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Voluntary Deaths under Other Religions
Muslims regarded suicide as a revolt against the will of God. The historical instance of Bāber offering his own life to save his son Humāyun who was on death-bed and dying with that prayer is quite popular even among students.
Buddhism condemns suicide but there are stories of individual monks having committed suicide in a heat of passion by hanging, falling down from the mountain-top etc. Besides self-surrender culminating in voluntary death was held in great honour in many Buddhistic countries. “ It happens (or it used to happen) that Chinese monks beg for fuel, build a funeral pyre, sit crossed-legged on it, cover their head with linen soaked in oil and set themselves on fire. With some branches of the Chinese Mahāyāna, the burning of the skull was an essential part of the ordination as a future Buddha — a symbol of the holocaust for which human courage is nowa-days inadequate.” Besides, the stories of suicide by Sīha, Sappadāsa, Vakkali and Godhika disclose that Buddhist monks and nuns resorted to suicide. 5
After giving accounts of the aforesaid suicides and of others, Dr. Thakur summarises the position thus : “From the above accounts it is clear that religious suicide was approved long in India. But the most significant point to remember is that only those persons who lived fully and acquired high ascetic power were authorised to undertake the act. To others not posseseed of the requisite merits or qualifications this right was generally denied...”6
The practice of Satī, that is, self-immolation by the wife on the funeral pyre of her husband is well-known to students of ‘Ancient Indian History'. The Mahabharata, the Rāmāyaņa and the Vişnu Purāņa contain instances of such immolation. Dr. Thakur quotes from Mitākṣarā on Yājñavalkya (1.86) to show that the object behind the practice was religious merit : “She who follows her husband in death dwells
5. History of Suicide in India by Upendra Thakur, p. 107, 6. Ibid., pp. 110-111,
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