Ashes of Immortality: Widow-Burning in India"At last, she arrives at the fatal end of the plank . . . and, with her hands crossed over her chest, falls straight downward, suspended for a moment in the air before being devoured by the burning pit that awaits her. . . ." This grisly 1829 account by Pierre Dubois demonstrates the usual European response to the Hindu custom of satis sacrificing themselves on the funeral pyres of their husbands—horror and revulsion. Yet to those of the Hindu faith, not least the satis themselves, this act signals the sati's sacredness and spiritual power. Ashes of Immortality attempts to see the satis through Hindu eyes, providing an extensive experiential and psychoanalytic account of ritual self-sacrifice and self-mutilation in South Asia. Based on fifteen years of fieldwork in northern India, where the state-banned practice of sati reemerged in the 1970s, as well as extensive textual analysis, Weinberger-Thomas constructs a radically new interpretation of satis. She shows that their self-immolation transcends gender, caste and class, region and history, representing for the Hindus a path to immortality. |
Contents
Nawang Rum and Madukara stab themselves | 6 |
A Question of Words | 11 |
Hero Stone vīrakkals | 15 |
Time Reckoned | 18 |
Sexual Colorings | 24 |
Painting of a satī Benares | 25 |
Jasvant Kanvar on the pyre March 12 1985 | 31 |
Princess Aouda being brought to the pyre | 33 |
A Sati on the Shore of the Ganges Stavorinus | 97 |
The Transmission of the Deadly Vow | 108 |
Photograph of Sarasvati used as worship image | 117 |
Love in the Extreme | 119 |
Worship image of Om Kanvar | 120 |
The jauhar of Padmini and the Rajput women of Chittorgarh Rajasthan | 123 |
The Old Style Woman | 126 |
UNDER THE SPELL OF SACRIFICE | 134 |
Blue as Blood | 34 |
Fire and the Fault of Karma | 45 |
Indian widow | 50 |
HANDPRINT DAGGER AND LEMON | 52 |
Satīs handprints at Bikaner Fort Rajasthan | 53 |
Satīs handprints at the old city gates in Jodhpur Rajasthan | 54 |
Hero stones and sati stones at the Wadhwan Saurashtra Gujarat archaeological site | 55 |
Hero stones Wadhwan | 56 |
sati stela | 57 |
The Rhetoric of Protest Suicide | 58 |
Stela showing a Charan piercing his jugular vein Rajasthan | 62 |
The Trammels of Resentment | 65 |
The burning pit | 71 |
Mahiṣāsuramardini the Goddess as Slayer of the Buffalo Demon | 73 |
Chinnamastā the Decapitated Goddess | 75 |
The Fruits of Ones Acts | 77 |
DEATH IN THE TELLING | 85 |
Popular religious image of the Venerable Great Sati Rup Kanvar | 90 |
Illustration from the title page of the first edition 1651 of Abraham Rogeriuss De OpenDeure tot het Verborgen Heydendom | 92 |
Frontispiece of the French translation 1670 of the same work La Porte ouverte pour parvenir à la connoissance du Paganisme caché | 93 |
from the 1724 edition of Voyages de F Bernier Angevin | 94 |
from Histoire de la navigation de Jean Hugues de Linscot | 95 |
Popular religious image of Tejājī | 137 |
Shrine of Hem Kanvar at Devpuri Rajasthan | 140 |
Image of the goddess DurgāJagadambā in the marital household of Hem Kanvar | 141 |
Memorial to Hem Kanvar at Devpuri Rajasthan | 142 |
temple lintel at Dhandhan Rajasthan | 153 |
Worship image of Dholi Satī of Fatehpur Rajasthan | 154 |
The Goddesss Body | 155 |
Cult and Apotheosis | 169 |
SHEKHAVATI AN ENDANGERED REGION | 175 |
Temple at Jhunjhunu Rajasthan | 178 |
The Most Venerable Rāṇī Satījī | 179 |
Worship image of Rāṇī Satī in the form of the Trident | 180 |
True and False Traditions | 186 |
THE RITE THE LAW AND THE CUSTOM | 197 |
The roofed pyre | 203 |
Shared Passions | 207 |
The Seasonal Fault | 213 |
Notes | 221 |
Glossary | 275 |
285 | |
311 | |
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Common terms and phrases
according alive ancestors ascetic Bala Bali become belief Bengal Bhairava bhūtas blood body Bombay Brahman burned Calcutta caste century ceremony Charans Chicago coconut cremation cult Culture deceased Delhi devotees dharma divine dream Durgā dying École Française d'Extrême-Orient edited fire flames funeral funerary goddess gods Gujarat hair hand heroic Hindi Hindu Hinduism History holy human husband idem immolation impure incarnation India indigo Jaipur Jharli Jhunjhunu Jodhpur Kāma Kanvar l'Inde living London Malamoud marriage Marwaris Mother Satī myth nonetheless offered one's Oxford University Press Paris Parliamentary Papers pinda practice pundits Purāṇa Puruṣārtha pyre Rajasthan Rajput Rāma Rāmāyaṇa region religion religious rice-balls rite ritual sacred Śakti samskāra Sanskrit sati sati's satīs Shekhavati shrine Sikar District Singh Sītā Śiva social suicide suttee symbol temple tion tradition translation village vols voluntary death widow sacrifice widow-burning wife wives woman women word worship