'And why do not the men burn themselves to avoid the troubles of life?'
'Because they are not called to it from Heaven, as the women are.'
'And you think that the women were really called to be burned by the Deity?'
'No doubt; we all believe that they were called and supported by the Deity; and that no tender beings like women could otherwise voluntarily undergo such torturesthey become inspired with supernatural powers of courage and fortitude. When Dulī Sukul, the Sihōrā63 banker's father, died, the wife of a Lodhī cultivator of the town declared, all at once, that she had been a suttee with him six times before; and that she would now go into paradise with him a seventh time. Nothing could persuade her from burning herself. She was between fifty and sixty years of age, and had grandchildren, and all her family tried to persuade her that it must be a mistake, but all in vain. She became a suttee, and was burnt the day after the body of the banker.'
'Did not Dulī Sukul's family, who were Brahmans, try to dissuade her from it, she being a Lodhī, a very low caste?'
'They did; but they said all things were possible with God; and it was generally believed that this was a call from Heaven.'
'And what became of the banker's widow?'
'She said that she felt no divine call to the flames. This was thirty years ago; and the banker was about thirty years of age when he died.'
'Then he will have rather an old wife in paradise?'
'No, sir; after they pass through the flames upon earth, both become young in paradise.'
'Sometimes women used to burn themselves with any relic of a husband, who had died far from home, did they not?'
'Yes, sir, I remember a fisherman, about twenty years ago, who went on some business to Benares from Jubbulpore, and who was to have been back in two months. Six months passed away without any news of him; and at last the wife dreamed that he had died on the road, and began forthwith, in the middle of the night, to call out "Sat, sat, sat!" Nothing could dissuade her from burning; and in the morning a pile was raised for her, on the north bank of the large tank of Hanumān,64 where you have planted an avenue of trees. There I saw her burned with her husband's turban in her arms, and in ten days after her husband came back.'
'Now the burning has been prohibited, a man cannot get rid of a bad wife so easily?'
'But she was a good wife, sir, and bad ones do not often become suttees.'
'Who made the pile for her?'
'Some of her family, but I forget who. They thought it must have been a call from Heaven, when, in reality, it was only a dream.'
'You are a Rājpūt?'
'Yes.'
'Do Rājpūts in this part of India now destroy their female infants?'
'Never; that practice has ceased everywhere in these parts; and is growing into disuse in Bundēlkhand, where the Rājās, at the request of the British Government, have prohibited it among their subjects. This was a measure of real good. You see girls now at play in villages, where the face of one was never seen before, nor the voice of one heard.'
'But still those who have them grumble, and say that the Government which caused them to be preserved should undertake to provide for their marriage. Is it not so?'
'At first they grumbled a little, sir; but as the infants grew on their affections, they thought no more about it.'65
Gurcharan Baboo, the Principal of the little Jubbulpore College,66 called upon me one forenoon, soon after this conversation. He was educated in the Calcutta College; speaks and writes English exceedingly well; is tolerably well read in English literature, and is decidedly a thinking man. After talking over the matter which caused his visit, I told him of the Lodhī woman's burning herself with the Brahman banker at Sihōrā, and asked him what he thought of it. He said that 'In all probability this woman had really been the wife of the Brahman in some former birthof which transposition a singular case had occurred in his own family.
'His great-grandfather had three wives, who all burnt themselves with his body. While they were burning, a large serpent came up, and, ascending the pile, was burnt with them. Soon after another came up, and did the same. They were seen by the whole multitude, who were satisfied that they had been the wives of his great-grandfather in a former birth, and would become so again after this sacrifice. When the "srāddh", or funeral obsequies, were performed after the prescribed intervals,67 the offerings and prayers were regularly made for six souls instead of four; and, to this day, every member of his family, and every Hindoo who had heard the story, believed that these two serpents had a just right to be considered among his ancestors, and to be prayed for accordingly in all "srāddh".'
A few days after this conversation with the Principal of the Jubbulpore College, I had a visit from Bholī Sukul, the present head of the Sihōrā banker's family, and youngest brother of the Brahman with whose ashes the Lodhī woman burned herself. I requested him to tell me all that he recollected about this singular suttee, and he did so as follows:
'When my eldest brother, the father of the late Dulī Sukul, who was so long a native collector under you in this district, died about twenty years ago at Sihōrā, a Lodhī woman, who resided two miles distant in the village of Khitolī, which has been held by our family for several generations, declared that she would burn herself with him on the funeral pile; that she had been his wife in three different births, had already burnt herself with him three times, and had to burn with him four times more. She was then sixty years of age, and had a husband living [of] about the same age. We were all astounded when she came forward with this story, and told her that it must be a mistake, as we were Brahmans, while she was a Lodhī. She said that there was no mistake in the matter; that she, in the last birth, resided with my brother in the sacred city of Benares, and one day gave a holy man who came to ask charity salt, by mistake, instead of sugar, with his food. That, in consequence, he told her she should, in the next birth, be separated from her husband, and be of inferior caste; but that, if she did her duty well in that state, she should be reunited to him in the following birth. We told her that all this must be a dream, and the widow of my brother insisted that, if she were not allowed to burn herself, the other should not be allowed to take her place. We prevented the widow from ascending the pile, and she died at a good old age only two years ago at Sihōrā. My brother's body was burned at Sihōrā, and the poor Lodhī woman came and stole one handful of the ashes, which she placed in her bosom, and took back with her to Khitolī. There she prevailed upon her husband and her brother to assist her in her return to her former husband and caste as a Brahman. No soul else would assist them, as we got the then native chief to prohibit it; and these three persons brought on their own heads the pile, on which she seated herself, with the ashes in her bosom. The husband and his brother set fire to the pile, and she was burned.'68
'And what is now your opinion, after a lapse of twenty years?'
'Why, that she had really been the wife of my brother; for at the pile she prophesied that my nephew Dulī should be, what his grandfather had been, high in the service of the Government, and, as you know, he soon after became so.'
'And what did your father think?'
'He was so satisfied that she had been the wife of his eldest son in a former birth, that he defrayed all the expenses of her funeral ceremonies, and had them all observed with as much magnificence as those of any member of the family. Her tomb is still to be seen at Khitolī, and that of my brother at Sihōrā.'