ABSTRACT
Anumarana had its drawbacks in a land and age of rumours hastily accepted for truth. Instances are on record of widows hearing that their husbands had died while away from home and burning themselves a few days before their safe return. It was forbidden to women of the Brahman caste, and, this rule was freely transgressed, especially in Bengal. Its existence was ascertained by the British Government, who prohibited this kind of suicide by Brahmanis in 1817, twelve years before suttee itself was prohibited altogether. The Rig-Veda fully presented the funeral ceremonies of the Aryans, but contained only one or two lines on a dubious twisting and loosening of their natural meaning, glance at suttee. Suttee was a custom to glorify the warrior caste, and especially princes. But, though we must reject this theory of a later borrowing, the mere silence of the Rig-Veda was not held to prove that suttee was unknown to, or even among, the Aryan invaders.
