Handprints of Sati Widows - Bikaner, Rajasthan, India - Petrosomatoglyphs on Waymarking.com

These forty-one hand imprints belong to the wives of the Maharajas of Bikaner, who committed sati (self immolation) on the funeral pyres of their husbands who died in battle.

"Sati is an obsolete Indian funeral custom where a widow immolated herself on her husband's pyre, or committed suicide in another fashion shortly after her husband's death.

Mention of the practice can be dated back to the 4th century BC, while evidence of practice by wives of dead kings only appears beginning between the 5th and 9th centuries AD. The practice is considered to have originated within the warrior aristocracy on the Indian subcontinent, gradually gaining in popularity from the 10th century AD and spreading to other groups from the 12th through 18th century AD. The practice was particularly prevalent among some Hindu communities, observed in aristocratic Sikh families, and has been attested to outside South Asia in a number of localities in Southeast Asia, such as in Indonesia, and Vietnam.

The practice was initially legalized by the colonial British officials specifying conditions when sati was allowed; then the practice was outlawed in 1829 in their territories in India (the collected statistics from their own regions suggesting an estimated 500–600 instances of sati per year), followed up by laws in the same directions by the authorities in the princely states of India in the ensuing decades, with a general ban for the whole of India issued by Queen Victoria in 1861. In Nepal, sati was banned in 1920. The Indian Sati Prevention Act from 1988 further criminalised any type of aiding, abetting, and glorifying of sati." (visit link)

Surface of petrosomatoglyph: Concrete Impression of petrosomatoglyph: Memorial

Visit Instructions:
- Take pictures of the petrosomatoglyph.
- Tell about your visit at site.

Recent Visits/Logs:

There are no logs for this waymark yet.