How Brahmins used fake interpretation to justify Sati in 19th century India
The following is an excerpt from Madame Blavatasky’s From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan (1879).
In the tent we found the Akali in the middle of a sermon, delivered for the edification of the “mute general” and Mr. Y — -. He was explaining to them the advantages of the Sikh religion, and comparing it with the faith of the “devil-worshipers,” as he called the Brahmans.
It was too late to go to the caves, and, besides, we had had enough sights for one day. So we sat down to rest, and to listen to the words of wisdom falling from the lips of the “God’s warrior.” In my humble opinion, he was right in more than one thing; in his most imaginative moments Satan himself could not have invented anything more unjust and more refinedly cruel than what was invented by these “twice-born” egotists in their relation to the weaker sex. An unconditioned civil death awaits her in case of widowhood — even if this sad fate befalls her when she is two or three years old. It is of no importance for the Brahmans if the marriage never actually took place; the goat sacrifice, at which the personal presence of the little girl is not even required — she being represented by the wretched victim — is considered binding for her. As for the man, not only is he permitted to have several lawful wives at a time, but he is even required by the law to marry again if his wife dies. Not to be unjust, I must mention that with the exception of some vicious and depraved Rajas, we never heard of a Hindu availing himself of this privilege and having more than one wife.
At the present time, the whole of orthodox India is shaken by the struggle in favor of the remarriage of widows. This agitation was begun in Bombay, by a few reformers and opponents of Brahmans. It is already ten years since Mulji-Taker-Sing and others raised this question; but we know only of three or four men who have dared as yet to marry widows. This struggle is carried on in silence and secrecy, but nevertheless it is fierce and obstinate.
In the meanwhile, the fate of the widow is what the Brahmans wish it to be. As soon as the corpse of her husband is burned the widow must shave her head, and never let it grow again as long as she lives. Her bangles, necklaces, and rings are broken to pieces and burned, together with her hair and her husband’s remains. During the rest of her life she must wear nothing but white if she was less than twenty-five at her husband’s death, and red if she was older. Temples, religious ceremonies, society, are closed to her for ever. She has no right to speak to any of her relations, and no right to eat with them. She sleeps, eats, and works separately; her touch is considered impure for seven years. If a man going out on business meets a widow, he goes home again, abandoning every pursuit, because to see a widow is accounted an evil omen.
In the past all this was seldom practised, and concerned only the rich widows who refused to be burned; but now, since the Brahmans have been caught in the false interpretation of the Vedas, with the criminal intention of appropriating the widows’ wealth, they insist on the fulfilment of this cruel precept, and make what once was the exception the rule. They are powerless against British law, and so they revenge themselves on the innocent and helpless women whom fate has deprived of their natural protectors. Professor Wilson’s demonstration of the means by which the Brahmans distorted the sense of the Vedas, in order to justify the practice of widow-burning, is well worth mentioning. During the many centuries that this terrible practice prevailed, the Brahmans had appealed to a certain Vedic text for their justification, and had claimed to be rigidly fulfilling the institutes of Manu, which contain for them the interpretation of Vedic law.
When the East India Company’s Government first turned its attention to the suppression of suttee, the whole country, from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas, rose in protest, under the influence of the Brahmans. “The English promised not to interfere in our religious affairs, and they must keep their word!” was the general outcry. Never was India so near revolution as in those days. The English saw the danger and gave up the task. But Professor Wilson, the best Sanskritist of the time, did not consider the battle lost. He applied himself to the study of the most ancient MSS., and gradually became convinced that the alleged precept did not exist in the Vedas; though in the Laws of Manu it was quite distinct, and had been translated accordingly by T. Colebrooke and other Orientalists. An attempt to prove to the fanatic population that Manu’s interpretation was wrong would have been equivalent to an attempt to reduce water to powder. So Wilson set himself to study Manu, and to compare the text of the Vedas with the text of this law-giver. This was the result of his labors: the Rig Veda orders the Brahman to place the widow side by side with the corpse, and then, after the performance of certain rites, to lead her down from the funeral pyre and to sing the following verse from Grhya Sutra:
Arise, O woman! return to the world of the living!
Having gone to sleep by the dead, awake again!
Long enough thou hast been a faithful wife
To the one who made thee mother of his children.
Then those present at the burning were to rub their eyes with collyrium, and the Brahman to address to them the following verse:
Approach, you married women, not widows,
With your husbands bring ghi and butter.
Let the mothers go up to the womb first,
Dressed in festive garments and costly adornments.
The line before the last was misinterpreted by the Brahmans in the most skillful way. In Sanskrit it reads as follows: “Arohantu janayo yonim agre….” Yonina agre literally means to the womb first. Having changed only one letter of the last word agre, “first,” in Sanskrit [script], the Brahmans wrote instead agneh, “fire’s,” in Sanskrit [script], and so acquired the right to send the wretched widows yonina agneh — to the womb of fire. It is difficult to find on the face of the world another such fiendish deception.
The Vedas never permitted the burning of the widows, and there is a place in Taittiriya-Aranyaka, of the Yajur Veda, where the brother of the deceased, or his disciple, or even a trusted friend, is recommended to say to the widow, whilst the pyre is set on fire: “Arise, O woman! do not lie down any more beside the lifeless corpse; return to the world of the living, and become the wife of the one who holds you by the hand, and is willing to be your husband.” This verse shows that during the Vedic period the remarriage of widows was allowed. Besides, in several places in the ancient books, pointed out to us by Swami Dayanand, we found orders to the widows “to keep the ashes of the husband for several months after his death and to perform over them certain final rituals.”
However, in spite of the scandal created by Professor Wilson’s discovery, and of the fact that the Brahmans were put to shame before the double authority of the Vedas and of Manu, the custom of centuries proved so strong that some pious Hindu women still burn themselves whenever they can. Not more than two years ago the four widows of Yung-Bahadur, the chief minister of Nepal, insisted upon being burned. Nepal is not under the British rule, and so the Anglo-Indian [=English colonial] Government had no right to interfere.
