Recently, we were asked to weigh in upon an interesting point of comparanda – namely, whether the immolation of a Germanic chieftain of the Rus constituted a parallel with the much-hyped (and rather correctly criticized) custom of ‘Sati’.

As it may prove of a more general interest, here we present a slightly edited rendition of our replies to the question.

In short – no, no it doesn’t.

Why?

If memory serves, the account given by Ibn Fadlan from his time amidst the Rus specifies that it was a slave-girl that was drugged, strangled and then immolated along with the body of the nobleman.

Detailing the general custom, he says that it is not only slave-girls, but also the male equivalent who are approached and asked to provide a volunteer to die with the chieftain (although he does say it is usually a female that is used in this manner).

I would suggest that there is no good parallel here. Despite what some out there might mischievously seek to suggest – a Hindu Wife is not a slave to her husband.

Indeed, the way slavery worked in some Germanic systems, the thralls were not even necessarily considered human so much as .. well, something lesser.

It would seem to me that it is not impossible that the slave-girl which Ibn Fadlan mentions in the actual performance of the rite which he had recounted, being given a significant quotient of an inebriating liquid and ritually prepared as a sacrifice [and uh … there’s that curious detail Ibn Fadlan mentions wherein she goes and collects, so to speak, a contribution of ‘essence’ from the male headmen of the units of that deceased chieftain’s community] before being strangled (also stabbed) … well, the idea is that she is just exactly that: a sacrifice, and imbued with an array of metaphysical elements which are to be taken on with the chieftain or which are necessary components to some metempsychotic understanding.

In any case, one would class it much more akin to animal sacrifice – such as that of the dog and two horses, two cows, rooster & hen, also cited within the course of the same rite.

We can, of course, speculate as to how much and what parts of his account represent Ibn Fadlan either misconstruing something or perhaps even making something up – however it is plain from what we have been presented with that this is not a good cognate for Hindu Sati .

Now, for a further example of why … this isn’t Sati – I would turn to the famous Sigurðarkviða in skamma [one of several suites of verse pertaining to the hero, Sigurd].

And, because I am not inclined to do so at this time, you’re not going to get me bespoke translating line-by-line, and we’re just going to go with the Bellows edition, instead – which should prove reasonably adequate for our purposes.

The context is, as you can read, the setting out of some funerary arrangements by … well, somebody who is dying. That ‘who’ being rather pertinent to proceedings … as we shall briefly address in due course.

65 “Yet one boon | I beg of thee,
The last of boons | in my life it is:
Let the pyre be built | so broad in the field
That room for us all | will ample be,
(For us who slain | with Sigurth are.)

66 “With shields and carpets | cover the pyre,
Shrouds full fair, | and fallen slaves,
And besides the Hunnish | hero burn me.

67 “Besides the Hunnish | hero there
Slaves shall burn, | full bravely decked,
Two at his head | and two at his feet,
A brace of hounds | and a pair of hawks,
For so shall all | be seemly done.

68 “Let between us | lie once more
The steel so keen, | as so it lay
When both within | one bed we were,
And wedded mates | by men were called.

69 “The door of the hall | shall strike not the heel
Of the hero fair | with flashing rings,
If hence my following | goes with him;
Not mean our faring | forth shall be.

70 “Bond-women five | shall follow him,
And eight of my thralls, | well-born are they,
Children with me, | and mine they were
As gifts that Buthli | his daughter gave.

71 “Much have I told thee, | and more would say
If fate more space | for speech had given;
My voice grows weak, | my wounds are swelling;
Truth I have said, | and so I die.”

Now, the terms used for ‘Slaves’ therein are ‘þjóna’ and ‘ambátt’ … as you can see, once more, we have slaves and animals being committed to this rite; mirroring what’s going on in Ibn Fadlan’s account in broad terms.

Now, of course, somebody should bring up verse 68 in light of that which I have said …

… however, without getting too far into it at this odd hour of the morning, i would suggest one might wish to check the context of the poem – who’s speaking, and what has been said earlier on.

This is [iirc] Brynhildr … and it is the pyre of Sigurd. There’s a love-triangle that’s gone on, and she’s intending to kill herself … and uh … look, it’s complex, due to who was disguised in the form of whom when the marriage in question took place. But ostensibly she’s “supposed” to be married to Gunnar … whom she’s browbeaten into going to kill Sigurd (his friend, no less – who had won him this wife … ) in the first place.

