If these immense sums of money had been invested for the permanent support of a Charitable Institution, it would have done incalculable good to society. But then there was no regularly organised system of Public Charity, nor had the people any idea of it. Such immense sums were spent mostly for religious purposes according to the prevailing notions of the age. Tanks, reservoirs, flights of steps on the banks of the river,[127] fine rows of trees, every three miles stone buildings or choultries for travellers, affording a grateful shelter throughout the country, were among the works of public utility constructed by the charitably disposed.
XXI.
SUTTEE, OR THE IMMOLATION OF HINDOO WIDOWS.
Fifty years ago, when the British Government was endeavouring to consolidate its power in the East, and when the religious prejudices of the Natives were alike tolerated and respected, there arose a great man in Bengal who was destined by Providence to work a mighty revolution in their social, moral and intellectual condition. That great man was Rammohun Roy, the pioneer of Hindoo enlightenment. Having early enriched his mind with European and Eastern erudition, he soon rose, by his energy, to a degree of eminence and usefulness which afterwards marked his career as a distinguished reformer and a benevolent philanthropist. He was emphatically an oasis in this sterile land—a solitary example of a highly cultivated mind among many millions of men grovelling in ignorance. To his indefatigable exertions we are indebted for the abolition of the inhuman practice of Suttee, the very name of which evokes a natural shrinking from the diabolical deed, which appallingly and suddenly expunged a tender life from the earth, and severed the dearest tie of humanity. It was the severest reflection on the satanic character of a religion that ignores the first principle of divine law. Women are of an impressionable nature, their enthusiasm is easily fanned into intensity, and superstition and priestcraft took advantage of it.
Not content with sending a sick man to the riverside to be suffocated and burnt to ashes, a narrow-minded hierarchy lent its sanction to the destruction of a living creature, by burning the Hindoo widow with the dead body of her husband, the fire being kindled perhaps by the hand of one whom she had nurtured and suckled in infancy. It is awful to contemplate how the finest sensibilities of our nature are sometimes blunted by a false faith.
My apology for dwelling on this painful subject now that the primary cause of complaint has long since been removed by a wise Legislature, is no other than that I had been an eye-witness of a melancholy scene of this nature, the dreadful atrocity of which it is impossible even at this distance of time to call to mind without horror and dismay. As the tale I am going to relate is founded in real life its truthfulness can be thoroughly relied upon.
When I was a little boy reading in a Patsálá at home, my attention was one morning roused by hearing from my mother that my aunt was "going a Suttee." The word was then scarcely intelligible to me. I pondered and thought over and over again in my mind what could the word 'Suttee' mean. Being unable to solve the problem, I asked my mother for an explanation; she, with tears in her eyes, told me that my aunt (living in the next house) "was going to eat fire." Instantly I felt a strong curiosity to see the thing with my own eyes, still laboring under a misconception as to what the reality could be. I had then no distinct notion that life would be at once annihilated. I never thought for a moment that I was going to lose my dear aunt for ever. My mind was quite unsettled, and I felt an irresistible desire to look into the thing more minutely. I ran down to my aunt's room and what should I see there, but a group of sombre complexioned women with my aunt in the middle. I have yet after fifty years, a vivid recollection of what I then saw in the room. My aunt was dressed in a red silk sari with all the ornaments on her person, her forehead daubed with a very thick coat of sidoor or vermillion, her feet painted red with alta, she was chewing a mouthful of betel, and a bright lamp was burning before her. She was evidently wrapt in an ecstacy of devotion, earnest in all she did, quite calm and composed as if nothing important was to happen. In short, she was then at her matins, anxiously watching the hour when this mortal coil should be put off. My uncle was lying a corpse in the adjoining room. It appeared to me that all the women assembled were admiring the virtues and fortitude of my aunt. Some licking the betel out of her mouth, some touching her forehead in order to have a little of the sidoor or vermillion, while not a few falling before her feet, expressed a fond hope that they might possess a small particle of her virtue. Amidst all these surroundings, what surprised me most was my aunt's stretching out one of her hands at the bidding of an old Brahmin woman and holding a finger right over the wick of the burning lamp for a few seconds until it was scorched and forcibly withdrawn by the old lady who bade her do so, in order to have a foretaste of the unshaken firmness of her mind. The perfect composure with which she underwent this fiery ordeal fully convinced all that she was a real Suttee, fit to abide with her husband in Boykonto, paradise. Nobody could notice any change in her countenance or resolution after she had gone through this painful trial.
