Chapter SURPOOSE to SUTTEE of S by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

y as to which of the two wives of Keteus, a leader of the Indian contingent in the army of Eumenes, should perform suttee. One is rejected as with child. The history of the other terminates thus:

B.C. 317.—“Finally, having taken leave of those of the household, she was set upon the pyre by her own brother, and was regarded with wonder by the crowd that had run together to the spectacle, and heroically ended her life; the whole force with their arms thrice marching round the pyre before it was kindled. But she, laying herself beside her husband, and even at the violence of the flame giving utterance to no unbecoming cry, stirred pity indeed in others of the spectators, and in some excess of eulogy; not but what there were some of the Greeks present who reprobated such rites as barbarous and cruel.…”—Diod. Sic. Biblioth. xix. 33–34.

c. C.B. C. 30.

“Felix Eois lex funeris una maritis
Quos Aurora suis rubra colorat equis;
Namque ubi mortifero jacta est fax ultima
lecto
Uxorum fusis stat pia turba comis;
Et certamen habet leti, quae viva sequatur
Conjugium; pudor est non licuisse mori.
Ardent victrices; et flammae pectora praebent,
Imponuntque suis ora perusta viris.”

Propertius,²Lib. iii. xiii. 15–22.

c. B.C. 20.—“He (Aristobulus) says that he had heard from some persons of wives burning themselves voluntarily with their deceased husbands, and that those women who refused to submit to this custom were disgraced.”—Strabo, xv. 62 (E.T. by Hamilton and Falconer, iii. 112).

A.D. c. 390.—“Indi, ut omnes fere barbari uxores plurimas habent. Apud eos lex est, ut uxor carissima cum defuncto marito cremetur. Hae igitur contendunt inter se de amore viri, et ambitio summa certantium est, ac testimonium castitatis, dignam morte decerni. Itaque victrix in habitu ornatuque pristino juxta cadaver accubat, amplexans illud et deosculans et suppositos ignes prudentiae laude contemnens.”—St. Jerome, Advers. Jovinianum, in edition Vallars, ii. 311.

c. 851.—“All the Indians burn their dead. Serendib is the furthest out of the islands dependent upon India. Sometimes when they burn the body of a King, his wives cast themselves on the pile, and burn with him; but it is at their choice to abstain.”—Reinaud, Relation, &c. i. 50.

c. 1200.—“Hearing the Raja was dead, the Parmâri became a satí:—dying she said—The son of the Jadavanî will rule the country, may my blessing be on him!”—Chand Bardai, in Ind. Ant. i. 227. We cannot be sure that satí is in the original, as this is a condensed version by Mr. Beames.

1298.—“Many of the women also, when their husbands die and are placed on the pile to be burnt, do burn themselves along with the bodies.”—Marco Polo, Bk. iii. ch. 17.

c. 1322.—“The idolaters of this realm have one detestable custom (that I must mention). For when any man dies they burn him; and if he leave a wife they burn her alive with him, saying that she ought to go and keep her husband company in the other world. But if the woman have sons by her husband she may abide with them, an she will.”—Odoric, in Cathay, &c., i. 79.

„ Also in Zampa or Champa: “When a married man dies in this country his body is burned, and his living wife along with it. For they say that she should go to keep company with her husband in the other world also.”—Ibid. 97.

c. 1328.—“In this India, on the death of a noble, or of any people of substance, their bodies are burned; and eke their wives follow them alive to the fire, and for the sake of worldly glory, and for the love of their husbands, and for eternal life, burn along with them, with as much joy as if they were going to be wedded. And those

who do this have the higher repute for virtue and perfection among the rest.”—Fr. Jordanus, 20.

c. 1343.—“The burning of the wife after the death of her husband is an act among the Indians recommended, but not obligatory. If a widow burns herself, the members of the family get the glory thereof, and the fame of fidelity in fulfilling their duties. She who does not give herself up to the flames puts on coarse raiment and abides with her kindred, wretched and despised for having failed in duty. But she is not compelled to burn herself.” (There follows an interesting account of instances witnessed by the traveller.)—Ibn Batuta, ii. 138.

c. 1430.—“In Mediâ vero Indiâ mortui comburuntur, cumque his, ut plurimum vivae uxores…una pluresve, prout fuit matrimonii conventio. Prior ex lege uritur, etiam quae unica est. Sumuntur autem et aliae uxores quaedam eo pacto, ut morte funus suâ exornent, isque haud parvus apud eos honos ducitur…submisso igne uxor ornatiori cultu inter tubas tibicinasque et cantus, et ipsa psallentis more alacris rogum magno comitatu circuit. Adstat interea et sacerdos…hortando suadens. Cum circumierit illa saepius ignem prope suggestum consistit, vestesque exuens, loto de more prius corpore, tum sindonem albam