So, you have a woman abandoning via on-the-spot divorce her (ostensibly) legal husband , in order to kill herself following the man she loudly declares she really loves (whom she tries to claim should be regarded as her spouse .. kinda) … whom she’d actuallly been responsible for having killed [by her aforementioned legal husband – threatening to leave him otherwise] in the first place.

And yet what happens?

42, Up rose Gunnar, | the people’s ruler,
And flung his arms | round her neck so fair;
And all who came, | of every kind,
Sought to hold her | with all their hearts.

43 But back she cast | all those who came,
Nor from the long road | let them hold her.

44 In counsel then | did he Hogni call:
“Of wisdom now | full great is our need.
Let the warriors here | in the hall come forth,
Thine and mine, | for the need is mighty,
If haply the queen | from death they may hold,
Till her fearful thoughts | with time shall fade.”

45 (Few the words | of Hogni were:)
“From the long road now | shall ye hold her not,
That born again | she may never be!
Foul she came | from her mother forth,
And born she was | for wicked deeds,
(Sorrow to many | a man to bring.)”

As you can see – many try and put a stop to her effort …
… up until a senior figure basically observes that due to how … malign her and her efforts seem to be, they would be better served by allowing her to go ahead with it.

So – while one can potentially sketch out an idea of this having a vaguely Sati like notion within it …

… it is quite literally not Sati , but instead a complex and highly dramatic ‘exceptional event’ wherein the only reason she’s allowed to kill herself and be with the pyre is because it’s eventually agreed she’s a villain.

Not a good wife.

And now, that we have all of that out of the way … some brief points in relation to Sati from the Aryans of old:

Much has been said about the situation of Sati as a cultural practice – and, for that matter, a religious one – which had been outlawed by this or that group only within the last few hundred years. Yet it is quite clear that the practice was … contentious, to say the least.

We shall quote from the Manusmriti commentary of Medhatithi [V 155, Jha translation] :

“As in the case of men, so in that of women also suicide is forbidden. As for what Aṅgiras has said—‘they should die after their husband’,—this also is not an obligatory act, and so it is not that it must be done. Because in connection with it there is an eulogium bestowed upon the results proceeding from such suicide. Thus then, the performing of the act being possible only for one who is desirous of obtaining the said result, the act stands on the same footing as the Śyena sacrifice. That is, in connection with the Śyena sacrifice we have the Vedic text—‘one may kill living beings by means of the Śyena sacrifice,’—and this makes the performance of this sacrifice possible; but only for one who has become blinded by extreme hatred; so that when the man does perform the act, it does not become regarded as ‘Dharma,’ a ‘meritorious act’; exactly in the same manner, when the widow happens to have a very strong desire for the results accruing from the act of suicide, it is open to her to disobey the prohibition of it and kill herself; but in so doing she cannot be regarded as acting according to the scriptures. From this it is clear that the act of killing herself after her husband is clearly forbidden for the woman. Further, in view of the distinct Vedic text—‘one shall not die before the span of his life is run out’—being contradicted by the Smṛti-text of Aṅgiras, this latter is open to bring assumed to have some other meaning. Just as in the case of the Smṛti rule ‘one should take the final bath after having read the Veda’,—the injunction of the bath, as pertaining to one who has not yet studied the meaning of the Vedic texts, has been taken as having a different meaning.”

Now, I have not checked to see whether this is the Shruti verse which Medhatithi had had in mind in the above, but the [modern-day] sage Angiras had made mention of the following verse from the Shatapatha Brahmana [ X 2 6 7 ]:

“It is Vâk (Speech) that, seeing it, speaks (thus). That same (immortal light), indeed, is to be obtained either by the one hundred and one-fold (altar), or by a life of a hundred years: whosoever builds a one hundred and one-fold (altar), or whosoever lives a hundred years, he, indeed, obtains that immortality. Therefore, whether they know it, or whether they do not, people say, ‘The life of a hundred years makes for heaven.’ Hence one ought not to yield to his own desire and pass away before (he has attained) the full extent of life, for (such shortening of one’s life) does not make for the heavenly world [2]; and these are indeed the worlds, to wit, the days and nights, the half-moons, moons, and seasons, and the year.”
[Eggeling translation]

We would also make mention of the footnote demarkated at [2] above:

“Literally, ‘conducive to the world,’ or, perhaps, ‘conducive to a place (in yonder world).’ Sâyana interprets it by–his death is ‘alokyam,’ that is, not procuring the world consisting of immortality. Some such meaning as ‘(such conduct) is not world-winning’ seems to be implied by the words which follow.”

