Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (The Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices)

by Julius Lipner

  Again, we must distinguish suttee from those instances, regularly recorded in history, when wives committed suicide, sometimes in a group, in order to avoid capture and anticipated enslavement or rape by the soldiers of hostile armies. At its best, suttee was supposed to be the willing immolation by a wife, usually by con-cremation, on the funeral pyre of her husband in order to boost his prospects in the next life and to be reunited with him there. There are stirring cases both in literature and in real life of this act being performed with fortitude and grace. A moving account is given in the Mahābhārata of how Mādrī, the youthful and junior wife of the prince Pāṇḍu, argued (successfully) with her senior co-wife, Kuntī, to be allowed to join her dead husband's body on the funeral pyre so that she could be happy with him in heaven (see Book 1, Chapters 109–110 and 116 of the critical edition for the full story). There are also records by foreigners and Indians about wives, especially of rulers and from warrior clans, willingly committing suttee on the death of their husbands. Such wives were greatly admired for this sacrifice, and these immolations were commemorated down the centuries by the erection of stone tablets and other shrines.

  Even in modern times, some women displayed willingness to commit suttee if asked to do so (for the husband could forbid it), in extraordinary ways. B. Upadhyay (1861–1907) who has been mentioned before by us,‘used to tell ... how once his grandmother being challenged by her husband about her courage to die as a“satī” held her finger to the flame without even flinching until she had to be dragged away’ (see Lipner 1999:33). But there must have been many occasions during the event itself when human nature was overwhelmed by the horror of it all, and the poor woman about to commit suttee could not help but quail. There is a lengthy account of such an instance, concerning a wife of ‘about thirty years of age, witnessed in 1794 by the Abbé Dubois (Dubois 1862:175–7).

  It must not be thought that most or even the majority of bereaved widows committed suttee;only a small minority could have done so, and this too from the upper castes. We have seen how the alleged righteousness of the act itself was contested by the authorities on dharma, and in any case the woman herself was supposed to do it willingly. If she chose not to commit suttee, the alternative was not very attractive. The surviving wife was to spend the rest of her days in self-effacing widowhood. Manu prescribes that a widow should mortify herself until her death, honouring the memory of her husband (5.157–8).

  By the nineteenth century, not least in Bengal where British rule was consolidating itself, the practice had on the whole become corrupt. It was enforced in horrible ways, often by moral and psychological pressure. The reasons for this varied. Greed for the inheritance of the widow was no doubt a potent factor, as was the felt need of the victim's family or caste to display credentials of orthodoxy or social prestige (some of these reasons may well have applied in earlier times, hence our comment that Bāṇa's condemnation quoted earlier sounds somewhat simplistic). Further, in nineteenth-century Bengal, suttee became a bone of contention between reforming and conservative Hindus. The conservatives wanted to countenance it as a symbol of traditional Hindu culture that was both different from and independent of the way of life of the ruling foreigner. It was an important stone in the foundation of their Hindu identity. But the reformers, most of whom had received a dose of English education in school and College and who were supported by British administrators and Christian missionaries, believed that the practice was indefensible. There is the story of the pioneering reformer, Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833) looking on, as a youth, in horror at the enforced suttee of a relative, the pathetic shrieks of the victim ringing in his ears as she was beaten down by poles on the burning funeral pyre. This story may be apocryphal, but there is no doubt that it typifies what often happened.

  ‘Between 1815 and 1818 the number of satīs doubled, from 378 in 1815 to 839 in 1818 in the Presidency of Bengal ... In 1818 “when the pyres blazed most fiercely”, Raja Rammohun Roy launched his journalistic attack on the rite, “which aroused such anger that for a while his life was in danger” ... In 1825 the number of satīs rose again after an earlier decline. This led to a renewal of protests’ (A. Sharma 1988:7). Finally, in 1829 the chief executive officer or Governor-General representing British rule in India, William Bentinck, issued a proclamation banning the practice. Note that in bringing about this reform, as in many other cases, Brahmins like Ram Mohan and other upper-caste Hindus played a prominent part.16

