294 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
This is the rule of enforced widowhood for a woman. A reference may also be made to Sati or a widow who burns herself on the funeral pyre of her husband and thus puts an end to her life. Manu is silent about it.
Yajnavalkya [1] an authority nearly as great as Manu says, she must not live separately or alone.
- When deprived of her husband, she must not remain away from her father, mother, son, brother, mother-in-law or from her maternal uncle; otherwise she might become liable to censure.
Here again Yajnavalkya does not suggest that a widow become a Sati. But Vijnaneshwar, the author of Mitakshara a commentary on Yajnavalkya Smriti makes the following observation in commenting on the above Sloka.
“This is in the case of the alternative of leading a celibate life vide the text of Vishnu [2] : “After the death of the husband, either celibacy or ascending the (cremation) pile after him.”
Vijnaneshwar [3] adds as his opinion that ‘There is great merit in ascending the funeral pyre after him.’
From this one can very easily and clearly see how the rule of Sati came to be forged. Manu’s rule was that a widow was not to remarry. But it appears from the statement by Vijnaneshwar that from the time of the Vishnu Smriti a different interpretation began to put on the ordinance of Manu. According to this new interpretation Manu’s rule was explained to be offering to the widow a choice between two alternatives: (1) Either burn yourself on your husband’s funeral pyre or (2) If you don’t, remain unmarried. This of course is totally false interpretation quite unwarranted by the clear words of Manu. Somehow it came to be accepted. The date of the Vishnu Smriti is somewhere about the 3rd or 4th Century. It can therefore be said that rule of Sati dates from this period.
One thing is certain, these were new rules. The rule of Manu that girl should be married before she has reached puberty is a new rule. In Pre-Buddhistic Brahmanism [4] marriages were performed not only after puberty but they were performed when girls had reached an age when they could be called grown up. Of this there is ample evidence. Similarly the rule that a woman once she had lost her husband must not remarry is a new rule. In the Pre-Buddhist Brahmanism there was no prohibition on widow remarriage. The fact that the Sanskrit language contains words such as Punarbhu (woman who has
1 The date of the Yajnavalkya Smriti is betwen 150-200 A.D.
2 Vishnu Smriti Ch. XXV 14.
3 He wrote his Mitakshara between 1070 and 1100 A.D.
4 See kane—History of Dharmashastra I. Part I. page.