Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/96

AN OLD BCDDHIST BELIEF FROM THE BHAKAHAT STCPA. CHAPTER II THE PRACTICE OF SUTTEE, OE WIDOW - BURNING, IN INDIA, ACCORDING TO GREEK, LATIN, ARABIC, PER- SIAN, ITALIAN, DUTCH, FRENCH, AND ENGLISH ACCOUNTS AMONG the peculiar Hindu customs sanctioned by antiquity and practised until a century ago, when it was abolished by an act of the British government, was the inhuman practice of " suttee," or widow-burn- ing. The word " suttee," derived from the Sanskrit sati, literally means " a true wife," and the term was properly applied to a woman whose faithful devotion to her husband, during his lifetime, earned for her this well-deserved title of praise; but it came early to be used as the special designation of the wife whose love for her lord and master led her to sacrifice herself in the flames of his funeral pyre. This latter employment of the term has unfortunately been the general one for ages, so that suttee and widow-burning are synonymous. As was pointed out in the first volume of this series (p. 61), there has been much discussion as to whether this Indian custom dates back to the ancient period 88