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70 : śramaņa, Vol 66, No. 3, July-September 2015 etc. In Puruşāratha-siddhyupāya text of Amstacandra has given reasons for ātmahatyā like a person out of passions, calls death by stopping one's breath or by hanging oneself, by falling in water, poisoning by use of drugs, burning oneself with the use of fuel and by using weapons etc.?' and on the other hand three types of pious and peaceful ways of attaining death is adopted in the Santhārā. Sati-prathā The practice of Satī, that is, self-immolation by the wife on the funeral pyre of the husband in the ancient history. The Mahābhārata, the Rāmāyaṇa, and the Vişnu Purāņa contain examples 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 in Heaven' for many years as there are hairs' on the human body, viz. three and half-acrotes of years. According to Harita: 'that a women who follows her husband in death purifies three families, viz. of her mother, of her father, of her husband.' But there are old commentators who are opposed to this custom.24 The opposition seems to have been voiced from time to time to such practices on the ground that self-destruction was most horrible.
Another practice which was glorified in India is the practice of Jauhara. Whenever the Rājpūtas lost in a battle or their city was captured by their enemies, every female in a family or the whole tribe as necessary, had recourse to immolation by burning themselves in fire in order to escape from the threatened dishonour. It is difficult to assess at this distance of time whether all such deaths were voluntary or were forced on unwilling women by fear of social stigma or fear of religious punishment. We have records of cases where · women running back from the pyres were driven back or subjected to tyranny of horrible character.25 The Santhārā is no different and it is also a process to commit suicide in the name of religion as in the case of Satī. There is absolutely no need to protect the practice of Santhārā by the State. This is the statement made by the Rajasthan state government.
