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of their respective husbands. If Baṇabhaṭṭa had accepted the sati version of the Madri episode he would not have alluded to Pandu's death at all while citing the instances of women who did not die after their husbands' deaths. Therefore, he must have been familiar with the version according to which Madri died due to grief, and Kunti did not commit sati. Hence, he cites Kunti's example to show that a woman does not abandon life, if death does not come naturally to her as, presumably, it came to Mädri, at the death of her husband.
Diodorus, the Greek historian of the 1" cent. B. C. informs us that a certain leader of an Indian continent had gone to Iran to fight under the leadership of Eumenes (316 B.C.). When he went to Iran his two wives accompanied him. When the Indian leader lost his life in the battle his two wives vied with each other as to who of the two should commit sati. The dispute between the two was referred to the Greek general for decision. Since the elder of the two was with child, he permitted the younger one to commit sail (Cambridge History of India 1.415).
The similarity between this incident and the sati-version reported in the Mbh, is obvious. In both cases the two wives are equally eager to commit sari, they have an argument each one justifying her claim on one ground or the other, and ultimately the younger one commits sati. It is remarkable that in both cases the issue is settled on the ground which is related to the progeny. Of course there is a difference. Whereas in the incident of Iran the elder wife is not allowed to commit sati because she is pregnant, in the Mbh. incident Kunti is dissuaded because she was better able to take care of children without making any distinction between them.
On account of this similarity I am inclined to believe that, when this incident which took place on the Iranian soil became known in India, it occurred to some narrator to fabricate a different version of the incidents that took place after Pandu's death and incorporate in it self-immolation by Madri. It should be quite clear that such a thing could have happened only when the custom of committing sati was slowly revived in India.
In the post-epic Sanskrit literature, especially Rajatarangini of Kalhana and in the inscriptions dating from the Gupta period, we find references to the custom of sati. It is not necessary to give here a list of them.10
In conclusion it may be said that the custom of sati which was prevalent in the very distant past among the people who came to India had became obsolete at a time very much prior to the Vedic period. Many centuries later the custom raised its head again, apparently first in Western India, with the result that we have stray instances of sati from about the fourth century B. C. When the custom gradually spread in the first few centuries of the Christian era, it was initially restricted to the Ksatriya class. Subsequently it was recommended also for the Brahmaṇas. After the tenth century A. D. the writers on the
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