  Today, it seems, suttee is moribund but not dead in India. On 4 September 1987, Roop Kanwar, an 18-year-old matriculate Rajput wife, committed suttee on the funeral pyre of her husband, a BSc student, in Deorala village in Rajasthan's Sikar district, allegedly willingly and with the approval of the village elders and the family of her in-laws (cf. India Today, international ed., 15 Oct., 1987:58–61). Eye-witnesses declared that when she assumed her position on the pyre, she was ‘calm and smiling ... sitting with her husband's head cradled in her lap, showering blessings and benedictions on the crowds while chanting the Gāyatrī mantra’ (ibid.:58). Whether this pat description is accurate is a further question, but the suttee created an uproar in the land. Suttee'is illegal [in India] and those connected with it are liable for prosecution for murder under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code’ (ibid.:59). The matter soon became heavily politicized, with leading politicians of various parties taking sides. Some said that this was a purely religious matter on which the state government couldn't or shouldn't act; others averred that the matter should be dealt with by the full force of the law. The state government was slow to make arrests;many thousands of people, mainly Rajputs, marched in protest against government ‘interference’ in what they believed was an integral part of Rajput culture and Hindu dharma. Apparently no one in formed them that historically Hindu authorities have been sharply divided on the subject. And in Deorala village, steps were being taken to make a shrine of the site where the event took place. India Today has reported that 28 ‘satī incidents ... have occurred in Rajasthan since 1947 [until 1987]’ (31 Oct., 1987:20). More importantly, I think, the magazine pointed out that numerous satī festivals honouring women who had immolated themselves in the past are celebrated throughout the country annually. Thus, a mentality lauding satī manages to survive as an undercurrent in the minds of a not inconsiderable number.

  The problem is this: widowhood has had a peculiarly low standing in Hindu culture from ancient times to the present day (recall Manu's stricture that a widow should mortify herself until her death, honouring the memory of her husband). This disdain does not apply to the state of being a widower; apparently men are exempt from the opprobrium of having lost their spouse. The disapprobation of widowhood is universal in India, though its effects are felt more sharply among the lower socio-economic strata and castes, and in rural communities, where modern education has made fewer inroads (one recalls, however, that Roop Kanwar is described as being matriculate’). The following observation applies in its details to Rajput culture, though by making the appropriate contextual changes it can be accommodated fairly pervasively to perceptions of widowhood in Hindu culture as a whole: By and large, some Rajput women are driven to satī because life as a widow is difficult. The widow is branded a kulakshini, an evil woman who has gobbled up her husband. She is not allowed to go out for years, wears only deep blue clothes and is the last member of a household to be fed’ (India Today,15 Oct., 1987:61). In a harrowing article ‘entitled, Widows: Wrecks of Humanity’, we are told in the same publication:

  Widowhood is still an instant certificate of penury, privation and mental torture from which there is no escape. Countless numbers of widows continue to suffer silently at the mercy of their relatives while thousands of others ... regularly migrate to holy places like Hardwar, Rishikesh, Kashi, Vrindaban in search of dignity and religious solace and with the belief that to die there means the attainment of moksha [liberation] ... [T]he poor rural widows are kept by their in-laws as free domestic labour, while the landed on
es ... are barely tolerated and in fact are actively encouraged to go to ashrams so that others can grab their property.

  (India Today, 15 Nov., 1987:71–3)

  But we must keep a sense of proportion. No doubt there are, and have been, a great many younger wives who have not been reduced to the most abject of states on attainment of widow-hood, and who have passed their lives in relative acceptance at the hands of their communities and kin. Nevertheless, it is a fact that the state of widowhood in Hindu culture is a peculiarly devalued one. It is perhaps no surprise then that numbers ofHindu women have viewed suttee as an attractive prospect, at least ideally, not only as a means of escape from their lot, but also as an opportunity to gain the respect they crave and deserve as women.

