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The custom of burning widows with their husbands first roused his horror before he was much known. While he was at Rangpur in 1811, his brother Jagmohun died, when one of his widowed wives was burnt alive with him. Rammohun held this lady in high esteem, and the news of her cruel death gave such a shock to his feelings that he took a secret vow never to rest till this inhuman custom was abolished.[endnoteRef:2] [2: Sivnath Sastri, History Of The Brahmo Samaj, Pub. Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, Calcutta. 1993, p.30]

, / [endnoteRef:3] ( , ) , [endnoteRef:4] ( ) , , , , , ; ( /-) , , [endnoteRef:5] , / ... / , , - , - - [3: , /, , , , ] [4: , /] [5: , , , , ]

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Suffice it is to say that as many as 309 widows were burnt alive with their husbands within the jurisdiction of Calcutta in the year 1828, the year in which the Brahma Sabha was established. It was but natural that the misery and degradation of womanhood should have strongly appealed to the sympathetic heart of Rammohun Roy.[endnoteRef:11] [11: Sivnath Sastri, History Of The Brahmo Samaj, Published by Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, 1993, p. 29-30.]

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A young man having died of cholera his widow resolved to mount the funeral pile. The usual preparations were made, and the licences procured from the magistrate. The fire was lighted by the nearest relations; when the flame reached her, however, she lost courage, and amid a volume of smoke and the deafening screams of the mob, tomtoms, drums etc., she contrived to slip down unperceived, and gained a neighbouring jungle. At first she was not missed; but when the smoke subsided, it was discovered she was not on the pile. The mob became furious and ran into the jungle to look for the unfortunate young creature, dragged her down to the river, put her into a dingy, and shoved off to the middle of the stream, when they forced her violently overboard and she sank to rise no more![endnoteRef:13] [13: , , , , , ]

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( ) , - ( ) , ( ) [endnoteRef:21] , (-) (-)[endnoteRef:22] , , , [endnoteRef:23] [21: Ramesh Chandra Majumdar, (1977) [1952], Ancient India, (Reprinted ed.) Motilal Banarasidass, ISBN 978-8-12080-436-4 ] [22: , , , , , ] [23: , , , ,, , -]

- , ... kshatriya caste should preferably immolate herself on the funeral pyre of her husband especially if he had died a heros death. This would make her a sati the ritual of becoming a sati was later adopted by other castes as well, and received extensive sanction, ultimately leading to the deification of the sati. Such a deified sati has been worshipped since this period at a temple in Wadhwan in Saurashtra, set in a courtyard lined with sati memorials and hero-stones.[endnoteRef:24] [24: Romila Thapar, The Penguin History of Early India/From the origins to AD 1300, Penguins Book, 2003, page 304, 424.]

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31

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- - , / [endnoteRef:27] - , , , ( ), , , , This was generally a slab containing the usual sati symbol of the right arm with bangles intact to indicate a continuing married state, a lime held in the palm to ward off evil and some small insignia.[endnoteRef:28] , - The earliest historical evidence for this practice dates from AD 510, when it was commemorated in an inscription at Eran. [endnoteRef:29] [27: , , , , -, ] [28: Romila Thapar, The Penguin History of Early India/From the origins to AD 1300, Penguins Book, 2003, page 424.] [29: Romila Thapar, The Penguin History of Early India/From the origins to AD 1300, Penguins Book, 2003, page 304.]

, sati memorials became more common in parts of Rajasthan and Gujrat from the twelfth century[endnoteRef:30] - () [endnoteRef:31] , , , - , , - - ...- - - , - ![endnoteRef:32] [30: Romila Thapar, The Penguin History of Early India/From the origins to AD 1300, Penguins Book, 2003, page 423-424.] [31: , , , ] [32: , , , , , -]

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[endnoteRef:36] , , , , , - -, , , [endnoteRef:37] , , [36: , ] [37: ; Sivnath Sastri, History Of The Brahmo Samaj , Pub. Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, Calcutta. 1993 -,]

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women are in general inferior to men in bodily strength and energy; consequently, the male part of the community, taking advantage of their corporeal weakness, have denied to them those excellent merits that they are entitled to by nature, and afterwards they are apt to say that women are naturally incapable of acquiring those merits. But if we give the subject consideration, we may easily ascertain whether or not your accusation against them is consistent with justice. As to their inferiority in point of understanding, when did you ever afford them a fair opportunity of exhibiting their natural capacity? How then can you accuse them of want of understanding? if, after instruction in knowledge and wisdom, a person cannot comprehend or retain what has been taught him, we may consider him as deficient: but as you keep women generally void of education and acquirements. You cannot, therefore, in justice, pronounce on their inferiority.[endnoteRef:40] [40: History Of The Brahmo Samaj , -]

, - On the Abolition of suttee , ... Hark! heard ye not ? the widows wail is over,/ No more the flames from impious pyres ascend,/ See Mercy, now primeval peace restore...[endnoteRef:41] [41: The Sati, A Historical Anthology, Ed, by Andrea Major, Oxford, 2007.]

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