Sati (practice) - Practice

Practice

The Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987 Part I, Section 2(c) defines Sati as:

The burning or burying alive of –

(i) any widow along with the body of her deceased husband or any other relative or with any article, object or thing associated with the husband or such relative; or

(ii) any woman along with the body of any of her relatives, irrespective of whether such burning or burying is claimed to be voluntary on the part of the widow or the women or otherwise

The act of sati is said to exist voluntarily; from the existing accounts, many of these acts did indeed occur voluntarily. The act may have been expected of widows in some communities, and the extent to which social pressures or expectations constitute compulsion has been much debated in modern times. However, there were also instances where the wish of the widow to commit sati was not welcomed by others, and where efforts were made to prevent the death. Women who became afraid during the act of Sati could, according to writings in the Yājñavalkya Smṛti, be called back from the act of sati by her deceased husband's relations to cause her to rise up and stop the act of sati.

Traditionally, a person's funeral would have occurred within a day of the death, requiring decisions about sati to be made by that time. When the husband died elsewhere, the widow might still die by immolation at a later date.

Sati often emphasized the marriage between the widow and her deceased husband. For instance, rather than mourning clothes, the to-be sati was often dressed in marriage robes or other finery. In the preliminaries of the related act of Jauhar (or Saka), both the husbands and wives have been known to dress in their marriage clothes and re-enact their wedding ritual, before going to their separate deaths.

Accounts describe numerous variants in the sati ritual. The majority of accounts describe the woman seated or lying down on the funeral pyre beside her dead husband. Many other accounts describe women walking or jumping into the flames after the fire had been lit, and some describe women seating themselves on the funeral pyre and then lighting it themselves.

According to Dharmasātric authors, a Brahmanical branch of scholarship who is concerned with the outlining the moral right behavior, there are several conditions that could bar a woman from committing Sati. According to an interpretation by Madhàva of the Parāsara Smrti if a the woman is pregnant, menstruating, or if she is not on her regular menstrual cycle (indicating that she may be pregnant) she is not permitted to follow her husband onto the pyre.

Some written instructions for the ritual exist. For instance, the Yallajeeyam provides detailed instructions about who may commit sati, cleansing for the sati, positioning, attire, and other ritual aspects.