Who brought sati system in Indian Hindu culture while remarriage is allowed in Rig Vedha itself...............?

Sati as per hinduism is a woman who is fully dedicated to her husband.

The concept of sati is connected with burning when Sati, the wife of Lord Shiva burnt herself in the Yagya fire at her parents house, because her husband was insulted by Daksha, her father.

Some women burnt with their husband, but not due to Hinduism, but as they loved their husband very much or for some complex

for example Madri burnt with Pandu because she thought she is responsible for his death, so she jumped into pyre. It was a suicide, which came out due to extreme guilt of Madri.

and then later Muslims and british changed the history for the meaning of Sati.

Later to save themselves from being raped by muslim invaders the Rajasthani rajput women started this practice of burning into the pyre of husband, which later became a social evil, as due to land or money, the relative used to throw woman into pyre of husband. it is legally banned now

But as per hinduism the famous satis are Sati Ansuya, Sati Ahilaya, Sati Sita etc and none of them actually burnt with their husband

Sati in hinduism thus means a woman fully dedicated to her husband

No sacred scripture has any mention of sati as burning of wife and Missionaries had over-hyped this myth to malign Hinduism.

Some other misconceptions are about worshipping of animals, Shivalinga being penis of shiva, caste system by birth etc have no basis in Hinduism. But other religions use these to insult hindus.

thanks veers ji : Widows is a social problem and is not connected with hinduism. The pitiable condition of widows is more of a social problem and they may be suffering in some states of India, mainly in Bengal, Orissa, Bihar, UP and Rajasthan.

I am sure in south, the condition of widows is much better than these states

In Haryana, Punjab, Himachal etc their condition is much better and most of them are re-married into the family, if they consent.

so it is more society related thing than Religious problem

(thanks for the great examples from vedas... these can be used by us in future answers)

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Copy of one of my answer asked earlier about sati :

'Sati' is an ancient Sanskrit term, meaning a chaste woman who thinks of no other man than her own husband.

For finding their origin, we have to stretch our memory some centuries back to the Medieval Ages, the era of great unprecedented rape, pillage and looting of India by Muslims and their armies. Among the very first provinces to bear the brunt of Islamic sword were Sindh, Punjab and Rajputana. Sindh being Buddhist in majority and Punjab also having a considerable population of Buddhists, succumbed soon to the unprecedented barbarous Islamic invasions. But Rajputana being completely Hindu held out for centuries. Even now there are only 9% Muslims in Rajasthan. But this resistance cost them a great deal. They had never faced such barbarous invaders and looters. All of the wars which they fought until then, were fought with a moral ethical code. Being synonymous with the Hindu philosophy, wars were fought only between warriors and concerned only them. Civil populace was never even touched, let alone molested.

But the new Islamic enemy they were now facing was an unprecedented evil force, which did not rely on valour for victory, but instead on treachery, deceit, malice, crookedness and all other evil means. Those Islamic armies instead of fighting chivalrously with their opponents, chose to decimate the civilian populace, by laying siege to the country side, thus decimating the social, cultural and economic fabric of the nations. They massacred and butchered complete populations of Hindus, broke their idols, desecrated their temples, butchered the Brahmins, converted them forcibly to Islam (by making them eat beef!) destroyed their corps, poisoned their wells, burned their houses, abducted their children and raped their women. They took their inspiration from Quran. Ayats 2:193, 8:39, orders them to break idols. Ayats 8:12, 22: 19-22 exhorts them to massacre the religious leaders of the other religion. Ayats 33:59 and 4:24 encourages them to commit sexual transgr

essions without compunction with the non-Muslim women.

This, this last atrocity done to the local populace by these Islamic marauders was without precedence in cruelty. (No one in Hindu era even thought of touching another woman, let alone raping her). It was a greater calamity on women than their family men. They did not think of such calamity befalling them in their wildest nightmares. They were free women under Hinduism with an equal say in society as men. They were not used to the sexual, and mental humiliation and torture to which Muslim and non-Muslim women under Islamic rule were subjected to. Chastity for them was everything, the prime value of life. They could not imagine an unchaste life. The very concept was unthinkable to them. And for preserving their chastity they were prepared to do anything, to break every barrier, to sacrifice every tying, even their life. And so they did.

Facing these Islamic molesters, the brave Hindu women chose death. They built big cauldron like pots, lit then with fire and jumped into them, to die voluntarily and happily in order to save their honour and chastity. They chose and embraced death themselves and nobody forced them to do so. They with their very feminine bravery defied whole armies of Islamic marauders with all of their evil means and intentions. This phenomenon was called 'johar', meaning giving themselves to fire in order to be saved from

disgrace.

