One of the most startling facts is, that among the Asiatic rulers of India who have heroically resisted foreign invasion the women of Hindostan have distinguished themselves almost as much as the men. Lakshmi Baiee, the queen of Jahnsee, held the entire British army in check for the space of twenty-four hours by her wonderful generalship, and she would probably have come off victorious if she had not been shot down by the enemy. After the battle Sir Hugh Rose, the English commander, declared that the best man on the enemy's side was the brave queen Lakshmi Baiee. Another courageous and noble woman, Aus Khoor, was placed by the British government on the throne of Pattiala, an utterly disorganized and revolted state in the Panjaub. In less than one year she had by her wise and effective administration changed the whole condition of the country, subjugated the rebellious cities and villages, increased the revenues, and established order, security, and peace everywhere. Alleah Baiee, the Mahratta queen of Malwah, devoted herself for the space of twenty years with unremitting assiduity to the happiness and welfare of her people, so that Hindoos, Buddhists, Jains, Parsees, and Mohammedans united in blessing her beneficent rule; and of so rare a modesty was this woman that she ordered a book which extolled her virtues to be destroyed, saying, "Could I have been so infamous as to neglect the welfare and happiness of my subjects?"
In the historical notices of the rule of Hindóstanee women nothing is more conspicuous than their fine, intuitive sense of honor and justice. Clive, Hastings, Wellesley, and other governors-general of India, have all acknowledged their high appreciation of the character of the Hindoo women they have known, declaring that in many instances, under the administration of Ranees and Begums, India has been more prosperous and better governed than under the rule of the native rajahs.
The present ruler of Bhopal is a lady of high moral and intellectual attainments; both she and her mother, who preceded her as head of the state, have displayed the highest capacity for administration. Both have been appointed knights of the Star of India by the empress of India, Queen Victoria, and their territory is the best governed native state in India.
Very recently the queen of England created her Asiatic sisters, the queens of Oude and Pattiala, knights of the Star of India in appreciation of their wise and beneficent rule over their respective kingdoms.
During the dreadful ravages of the French and English, or the Carnatic War, the Hindoo women administered to the wounded and suffering European soldiers of both nations with equal tenderness and impartiality, causing one of the English generals to report to head-quarters, "But for the Indian women, who better understand the qualities of love and tenderness than we Europeans, I should have left half of my wounded soldiers to die on the battle-field. They washed the toiling feet of the poor tired soldiers, stanched their flowing wounds, and bore them in their united arms from the strife of the battle-field to the quiet and shelter of their own little huts."
In that interesting narrative of occurrences at Benares during the latter days of the month of June, 1857, furnished by a soldier of the Seventy-eighth Highlanders, are several incidents characteristic of the devotion and self-abnegation of the Hindoo women. This regiment or company of soldiers, in its work of retaliation upon the Indian mutineers, often set fire to whole villages in order to punish the rebel sepoys sheltered by them. On one of these occasions a humane Highlander, after having rescued several persons from the fire, rushed into the flames to save a young woman seated calmly by a dying man, whose lips she was wetting with some siste[51] while the fire was raging around her. No inducement of self-preservation could prevail with her to quit his side till they were both carried out.
Tenderness and self-devotion, as I said before, are the chief characteristics of the pure Hindoo woman. Her love for her offspring amounts to a passion, and she is rarely known to speak hastily, much less to strike or ill use her child. Her devotion as a wife has no parallel in the history of the world. Marriage is a sacred, indissoluble bond, which even death itself cannot destroy, and the patient, much-enduring women of India took the terrible yoke of sutteeism upon them in becoming wives as calmly as the young English or American girl puts on her bridal veil, and have gone to the funeral pile for centuries without a murmur.
In the purer and more ancient period of Indian civilization it was not customary to force a widow upon the funeral pyre of her husband. But the fearful prospects of Hindoo widowhood, which made her future existence appear to her a long, wearisome, and distasteful series of sad duties, made her gladly choose death rather than life. Besides which, she died honored and happy, having by her death redeemed her husband from a thousand years of penance. By degrees, this fearful practice, fostered by the priests and poets of India, became a sacred tradition carefully handed down from mother to daughter, and at last came to be regarded as a sublime sacrifice on the marriage altar. The practice of sutteeism has been virtually abolished by the British government on British-Indian soil, but to this day women will perform painful journeys to places still governed by native princes in order to burn themselves alive.
In 1834, while Dr. Burnes was residing at Cutch, a very remarkable case of sutteeism took place in that province. The only wife of Bhooj-Rhai, a wealthy and intimate friend of the rao or king, had, during her husband's illness, declared her intention of performing suttee at his death. When the time arrived the rao, at the instance of the British resident, expostulated with her, but all in vain. Protection was also offered her in the name of the British government, but her determination remained firm and unshaken. On the morning appointed for the burning of Bhooj-Rhai's body a funeral pyre was erected immediately in front of Rao Lakka's tomb. A spot was enclosed with a circle of bamboos, the tops of which were bound together in the form of a beehive, covered with dried grass and thorns; the entrance was a small aperture on the left side. Crowds of gayly-dressed people flocked to the spot. The moment the victim, a remarkably handsome woman about thirty, and most superbly dressed, appeared, accompanied by the Brahman priests, her relatives, and the dead body of her husband, the people greeted her with loud exclamations of praise and delight, poured forth benedictions on her head for her constancy and virtue, and showered flowers on her path as she was borne along; women pressed to touch the hem of her garments, hoping thereby to be absolved from all sin and preserved from all evil influences.
Dr. Burnes addressed the woman, desiring to know whether the act she was about to perform was voluntary or enforced by the priests, and offered her again, on the part of the British government, a guarantee for the protection of her life and property. Her answer was calmly heroic, and she could not be dissuaded from her purpose: "I die of my own free will," said she; "give me back my husband and I will consent to live." Seeing that nothing could move her from her resolution, Dr. Burnes despatched a message to the rao requesting his interference. He returned answer that it was beyond his power to arrest the ceremony. Everything was done, but in vain, to save the life of this infatuated woman, and at length the ceremony began. Accompanied by the officiating Brahmans, the widow walked seven times round the pyre, repeating the usual mantras or prayers, strewing rice and cowries (small shells) on the ground, sprinkling holy water over her friends and relatives and on the bystanders. She then removed her jewels and presented them to her nearest relations with a glad smile. The Brahman priest then presented her with a lighted torch; taking it from his hand, she stepped through the fatal entrance and calmly seated herself within the pile. The body of her husband, wrapped in rich kinkaub (gold cloth), was then carried seven times round the pile, and finally laid across her knees. The door was left unclosed, in the hope that the deluded woman might yet repent and escape. Not a sigh, not a whisper, broke the death-like silence of the crowd. The intrepid woman held up her torch and ignited the pile. Presently a slight smoke, curling from the summit of the pyre, gave notice that the fiery ordeal had begun; then came a tongue of flame darting with lightning rapidity toward the clear blue sky, announcing that the sacrifice was completed, though not a sound betrayed that a living victim was within holding a dead corpse in her arms. So far as courage and silent, resolute determination went, she was more immovable than the dead clay she held in her last fiery embrace. At the sight of the ascending crackling flames wild shouts of exultation rent the air, the drums beat, the people clapped their hands in delighted applause, while the English spectators of the scene withdrew, bearing deep compassion in their hearts.