MAHA SATI
None of the most revered Satis were sexually chaste --- because being a sati is not a matter of simple faithfulness to a husband or even female bodily purity. In the whole sacred literature we find only one example of Sati in the conventional meaning --- Pandu's wife Madri immolates herself, rejecting all efforts to restrain her.
The first thing to understand is that the term 'sati' does not automatically mean one who burns herself on her husband's funeral pyre. The term simply means 'rightous woman'. Any woman who leads a virtuous life is a sati. There are five great satis (Mahasatis) whose names are supposed to be recalled with reverence every morning by Hindu women, particualrly wives. They are Ahalya, Tara, Mondodari, Kunti, Draupadi. Yet from a puritanical standpoint none of them are 'good' women.
i) Ahalya committed adultery with Indra, king of the gods and so was cursed by her husband to be turned into a statue till Rama released her and then she returned to her husband. In later versions of the story, it is said that Indra took on her husband's form and deceived her into committing adultery. However, from a rational perspective it is obvious, that the first version of the story is truer. Nor naturally need we take the story of the curse seriously. What is important here is that she is considered a great sati.
ii) Tara was the queen of Kishkindhya, the legendary monkey-kingdom. It is here Rama came seeking for aid to rescue his wife Sita from the demon-king Ravana. Tara's first husband was King Bali. He begun a duel with a demon and both disappeared in the netherworlds. When after a long period, he did not return it was concluded that he had died. Then his brother Sugriva became the king and married Tara. Then however Bali returned and remarried Tara. Then after Bali was killed by Rama, once again Tara married Sugriva. This might appear to be somewhat dizzying, but it plainly proves that widows were not required to committ sati and could remarry. [ such constant remarriages of the reigning queen with the new king can very possibly be the result of matrilineal culture among the tribals; perhaps, as with ancient Egyptians, royalty rested in the female and so any king must marry her to be the legal king.]
iii) Mandodari was the chief queen of Ravana, the king of Lanka. After the great war with Rama in Ramayana, Ravana was slain. She then instead of killing herself, married his brother Bhibhishana, who had now became the next king. Another astonishing element of this story is that Ravana is considered to be a demon, enemy of Rama, the avatar of Vishnu. Mandadori is his wife who is completely devoted to him. It would have been natural for her to be painted as an abhorrent demoness. Yet with typical Hindu habit of assimilation (called indignantly by some a smothering embrace) , she is integrated into mainstream culture.
iv)Kunti is one of the major characters of Mahabharata. As a young girl, she had been granted a boon that she can call on any god to appear before her. She utilized it to call down the sun-god first. The god lay with her and she became pregnant. Being a princess she was afraid of scandal. So when she gave birth to her Kanin [a child born to an unmarried damesel is called kanin] son Karna, she abandoned him. Later she was married to King Pandu. But for a long time there were no children. So at Pandu's request she once again called down three different gods and gave birth to their sons --- the three legendary Pandavas. Later she shared the secret spell with Pandu's other wife Madri, who then gave birth to twin sons, the last two Pandavas.
v) Draupadi is one of the most fascinating characters in whole Hindu mythology, even perhaps in the world mythology. She was born out of sacrificial fire. In a contest, her hand was won by Arjuna, the third Pandava. However, in order to avoid conflict among the brothers over her, it was decided that she will marry all five Pandavas. She therefore took five husbands at once --- the most explicit example of polyandry in Hindu mythical history. A woman of formidable strength, she dominated all her husbands, ordering them about, harshly scolding them when she thought it merited, washing her hair in her enemy's blood: in general not behaving as a properly dutiful subservient wife should, or indeed as a respectable helpless female should. What is more, she naturally couldnot treat all her husbands equally; she felt most love for Arjuna. At the end of the epic, she is the first to die among the six as punishment for this frailty: she had failed to be a perfectly loving wife towards her other four husbands!
It cannot escape notice that none of these women can be called sexually faithful to their husbands. It is because the ancient sages were no narrow minded moralists, who were obssessed with sex and the need to regulate it. They recognized that sexual pleasure is an important part of both man's and woman's life. So they accepted it because to insist that women supress passion is contrary to human nature. What they did insist was that no one must make sex the be-all and end-all of one's life. Certainly it was expected that a woman should try to be faithful to her husband, since she had made a committment to be a dutiful loving wife. But for them it was more important how a woman fulfilled her dharma as a human being, not specifically as a wife or a physically chaste creature. Ahalya, in spite of her lapse was in other respects dutiful and good, and so is considered to be truly virtuous. Tara and Mondodari married after their husbands' deaths, but they are still considered to be devoted to their husbands. Similarly, no one doubted Kunti's status as a virtuous woman, though she had given birth to an illegitimate child before her marriage; nor did she show any inclination to immolate herself on her husband's pyre. Draupadi of course enjoyed five husbands at once; but none of the ancient sages regarded her as reprehensible for this. In all such cases, it is their rightous conduct, that earned them the title of Mahasati.
Unfortunately as society became more and more complex, definitions of female virtue also began to narrow, driven by patriarchal ideology to safeguard the purity of lineage and pass on property. It finally extended to complete control of the female body. At first widow-remarriage was allowed, though a marriage contracted against the will of the deceased husband's family meant that the woman must give up the property she had recived from her husband to her sons from the first marriage. Then the laws began to become harsher, insisting that a woman should live a life of austerity. Fianlly, it was held to be the highest merit to burn on the funeral pyre. Significantly, such insistence on sati and refusal to allow widows to marry, occured among the upper castes. Except for a few members of the lower castes, who tried to imitate them, the lower classes remained largely unaffected by the practice of sati. That is why the initiative to abolish Sati came finally from the upper castes themselves.
However, as we have seen, in the early civilization, sati was simply a virtuous woman, and not one who has to be sexually pure either!. Many critics of Hindu religion, seem to think, for some odd reason, that this is a discredit to Hinduism. Christians and Muslims point to the 'scandalous' behaviour of such icons and prove to their own satisfaction that Hinduism is immoral. Naturally to them, it is. They are unable to think of sex as anything other than dirty and so go into hysterics. Morality to them is chiefly sexual morality and female chastity of supreme importance. Unfortunately, this disease is prevalent among Hindus given a respectable British education, as well. They have interiorized Victorian prudery and so any frank expression of sex and sexual discussion horrifies them. The result is that they condemn all art and scriptures that accept sex as a perfectly natural part of life. As for myself, I am glad, that our original religious leaders were not so narrow-minded. To them, dharma or morality/religion/duty, was something greater than sex. So to be a true sati, you must be genuinely righteous., not simply be chaste and burn oneself. Let us Hindu women celebrate that.