So, this was 'Johar', later practiced by Hindu women in every part of India in order to save themselves from the dirty hands of Islamic marauders. There was no forced immolation in that process, no malign Brahmins, no

cruel priests, thus no 'Sati Pratha.' And for suicide no other person can be blamed, other than those Islamic marauders whose threat forced Hindu women to suicide

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RE:

Who brought sati system in Indian Hindu culture while remarriage is allowed in Rig Vedha itself...............?

Who brought sati system in Indian Hindu culture while remarriage is allowed in Rig Vedha itself?...........Read further details/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice)

1) Can a Hindu woman remarry?

Yes she can,

i) Rig Veda, Book 10, Chapter 18, Verses 8 & 9:

"उदीर्ष्व...

Sati is wrong. What I'd like to know is why there isn't a counterpart like 'sata'...men who are dedicated/devoted to their wives that they can't think of going on living and jump on the burning pyre?

Why do some people still support it? In the name of religion, culture, tradition. Who bought it? I believe it has been here for a long long time. Uncovering the mysterious 'who' might not be feasible. But sati is becoming unpopular and followed in remote places in north and west and day will vanish completely.

Few reliable records exist of the practice before the time of the Gupta empire, approximately 400 AD. After about this time, instances of sati began to be marked by inscribed memorial stones. The earliest of these are found in Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, though the largest collections date from several centuries later, and are found in Rajasthan. These stones, called devli, or sati-stones, became shrines to the dead woman, who was treated as an object of reverence and worship. They are most common in western India.

Some instances of voluntary self-immolation by both women and men that may be regarded as at least partly historical accounts are included in the Mahabharata and other works. However, large portions of these works are relatively late interpolations into an original story,rendering difficult their use for reliable dating. Also, neither immolation nor the desire for self-immolation are regarded as a custom in the Mahabharata. Use of the term 'sati' to describe the custom of self-immolation never occurs in the Mahabarata, unlike other customs such as the Rajasuya yagna. Rather, the self-immolations are viewed as an expression of extreme grief at the loss of a beloved one.

I think this practice may originally have started by self-immolation, This may have turned into forced immolation by the society.

The most well-known historical practice of suicide associated with Hinduism is that of suttee (Sanskrit sati), the self-immolation (burning to death) of a widow on her deceased husband's funeral pyre.

In the Hindu epic Mahabarata, some queens commit suttee.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the custom of suttee probably had little to do with the religion of Hinduism; it was rather an ancient custom based on beliefs that a man needed companions in the afterlife.

In the medieval period, the hardships suffered by widows may have contributed to the spread of the practice. In theory it was a voluntary practice, but there were instances of compulsion to suttee.

The practice of suttee was not universal throughout Hindu history.

The first mention of it outside the Mahabarata is made by a 1st-century BC Greek author writing about 4th-century BC Punjab.

Tombstones commemorating women who died by suttee are numerous in India; the earliest is dated to 510 AD.

Suttee was abolished in India in 1829, but it continued to occur for at least another 30 years

As harita ji pointedout i find Ashish answer is meaningful. i find good answers here and i find that no one forced for sati. no sati in the whole country, india. only a few villages in rajasthan. no one forced. As Ashish pointedout, it is voluntary one. it is not hindu culture. As harita ji pointedout, if it is hindu culture it should in whole india. Even today no one knows about '' sati ''.

sorry, you misunderstood the Rig veda. There is no sati system in hinduism. No reference in manu smiriti, or anywhere in hindu scriptures. All members explained this well particularly, Harita ji, Ashish and hari om sir.

Rig Veda 10.18.8 - Sayana interprets the word ‘Sambabhutha’ to mean that the wife of the dead person wants to embrace death along with the dead one.- Sati system

Source Dr. R L Kashyap, SAKSHI.

What Is Sati

thanks Veers. It is news to me!!

I earlier gave a reply to a Q about there being no remarriage allowed in scriptures in our tradition. Swamy sir also endorsed the view. But I now see that srividyaji had cited some vedic prescriptions like this.

I thank you for the exposure.

Sati practice came because of the difficult position of a widow in society. She was not in a position to support herself and none else is willing to support her. There were other problems of male lust etc which she had to face and no complaint would be heard. So women thought it would be better to immolate themselves on the Pyre of the husband rather than live a degraded life.Later even the unwilling women were also being immolated by the society.