  By the beginning of the Common Era, one or two back doors’ had begun to appear for a kind of religious rehabilitation of women. The Buddhists, who were growing in religious influence, allowed women to become nuns – somewhat grudgingly and hedged with a lot of qualifications, it is true – but to be a nun was an honourable Buddhist vocation. Sociologically, perhaps as a response, the Hindus’, i.e. those who followed Vedic dharma, while not favouring the nunnery for their womenfolk, made it possible for women to play an increasingly important part in the devotional theistic traditions that began to develop. These bhakti traditions did not start off as orthodox in the traditional sense. But many soon became Brahminized and thus were accommodating of a changing view of orthodoxy.

  One of the earliest texts of this new devotional orthodoxy was the Bhagavad Gītā (ca. the time of Manu). Chapter 9, verse 32 is significant for our purposes. Kṛṣṇna, or God in human form, is talking to his devotee, the warrior Arjuna. For even those, Arjuna, whose birth results from demerit (papayonayah) – women, Vaiśyas and Śūdras too – reach the highest goal (‘paraṃ gatim) once they've sought refuge in Me’, he says. We note the concessionary nature of the statement. Nevertheless, love of God conquered all disabilities and women could tread the highest spiritual path, attaining communion with God, if they sought refuge in him. Bhakti religion was subsequently to enable women to acquire a measure of religious independence, and there is sporadic record of women achieving renown in one tradition or another for their devotional fervour to the Supreme Being.

  Thus the Śaiva Nāyamār and the Vaiṣṇava Āvār bhakti traditions of the south (ca. fifth to ninth centuries C.E.) gave prominence to a couple of women as founder figures (e.g. Karaikkal Ammaiyar and Aṇṭāl, respectively). In the medieval south, from about the twelfth century, the Lingayats or ViraŚaivas maintained that male and female members of their community were in all respects equal; some of the most poignant and inspirational devotional hymns of this tradition have been composed by women. Moreover, in contemporary times, Lingayats have acknowledged a woman as their religious head. In the Tantric and Śākta traditions, in which the Goddess figures prominently, a special place is given to female sexuality in religious contexts as one expression of śakti or divine power. The Kāpālikas or ‘Skull-Bearers’, who rose to prominence by about the first millennium of the Common Era, accorded salvific importance to female sexuality and to female companions of male ascetics. In similar vein, in the east of the country, medieval Bengali Caitanyaism – named after Caitanya (believed to have lived from 1486–1533), to whom we shall return – encouraged devotees, including men, to adopt the roles of female associates of Kṛṣṇna while he was on earth, in their religious worship of him as Supreme Being. In some forms of Caitanyaism, Caitanya is regarded as an embodiment of both the Lord Kṛṣṇna and his divine consort, Rādhā. In slightly later bhakti traditions of the North, there were powerful examples of women devotees who were viewed as models of different forms of bhakti, e.g. the Rajput lady Mīrābāi (sixteenth century), to whom is attributed a tradition of intensely personal love poems to Kṛṣṇna, and Śabarī, the outcaste woman devotee of Rāma (another human embodiment of God in the Vaiṣṇava tradition), who appears in the poet Tulsīdās’ famous and highly influential epic poem, the Rāmcaritmānas. These are some examples of the way in which women in Hindu tradition have prominently sought to salvage some religious esteem. Nevertheless, though genuine respect for women is involved here, it has not escaped a measure of ambivalence as well as the controlling hand of men, as we shall see later in the book.

  But esteem for women in Hinduism has not existed exclusively in a religious context. It was possible for women to express their individuality in social situations as well. A number of cases are recorded, historically, of Hindu women wielding political power, either as rulers in their own right or as the power behind the throne. Human nature being what it is, there was scope too for a strong-minded woman to exert influence over her menfolk domestically – as wife, lover, mother, daughter. Hindu literature depicts many such figures as instances of wom-anly strength. Femalel overs(including wives) in particular, had considerable opportunity, even dharmiclatitude, to be forceful in their sexual relationships. Among the social elite, admittedly, there was a strong secular strand of lover – culture, in which the resourceful woman could play a prominent part. Nevertheless, through the centuries, Hindu women have had to display individuality or independent-mindedness generally within the parameters of a Manu-like mentality on the part of men.

