Madhuvidya

Author(s): S D Laddu, T N Dharmadhikari, Madhvi Kolhatkar, Pratibha Pingle
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 500

Although some writers on the Dharmaśāstra had started recommending selfimmolation to widows as early as the third century A.D., their recommendation had not obtained universal approbation even upto the ninth century. This is clearly seen from the fact that the commentator Medhătithi on Manusmrti vehemently opposes this recommendation. While commenting on Manu 5.157, a stanzas which has nothing to do with sati, Medhătithi goes out of his way to assert that self-killing is as much prohibited for women as for men and a woman who ascends the funeral pyre of her dead husband clearly violates the Vedic injuncation that no one should give up his life before the end of the prescribed life-span (pumvat strinām api pratişiddha ātmatyāgah... asty eva patim anumarane' pi striyaḥ pratiședhah / kimca 'tasmād u ha na puräyusah preyāt' iti pratyakşaśrutivirūddho' yam.)
But the commentators like Vijñāneśvara and Aparāditya on the Yājñavalkyamsti who flourished in the 11th and the first half of the 12th century A.D. have very strongly supported the custom of sati. According to them the practice of self-immolation is meant for all women, irrespective of the caste. The only exception they make is those of pregnant women, and those who have young children to look after (ayam ca sarvāsām strināṁ agarbhiņinām abālāpatyānām ācandālaṁ sādhāraṇo dharmaḥ-- Mitā, on Yājñ.1.86). These commentators as well as the authors of the Nibandhas like the Dharmasindhu have tried to explain away somehow the statements of the Smrti writers not favourable to them, Occasionally they have exaggerated the statements of earlier texts, or they have cited certain passges as Smrti passages which are not to be found in the extant Smrti texts. For example, we have seen that according to Angiras a Brāhmaṇa widow should not commit self-immolation. The author Kasinátha Upadhyāya (late 18th cent.) (Chaukhamba edn. p. 971) of the Dharmasindhu tries to get rid of this exception by interpreting the above statement to mean that a Brāhmaṇa woman should not ascend a separate funeral pyre (brāhmanyā nisedhavacanajātaṁ tat prthakcitiparam/ bhartur mantrāgnidāhottaram anugamanaṁ prthakcitih).
As an example of exaggeration we may point to what Aparāka has to say on Yājñ. 1.87. In the Rāmāyana we have a single allusion on sati where Vedavati tells Rāvana that her mother entered fire along with the dead body of her husband Kušadhvaja (tato me janani dinā tacchariram pitur mama / parişvajya mahābhāga praviştā dahanaṁ saha 7.17.13). On the basis of this isolated instance Aparārka does not hesitate to make the following sweeping statement : ata eva rāmāyaṇādau brahmanyādinām svabhartrśarīrālinganapūrvakaṁ svašariradāham upākhyāyate. Having formulated the sentence as rämäyanädau ...upākhyāyate Aparārka seeks to imply that many upākhyānas containing sati-incidents are available in the Rāmāyana and in other similar works. And by using the would brāhmanyādinām he suggests that the women 'committing sati came from all the castes. But this is absolutely not ture.
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