Page:Between the twilights being studies of Indian women by one of themselves (IA betweentwilights00soraiala).pdf/145

Rh as suttee, acknowledge that she was his property, useless when no longer needed?

There is a temple on a City wall in a country of sand and low scrub, gray with dust. The Temple is beautiful with its outlook on the sea of sand, and the little earth holes of water where the women dig in the sand. It is a Temple to a woman. She was beautiful beyond words, and Kings sought her in marriage, and fought for her with the King to whom she was betrothed. And at last one of the Kings slew the Betrothed, and claimed the hand of Ranak Devi. But she, rather than betray the trust of him whom she had never seen, but whose she was nevertheless, sought refuge in suttee. It is her Temple which you find on the City wall, and round about it have gathered other women—there is a very forest of Suttee Stones. You may know them by this sign—the hand and arms of a woman graven in the stone, always the right hand, palm outwards.

And you find here also the pallias or memorial stones to warrior Kings and to great rulers among women. For the place of memorial stones, of the dead, of silence, is a