Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/387

Rh circumstance described, by Captain Grindley, as it was one of unusual interest. The suttee was a young Brahmanee woman. On her intention becoming known to the Resident, he went at once to her house with the humane intention of persuading her to abandon her purpose. Failing to produce any impression, the Resident waited on the ruling Prince, who kindly undertook to add his persuasion, but he was equally unsuccessful. Determined to prevent her burning herself, he surrounded her premises with his troops. He offered her the means of subsistence, and urged the duties she owed her family. The widow remained unmoved and unconvinced. On being told she would not be allowed to ascend the funeral pile, she drew a dagger from the folds of her dress, and, with all the vehemence that passion could add to fanaticism, declared that her blood—the blood of a Brahmin woman—should be upon the soul of him who offered to prevent her performing her duty to her husband. Intimidated, the Guicowar with his retinue withdrew. The unhappy woman rushed away to the river brink, and there, aided by her friends and the Brahmins, she quickly went through the ablutions and prescribed ceremonies, and ascended the steps to the fatal spot—immediately behind the domed arch in the engraving—and threw herself into the midst of the flames.

Christian women will wish to understand the reasons that could thus so strangely and determinately overcome, in one of their sex—a young and beautiful woman—the love of life, of friends, and of children, and lead her to dare death in one of its most awful forms, in obedience to what she regarded as a supreme duty.

Of suttee, or widow burning, the origin is unknown. But it must be very ancient, for it is alluded to by Diodorus Siculus as being then an established custom. Such a horrid rite should certainly be able to show the highest authority for itself. Accordingly, the Brahmins of India have asserted that the Vedas, which they hold to be their most ancient and divine writings, have expressly required this last evidence of a wife's devotion to her deceased lord. So long as these writings were unknown to the outside world, they might make their assertion with safety. But of late years