, but not very deeply, so that sho remained standing. Ile then threw his kris down and ran off. A man of consideration approached her, and buried his kris to the hilt in the breast of the unfortunate woman, who sank down at once without a cry. The Nvomen placed her on a mat, and sought, by rolling and pressure, to cause the blood to flow as quickly as possible. The victim being not yet dead, she NN-as stabbed again with a kris between the shoulders. They then laid her on the second platform near her husband. The same ceremonies that had taken place for him now began for the wife. When all was ended, both bodies were covered with resin and cosmetic stuffs, enveloped in white linen, and placed in the small side house on the platforms. There they reinained until the time arrived for their being burned together.