DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

9.2] THE SPREAD OF ORDEALS 307
faithful wife’. The Greeks had been shocked by the spectade of a
widow’s voluntary immolation after the death of a frontier ksatriya
(Strabo 15.1.62; Diodoros 19.30,33-34), The practice is -not:known
to the Mauryans, nor the Jatakas. The Mahabharata, completely
rewritten just before the Guptas, shows revision in favour of the
barbarous sail practice. The impressive rite was never a mass practice.
The widow lady of high family who did not volunteer for the burning
had to lead a miserable life, as did higher-caste widows in general. The
nun’s observance was reflected in the tonsure and plain red or white
clothes associated thereafter with upper-class,
particularly brahmin, widowhood. Sati, rare as it was, served to
increase\the prestige of the feudal nobility. A memorial at Erari dated
A.D. 510-11 (Fleet 20) tells us that the wife of an army captain Goparaja
followed him in death as sail. Haifa’s mother Yasmati followed the
gruesome fashion about A. D. 604 (Har. 163-9) IN ANTICIPATION of her
husband’s imminent death. Harsa’s widowed sister Rajya&i was
about to climb the pyre when rescued by her brother. They
succeeded jointly to Grahavarman’s throne after the formality of an
election by the Maukhari nobles. On the other hand, there is no record
or tradition of any Gupta queen having immplated herself as svtt.
Prabhavatigupta, widowed daughter of Candragupta II, was long
regent for at least one of her Vakataka sons. One may add that sati
stones, not older than the later feudal period, are still honoured in the
villages.
On a lower level, the mark of the village is seen in the development
of the ordeal for witnesses, though the incidence of both crime and
punishment was low. The ChUp. (6.16) mentions ordeal by heated
iron for a suspected thief. The Arthasastra never once refers to it The
Manusmrtt devotes just two verses (Ms. 8.114-5) the smrtis of
Yajnavalkya and Narada give the ordeal in far greater detail,
including ducking, boiling oil, heated axe-heads, plough-shares &c.
Our chapter II shows how it has survived among the Pardhis to this
day, not for truth-telling as such but as sign of approval by tribal
deities. Finally, the Arthasastra (4.10) prescribed capital punishment
for sale of human flesh. The courtiers cut off and sold their own flesh