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164 THE BURNING OF WIDOWS book iii
shall
live to watch over the education of their children. Those to whom the
Governors peremptorily refuse to grant permission to burn themselves
pass the remainder of their lives in severe penances and in doing
charitable deeds. There are some who frequent the great highways either
to boil water with vegetables, and give it as a drink to passers by, or
to keep fire always ready to light the pipes of those who desire to
smoke tobacco. There are others among them who make a vow to eat
nothing but what they And undigested in the droppings of oxen, cows,
and buffaloes,1 and do still more absurd things.
The
Governor, seeing that all the remonstrances with women, who are urged
to burn themselves even by their relatives and by the Brahmans, fail to
turn them from the damnable resolution which they have taken to die in
so cruel a fashion, when his secretary indicates by a sign that he has
received a bribe, at length allows them to do what they wish, and in a
rage tells all the idolaters who accompany them that they may ' go to
the devil'.
Immediately
on permission being obtained, all kinds of music are heard, and with
the sound of drums, flutes, and other instruments, all go to the house
of the deceased, and thence, as I .have said, accompany the body to the
margin of a river or tank, where it is to be burned.
All
the relatives and friends of the widow who desires to die after her
husband congratulate her beforehand on the good fortune which she is
about to acquire in the other world, and on the glory which all the
members of the caste derive from her noble resolution. She dresses
herself as for her wedding-day, and is conducted in triumph to the
place where she is to be burnt. A great noise is made with instruments
of music and the voices of the women who follow, singing hymns to the
glory of the unhappy one who is about to die. The Brahmans accompanying
her exhort her to show resoluÂtion and courage, and many Europeans
believe that in order to remove the fear of that death which man
naturally abhors, she is given some kind of drink that takes away her
senses and removes all apprehension which the preparations for her 1 See i. 226 above.
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