Grand moving diorama of Hindostan

by Fanny Parkes Parlby

The steam vessels and tugs which navigate the Ganges from Calcutta terminate their voyage at Allahabad.

THE SATĪ.

The scene now before you represents a Satī, the burning of a Hindū widow with the corpse of her husband. The event here represented took place on the 7th November, 1828, near Raj ghāt, under the Mahratta bund (an embankment raised to prevent the encroachment of the Ganges). The woman was the wife of a rich buniyā (a corn-chandler), and she determined to burn on his funeral-pile. The magistrate sent for her, used every argument to dissuade her, and offered her money. Her only answer was, dashing her head against the floor, and saying, “If you will not let me burn with my husband, I will hang myself in your court of justice.” If a widow touch either food or water from the time her husband expires until she ascend the pile, she cannot, by Hindū law, be burned with the body; therefore the magistrate kept the corpse forty-eight hours, in the hope that hunger would compel the woman to eat. Guards were set over her; but she never touched any thing. A procession of people accompanied the widow from her dwelling to the river-side; she walked in the midst, dressed in a red garment, and the corpse, placed on a charpaī, fixed on long bamboos, was carried on men’s shoulders. About 5000 people were collected together on the banks of the Ganges: the pile was built, and the putrid body placed upon it.

After having bathed in the river, the widow lighted a brand, walked round the pile, set it on fire, and then mounted cheerfully: the flame caught and blazed up instantly; she sat down, placing the head of the corpse on her lap, and repeated several times the usual form, “Ram, Ram, sātī; Ram, Ram, sātī;” i.e. “God, God, I am chaste.” As the wind drove the fierce fire upon her, she shook her arms and limbs as if in agony; at length she started up, and approached the side to escape. An Hindū—one of the police who had been placed near the pile to see that she had fair play, and should not be burned by force—raised his sword to strike her, and the poor wretch shrank back into the flames. The magistrate seized and committed him to prison. The woman again approached the side of the blazing pile, sprang fairly out, and ran into the Ganges, which was within a few yards. When the crowd and the brothers of the dead man saw this, they called out, “Cut her down! knock her on the head with a bamboo! tie her hands and feet, and throw her in again!” They rushed down to execute their murderous intentions, when some English gentlemen and the police drove them back. The woman drank some water, and having extinguished the fire on her red garment, said she would mount the pile again and be burned. The magistrate placed his hand upon her shoulder (which rendered her impure), and said, “By your own law, having once quitted the pile, you cannot ascend again; I forbid it.” He sent her in a palanquin, under a guard, to the hospital. The crowd made way, shrinking from her with signs of horror, but returned peacefully to their homes; the Hindūs annoyed at her escape, the Musalmāns, saying, “It was better that she should escape, but it was a pity we should have lost the tamāshā (amusement) of seeing her burnt to death.” The woman said, “I have transmigrated six times, and have been burned six times with six different husbands; if I do not burn the seventh time, it will prove unlucky for me!” “What good will burning do you?” asked a bystander: she replied, “The women of my husband’s family have all been satīs: why should I bring disgrace upon them? I shall go to heaven, and afterwards re-appear on earth, and be married to a very rich man.”

The woman was about 25 years of age, and possessed some property: had she performed satī, her relatives would have raised a little cenotaph, or a mound of earth, by the side of the river; and every Hindū who passed the place returning from bathing, would have made salām to it—a high honour to the family. The shastrs say, “There is no greater virtue than a chaste woman burning herself with her husband.” Mothers collect the cowries, strewn by a satī as she walks round the pile, ere she fires it, and hang them round the necks of their sick children, as a cure for disease.

The woman became an outcast: her own and her husband’s family would lose caste, if they were to speak to her; no Hindū will eat with her, enter her house, or give her assistance; and when she appears, they will point at her, and give her abuse. Many years after this event took place, the woman regained caste by giving large feasts and donations to the Brahmans.

In the Museum are five kalsas, or crowns of unglazed pottery, some of which formerly decorated the satī mounds in Alopee Bagh, near Allahabad, and the rest were brought from Ghazipūr. There are also two black stones, apparently very ancient, on which figures are carved, brought from the satī mound of the widow of a Brahman, at Barrah.

About two years after this event at Allahabad, the practice of satī was abolished, by order of government.

The fine building here represented is a dhrum-sala, or place to distribute alms, at Benī Māhadēo Ghāt; it is dedicated to a form of Māhadēo, which stands in the shiwālā, or little temple above. Under the arches in the lower part, by the side of the Ganges, is an enormous figure of Ganesh; the worshippers pour oil and Ganges water over the image, with rice and flowers, and hang chaplets of flowers around its neck: the idol is generally dripping with oil. The red flag, at the end of a long bamboo displayed from the pīpul tree, denotes the residence of a Fakīr. The temple is very picturesque, and the foliage adds to the beauty of the scene.