SUTTEE (Batt, from the Sanskrit sat, good) properly means a chaste nil virtuous wife, and in ordinary use is applied to one who burns erself on her husband's funeral pile. The term has been employed y Europeans to denote the act of self-immolation as practised by hindu widows. When this practice was first introduced cannot bo etermincd with any degree of certainty : it is described by the Greek Titers of the age of Alexander, and by Mohammedan and Christian "avellers of the 16th and 17th centuries. Diodorus (six. 33) gives an 'stance of a suttee which occurred in the army of Eumenes upwards f 300 years before the Christian era; and he ascribes the zeal for this hid of self-sacrifice, in most instances, to the infamy which attached those widows who refused to conform to the custom. This is also ie view taken by our missionaries ; but as Elphinstone (`History of adia; i.) justly observes, if the motive were one of so general an ifluence, the practice would scarcely be so rare. It is not improbable rat the doctrine of transmigration generally held throughout India may eve had some influence in the establishment of the custom of the suttee. widow, by burning herself with the corpse of her husband, was to s immediately released from further migration, and cuter at once on le enjoyments of Heaven, to which by this act she would also entitle ie deceased. Again, perhaps the hope of meeting the departed in the warga (Sahagamana) would be sufficient to induce a faithful wife to ,orifice herself. But, however ancient, there are in fact no authentic icient writings of India, whether legal or religious, which make any ention of it. It is certain that Menu, in his directions to Hindu idows (book v.), does not even allude to it. It cannot be denied, )wever, that some good Indian authorities recommend the practice, it by no means command it. According to a summary ..
the law and custom of Hindu castes, compiled by Arthur Steele, and printed at Bombay by order of the governor in 1827, the most virtuous mode of becoming a suttee is to die of affliction and grief on the husband's death. The usual practice, indeed, is self-immolation on the husband's funeral pile ; but the many cases under which a widow ie excused becoming a suttee, strongly support the supposition that none of the Hindu law-books imperatively command it. The success which has attended the attempts of the British government to abolish the suttee, is a sufficient proof that the natives themselves were not so averse to its suppression as had been expected. In 1826 the government declared the burning of a widow without the body of the deceased (ainonarana), and under various other specified clrcumstsnoee, illegal; and all persona, whether relations or others. aidiog or abetting in such
an act, either before or after the death of the husband, were to be committed for trial at the circuit courts, and were made liable to the puniabusents for murder and homicide. It was, however, not until 1829 that a regulation was passed, on the 14th December, by the governor-general, Lord W. Bentiuck, in council, declaring the practice of suttee, or of burning or burying alive the widows of Hindus, with or without the body of the deceased (anuntarena or sahamaraaa), to be illegal and punishable by the criminal courts. The practice is still retained in some of the independent governments of India, but is much less prevalent since its abolition in the English territories.
The mode of burning was the same throughout India, varying only according to the rank of the deceased or the province where it was per formed. The accounts of all Eastern travellers abound with instances of suttees : it will be sufficient here to give a short sketch of the cere mony. The husband is directed by the physician, when there are no hopes of his recovery, to be carried to the river side, and the wife then breaks a small branch from tho mango-tree, takes it with her, and proceeds to the body, where she sits down. The barber paints the sides of her feet red, after which she bathes, and puts on new clothes. During these preparations the drum beats a certain sound, by which it is known that a widow is about to be burnt with the corpse of her husband. On hearing this, all the village assembles. The son, or, if there be no son, a relation, or the head man of the village, provides the articles necessary for the ceremony. A hole is dug iu the ground, round which stakes are driven into the earth, and thick green stakes laid across to form a kind of bed, upon which are laid abundance of dry famota, hemp, clarified butter, and other combustibles. The widow now presents her ornaments to her friends, ties some red cotton on both wrists, puts two new combs in her hair, paints her forehead, and puts some parched rico and cowries into the end of the cloth which she wears. While this is going forward, the dead body is anointed with clarified butter and bathed, prayers are repeated over it, and it is dressed in new clothes. Ropes and another piece of cloth are spread upon the pile. The widow walks seven times round the funeral pile, strewing parched rice and cowries, and then she ascends the pile, or rather throws herself upon it.
(Ward's IIindoos, ii. 90; Elphinstone, History of India ; Parlia mentary Papers on Suttee ; Sir John Malcolm's Memoir of Central India.)