It was about eleven o'clock when preparations were made for the removal of the corpse of my uncle to the Ghaut. It was a small mourning procession, nearly thirty persons, all of respectable families, volunteered to carry the dead body alternately on their shoulders. The body was laid on a charpoy, my aunt followed it, not in a closed but an open Palkee. She was unveiled and regardless of the consequences of a public exposure; she was, in a manner, dead to the external world. The delicate sense of shame so characteristic of Hindoo females was entirely suppressed in her bosom. In truth, she was evidently longing for the hour when her spirit and that of her husband should meet together and dwell in heaven. She had a toolsee mala (string of basil beads) in her right hand which she was telling, and she seemed to enjoy the shouts of "Hurree, Hurree bole" with perfect serenity of mind. How can we account for the strange phenomenon wherein a sentient being in a state of full consciousness was ready to surrender at the feet of "Hurree" the last vital spark of life for ever, without a murmur, a sigh, or a tear? A deep, sincere religious faith, which serves as a sheet-anchor to the soul amidst the storms of life, can only unriddle the enigma and disarm death of its terrors. We reached Nimtollah Ghaut about twelve, and after staying ten or fifteen minutes, sprinkling the holy water on the dead body, and all proceeded slowly to Kooltollah Ghaut, about three miles north of Nimtollah. On arriving at the destination which was the dreary abode of Hindoo undertakers, solitary and lonesome, the Police Darogah, (who was also a Hindoo) came to the spot and closely examined my aunt, in various ways attempting if possible, to induce her to change her mind, but she, like "Joan of Arc," was resolute and determined, she gave an unequivocal reply, to the purport that "such was her predestination, and that Hurree had summoned her and her husband into the Boykonto." The Darogah, amazed at the firmness of her mind, staid at the Ghaut to watch the proceedings, while preparations were being made for a funeral pile, which consisted of dry firewood, faggots, pitch with a lot of sandal wood, ghee, &c. in it to impart a fragrant odour to the air. Half a dozen Bamboos or sticks were procured also, the use of which we afterwards understood and saw. We little boys were ordered to stand aloof. The Brahmin undertaker came and read a few mantras or incantations. The dead body wrapped in new clothes being placed on the pyre, my aunt was desired to turn seven times round it, which she did while strewing a lot of flowers, cowries (shells) and parched rice on the ground. It struck me at the time that at every successive circumambulation, her strength and presence of mind failed, whereupon the Darogah stepped forward once more and endeavoured even at the last moment to deter her from her fatal determination, but she, at the very threshold of ghastly death, in the last hour of expiring life, the fatal torch of Yama (Pluto) before her, calmly ascended the funeral pile and lying by the side of her husband with one hand under his head and another on his breast, was heard to call, in voice half suppressed, on "Hurree, Hurree,"—a sign of firm belief in the reality of eternal beatitude. When she had thus laid herself on the funeral pyre, she was instantly covered or rather choked with dry wood, while some stout men held and pressed down the pyre which was by this time burning fiercely on all sides, with the Bamboos. A great shout of exultation then arose from the surrounding spectators, till both the dead and living bodies were converted into a handful of dust and ashes. When the tragic scene was brought to a close and the excitement of the moment subsided, men and women wept and sobbed, while cries and groans of sympathy filled the air.