Justifications and Criticisms
Brahmin scholars justified the practice, and gave reasonings as to how the scriptures could be said to justify them. Among them were Vijnanesvara, of the 12th-century Chalukya court, and the later Madhavacharya, theologian and minister in the late 14th century of the court of the Vijayanagara empire, according to Shastri, who quotes their reasoning. They lauded the practice as required conduct in righteous women, and said that it was not to be considered suicide, which was otherwise variously banned or discouraged in the scriptures. They deemed it an act of peerless piety, which was said to purge the couple of all accumulated sin, guarantee their salvation, and ensure their reunion in the afterlife.
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Famous quotes containing the word criticisms:
“I have no concern with any economic criticisms of the communist system; I cannot enquire into whether the abolition of private property is expedient or advantageous. But I am able to recognize that the psychological premises on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments ... but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)