  After national Independence in 1947, progress in the socio-religious emancipation of Hindu women in particular has been noticeable, if on the whole slow. As citizens, Hindu women are accorded the same fundamental rights as their menfolk under the law, even when this affects former religious male prerogatives. Thus women from all castes are entitled to study the Vedic texts in state universities and other institutions of learning, and women (and male non-twice-born) teachers and scholars have made valuable contributions in teaching and research in this respect. But there are other domains of strī-dharma – the dharma of women in all its aspects – where legal rulings encounter tenacious resistance, mainly on the part of men. We have seen how Roop Kanwar's suttee of 1987 has revealed a number of traditional, unreconstructed attitudes among her admirers, both male and female. It is true to say, I think, that most progress has been made on urban fronts, where modern Westernized forms of education have most taken hold. Much remains to be done both by women and by those who have their best interests at heart to assert their fundamental freedoms, largely in rural contexts, but even here, as we shall note in the next chapter, the situation is changing for the better. The Ancient Banyan continues to adapt, no doubt, though not always as rapidly as one might wish.

  The nature of dharma

  Let us conclude this chapter by considering a curious feature of dharma, based on the material discussed so far; this would apply to dharma in its traditional understanding, not to dharma as ‘religion’ in the Western sense. The traditional concept of dharma seems to connote a subtle defining force or principle with prescriptive and descriptive properties that manifest in different contexts. Descriptively or naturalistically, as noted earlier, dharma marks something out as the thing it is, and this distinctive mark varies from item to item. In this descriptive sense, some thing, by being the thing it is, shares in the overall dharma or ‘order’ of the universe we inhabit. The sense is descriptive because we are speaking of something given: we cannot impose the distinctive mark in question. Water moistens in a characteristic way; we cannot change that. That is what makes it water. If it ceased to moisten in this way, it would not be water (it would become something akin to mercury). Naturalistically, each separate object has its dharma(s), which can be observed and studied in its own right. But the dharmas of all things are facets of the universal, underlying, subtle dharma that bestows order in and to the universe. Thus, in the descriptive sense of dharma, all things share in, participate in, this pervasive, hidden (adrsta) principle of dharma which orders or defines reality. We shall return to this idea of ‘sharing’ or participating’ in universal dharma presently.

  Prescriptively too, the mysterious principle of dharma manifests variously in different ident
ifiable but related contexts socially, morally, and religiously. For example, we have looked at what counts for varṇa-dharma, āśrāma-dharma, and strī-dharma. Each of these expressions of dharma or'righteous’ behaviour, with their subsets (e.g. KṣAtriya, vaiśya etc.-dharma under varṇa-dharma, gṛhastha-, and brahmacarya-dharma, etc.under āśrāma-dharma, and strī-dharma in its different facets), has a lived implication in its own right – is a ‘centre’ of dharma, if you will – but it is not an ‘absolute’ centre; it cannot be understood and properly followed unless its pulls and tensions are related simultaneously to those of other centres of dharma that weigh on one. Thus one cannot act with proper dharmic intention as a patni or senior wife unless one also takes into account simultaneously one's pressing duties, say, as a mother, and/or as a wife of a person of a particular caste, and so on. Properly, one can only act dharmically in the round, so to speak, allowing each centre of dharma that is circumstantially active in one's life to interact with other such centres. The hidden (adṛṣṭa) defining force of dharma manifests to different kaleidoscopic effect in different lives, or at different times in the same life. We see here the inherent relativity and malleability of the Hindu conception of dharma, and this interaction of manifest centres of the subtle, underlying principle of dharma, both descriptively and prescriptively, is yet another expression of the ‘polycentrism’ that marks the Hindu way of life.