As a further point of interest – and whlst I have not checked how accurate the translation may be [this is the Woodruffe] … the MahaNirvana Tantra , at X 79-80 features the following:

“Persons over five years of age should be burnt in the burning-ground, but, O Kuleshani! a wife should not be burnt with her dead husband (79).

Every woman is Thy image–Thou residest concealed in the forms of all women in this world. That woman who in her delusion ascends the funeral pyre of her lord shall go to hell (80).”

[for context – as we would be aware but some readers might not, the text here is a dialogue between Shiva & Devi … hence, Shiva is saying the above to Devi, hence the ‘every woman is Thy image’ comment. ]

Now, whenever Sati comes up for discussion, we seem inevitably to encounter somebody citing RV X 18 7-8 and declaring that that is the end of the matter.

It is certainly true that some Dharmashastra commentators of yore had in fact interpreted those RigVedic verses as pertaining to Sati – however:

The verses are quite literally NOT describing the practice of Sati. Literally the opposite. Even despite the description of the Wife as lying alongside her dead husband [‘gatāsum etam upa śeṣa ehi’] encountered at RV X 18 8 … which is, seemingly, where people’s interest in the verse start and end (if they are part of that piquant band of latter-day incendiary exponents attempting to cajole the practice back into custom … or those looking to castigate Hindus for the aberration which Hindus themselves had in various centuries sought to oppose).

The first half to the line [RV X 18 8] has the wife urged to return to Jiivalokam [‘World of the Living’] from said place lying by her husband for a bit. This immediately follows RV X 18 7, wherein the ‘place’ which the wife of the man is directed toward is a certain ‘yoni’ … which they are to ‘rise’ [rohantu] to.

Why? Because they’re being [metaphysically] re-incarnated ; after all, the husband’s dead, so therefore as they’re indelibly linked … well, they need to come back to the world of the living [Jivalokam].

And, if it is alleged that this is just me coming up with interpolations which nobody else has thought of or something … well, here’s Sayana’s commentary [H.H. Wilson translation] upon RV X 18 8:

“This verse is to be spoken by the husband’s brother, etc., to the wife of the dead man, and he is to make her leave her husband’s body: (Āśvalāyana Gṛhya Sūtra, 4.2); go to beings = go to the home of the living, i.e., your sons,grandsons etc.”

[and, indeed, that’s what we find in the aforementioned Ashvalayana Grhya Sutra section … to quote in teh Oldenberg translation:

“11 To the south-east, on an elevated corner (of that place), he places the Āhavanīya fire,

12 To the north-west the Gārhapatya fire,

13 To the south-west the Dakṣiṇa fire.

14 After that a person that knows (how to do it), piles up between the fires a pile of fuel.

15 After sacrificial grass and a black antelope’s skin with the hair outside has been spread out there, they place the dead body thereon, which they have carried so as to pass by the Gārhapatya fire on its north-side, turning its head towards the Āhavanīya.

16 To the north (of the body they place) the wife (of the deceased),

17 And a bow for a Kṣatriya.

18 Her brother-in-law, being a representative of her husband, or a pupil (of her husband), or an aged servant, should cause her to rise (from that place) with (the verse), ‘Arise, O wife, to the world of life’ (Rig-veda X, 18, 8 ).

19 The performer (of the rites) should murmur (that verse), if a Śūdra (makes her rise from the pile).”

As we can see … nobody is setting anybody on fire – living or otherwise, and wife in most particular.

The next Kandikaa of the Sutra [IV 3] details further preparattion elements for the body of the husband which must be undertaken , oblations etc. … and it is only in the next subdivision after that, IV 4, that we encounter the three Fires being lit to consume the body of the husband. Nowhere is the Wife indicated to be anywhere near the Consuming Blaze.

So, again, we can see that RV X 18 … was not intended to describe Sati – but, indeed, quite the opposite !

[Art illustrating is, of course, the fairly inevitable for this kind of thing – Funeral of a Ruthenian Noble, by Siemiradzki (1883)]