Is Remarriage of widow allowed in scripture? Was sati a practice or a phenomena?

From: Roshan Hota

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question from Roshan Huta Prabhu.
Is remarriage of widow allowed in scripture? Was sati a practice or a phenomena? Answer. Sati was a practice, but it was never an imposed practice. I presume that when you are using the word phenomena, you are using it in the sense of a one time or a very occasional occurrence.
It was not necessarily like that. Sati is mentioned in the scriptures and the purpose of sati is primarily to alleviate the sorrow of the widow who finds the fire of the funeral of her husband more tolerable than the fire of separation from him. So, we may find this poetic or fanciful.
But in the Vedic culture, the relationship between the wife and the husband was very strong. And there was the implicit understanding that they can continue in the future their relationship if they live according to dharma and pursue their life for higher spiritual goals. So, that’s why the wife was not in that sense afraid of death.
And she would prefer to leave her body with her husband and go to where he was going. In the Mahabharata, when Pandu departs, we see that Kunti and Madri are not fighting to push the other person to the sati. In fact, both of them actually want to go sati.
But they are concerned that our children are small and they need to be taken care of. So, Madri requests Kunti that please allow me to enter sati because you are older and you can take care of our children better. And Kunti reluctantly agrees.
So, not going sati was a sacrifice for her. And she did that so that she could serve her husband by taking care of the children that she had got from her husband. So, the essential need was service.
And Madri’s desire was that by dying in the fire, let me go where he has gone and let me continue my service to him. So, the primary idea was service. So, in certain cases where the widow was not having any dependents or who were old enough to be her protectors or not having any relatives who could be protectors, widow marriage was allowed.
But that was not the norm. So, we have seen in the Mahabharata at several places, even Bhishma’s own mother, Satyavati, when her husband passes away, which is Pravirya, it is not that, sorry, her husband was Shantanu, when he passes away, at that time it is not that she went sati. She continued to live and she was under the care of Bhishma.
And it was, sati was never an imposition, nor was it an obligation. It was a choice and often it was seen as an honor. Now, later on, as things became more and more materialistic, then the sati was sometimes imposed on women and that’s why it became an aberration and it had to be legally banned.
So, the point is that, if we look at the particular factors, from the understanding that we are not the body, we are the souls, and as souls we have many lives, and in this life, whatever we live is just like one flash of lightning. When sati doesn’t seem to be in any way horrendous, it is understood that it is a natural way of progression onwards to the next destination. So, as far as the remarriage of widows is concerned, the scriptures generally recommend a woman to be, to take up the life of austerity and live simply like a sort of retired person, and if there is some temple, serve the deities over there, and live like that if her husband has passed away, and she is elderly, and if she has a son, in exceptional situations when she doesn’t have a son, she doesn’t have a protector, and she doesn’t go sati, then she can remarry.
So, it’s not taboo against remarrying as an absolutely banned thing. We have to understand that scriptures ultimately are meant to be understood through those who have imbibed the heart of scriptures. So, therefore, according to time, place, circumstance, as the Srimad Bhagavatam says twice, in Dhruv Maharaj’s pastime and the Vishnu’s pastime, Deshe Kaal Vibhagavit, that how scriptural principles are to be applied, is something which has to be understood through those who are Dharmavit, Saaravit, those who know the essence, those who know the essential principles of dharma.
So, now in his conscious, Prabhupada did not impose anything like sati, he did not impose anything like a ban on remarriage of widows, he was essentially pragmatic. There is Vedic dharma and there is Vaishnava dharma, and Vaishnava dharma focuses on the relationship of soul with Krishna, and all other relationships are harmonized according to that relationship. In Vedic dharma also the relationship with Krishna is the ultimate goal, but it is a gradual process with the ultimate goal far away.
So, Sri Prabhupada gave us what was the best for developing our relationship with Krishna, and that’s why the general principle for looking at scripture is to understand that there was much in scripture that was in a different cultural context. Today when we live in a society where divorces are so common and when wife bond is so fragile, sati will be seen as an abhorrent thing, and many modern Indians become embarrassed because of such practices, but rather than becoming embarrassed about what were the practices in the past, or on the other hand becoming aggressive and reactionary and trying to prove how everything in the past was right, we have to understand that the scriptures originally had a purpose, to know Krishna and to love Krishna, and certain social cultural systems were created to fulfill that purpose. Now, over a period of time, Lord Krishna predicts in the Bhagavad Gita, in 4.2 he says that by the power of time, the original dharma gets lost.
So, similarly the social cultural systems got perverted, and when that happens, then the important thing is not just to try to restore the social cultural systems to their original purpose and original form, but it is to understand their original purpose and to ensure that that purpose is fulfilled, irrespective of whether one has the particular social cultural form or not. So, over a period of time, if we try to look at ancient Indian culture as one monolithic unit, monolithic means just like having one stone, that means everything in the past of Indian history was good or everything in the past of Indian history was bad, but we have to see Indian history as also fluid and changing. So, when we talk about Maharaja Yudhishthira’s kingdom, when we talk about Parikshit Maharaja’s rule, when we talk about certain ideal kings like Ambarish Maharaja’s rule, things were perfect, there was pure devotional principles being taught and applied, but over a period of time, there were corruptions which came up, and those corruptions have to be acknowledged, and we may or may not be able to correct those corruptions, because that can require large amount of social cultural changes, but the important point is to recognize the purpose.
Why was that particular system over there at that time? What was its purpose? And how can that purpose be served now? So, in the Vedic culture, if the husband was a devotee and the wife was devoted to the husband, then the wife’s service to the husband would enable the wife also to attain the spiritual destination that her husband attained. So, that was the way in which the marital bond helped the woman also in making spiritual advancement. Now, if there is another question answered in this slide about whether women were initiated in Vedic times, and you can refer to that to get a further understanding of the position of women in Vedic culture, but the important point is that, understand what was the original purpose of a particular ritual or practice, and see how that purpose can be fulfilled now.
And that was the practical and visionary genius of Srila Prabhupada, that he took the essence of the Vedic culture and presented it in the Krishna Consciousness Movement for us. Thank you.