Revenge or Accusation.
Although less common at the present time than formerly, cases are still seen in which a man or woman will commit suicide to spite another, and call down the opprobrium of the neighbours on him for some injury, or fancied slight, such deaths were called chandi, or self-immolation; the Rajpoot class greatly practised it; they would protest against a decree, and then stab themselves as a final protest. Another form was dhurna, sitting at an enemy’s door and waiting for death by starvation, hoping to bring down a curse on the offender. The erection of a koor, or wood pile, for conflagration, and self-burning thereon, with or without the offering of some animal, was also a process designed to invoke curses on an opponent. Cases have also been observed is which a man has cut his throat in a neighbour’s house, so that the neighbour might be accused of murder, and so be made to suffer the penalty for that crime. A fakir has been known to set himself on fire, to excite charity; and a Brahmin has thrown himself into a well, that his ghost might haunt the owner of it.─Esdaile.