The Shrap

If for some reason a sati is vexed at the time she is preparing to die, she pronounces a shrap . She curses one or more persons, usually close relatives, to suffer bad fortune and to have their descendants share their bad fortune for a number of generations. For example, there once was a sativrata whose sasural (conjugal household) for some unknown reason declined to provide a horse and a drummer (Dholi) for her procession to her husband's funeral pyre. A sati is supposed to process to the cremation ground in grand style. Because a proper procession requires these two things, the sati , furious, pronounced a curse. She said that from then on whenever her in-laws might have need of a good horse or a Dholi, neither would be available. The curse proved to be a tremendous hardship, for drummer and horse are essential to many ritual occasions, including weddings and coronations.

This curse is unconditional. The family has erred; it must suffer the consequences. Many shraps , however, append to unconditional curses implicit and contingent curses. A good example comes from a Mewar estate. Many generations ago, the reigning thakur took a bride. After a while he found that he liked being married so well that he decided to take another wife. When he returned home after his second marriage, his first wife, enraged by jealousy, ambushed and murdered him. At that point the second wife took a vow to become a sati . Later, while preparing to mount her husband's pyre, she pronounced a curse that from then on no thakur of the family could be married to two women at the same time. Nevertheless, a few generations later a thakur disregarded the curse. Not long after the second wedding, he suddenly and mysteriously died.

Hence the curse described in this story imposed two related punishments, one explicit, the other implicit and conditional. The explicit punishment, the ban on polygamy, is itself severe. Rajput women often point out that in times past polygamy was necessary in order to ensure that at least one son would survive as heir. Because battles, illnesses, and court intrigues (including not a few poisonings) all took their toll on progeny, to have many sons was essential.

In addition, the curse contains an implicit "or else"; it portends sec-

ondary punishment if the restriction is flaunted. In the instance of the foolhardy thakur , that punishment was death. Family members do not know if disregarding the ban will always bring on death. They undoubtedly feel it is best not to find out.

Another good example of such a conditional curse is the story of a husband who fell off a roof and died inebriated. As a sativrata , his wife forbade all males in the family to touch alcohol—or else. Since that time, the women in that family told me, all men have abstained.

Whatever form such curses may take, they inevitably affect the lives of women. The absence of a good horse and Dholi means serious inconvenience for the satis of later generations. It also represents interference with religious celebrations for which women are wholly or partially responsible, such as Gangaur, Tij, and Navratri.^[50] The ban on remarriage of thakurs meant exposing the entire family to the threat of a lapsed lineage. Adoption, though accepted by Rajputs and frequent in Rajput history, has always been lamented as an undesirable necessity.^[51] It has often disrupted family harmony, the preservation of which is a paramount responsibility of pativratas . The ban on drinking has led women in the family to give up drinking, lest they tempt their husbands to resume the habit.

Often not the primary victims of the sativrata 's displeasure, women still share the consequences, for a woman must always share her husband's fate. It is a harsh one when the shrap is an infertility curse, by far the most common variety. Biologically, infertility is considered a woman's problem. If a husband is cursed to be heirless, his wife is understood to be infertile; however many women a man so cursed may marry, they will all be infertile. Thus the curse imposes a heavy burden of suffering on wives, who are denied the opportunity to bear sons or, in some cases, any children at all. Both fates are considered catastrophic.

In one case a sati caused a family to be barren for six generations, which necessitated many adoptions. In another, a sati gave a shrap that every third generation of the line would be barren. This curse, which has ended with the present generation, is assumed to have lasted seven generations. When a sati does not specify the duration of a curse, it is generally believed to fade after seven generations.

[50] All these occasions celebrate the Goddess.

[51] Six successive adoptions in the Udaipur line are attributed to a curse of infertility by the princess Krishnakumari, who was inadvertently engaged to suitors from two royal households. The insult of an alliance with one household over the other would have precipitated a war with the other, so Udaipur decided to avoid choice and allow its daughter to take poison. She did and pronounced her curse.

Up to this point the targets, whether primary or secondary, have all been members of a sati 's conjugal family. Although the most common targets of a shrap are members of the conjugal family, the focus may shift to persons who are or will be outside the sasural . One Mewari noblewoman told me that at her estate a sativrata uttered a curse that for three generations the first-born daughter of the household would never attain happiness or bear children. The effect of this curse meant that when the daughters married out of the family they took their misfortune with them. Trouble spread out from the in-laws' homes like an amoeba.

A second example of a curse that applies outside the conjugal family was told by another Mewari noblewoman. She said that once a man from her thikana had a daughter who became engaged to the son of the Maharana. Unfortunately, shortly after her engagement the daughter's fiancé died. The girl asked her father to take her to her fiancé's pyre, but the father was reluctant. He did not want his little girl to die.

The two argued on and on until the father, exasperated, agreed to help his daughter become a sati . He rigged a curtain around the outside of a bullock cart so that she could maintain parda during her trip. By the time he accomplished this, he had again become heavyhearted. He simply could not bring himself to drive her to her destination.

Miraculously, the cart started on its own and drove itself to the fiancé's cremation site. There in Udaipur, the girl circumambulated her fiancé's pyre seven times. In this way she married her intended.^[52] Then she mounted the pyre and took her husband's head in her lap. Flames emerged from her body. Before dying, she pronounced a curse on her father's family. Today no one in the family recalls the nature of that curse. The narrator said that it lasted seven generations, then lapsed.

This story is particularly interesting for two reasons. First, it shows that no one, not even a father, may interfere with a sati 's plan to share the fate of her husband or even of her betrothed; from the perspective of the bride-to-be, at the moment of engagement she is his.^[53] Second, it reveals that the nature of the curse is no longer important to the family. What matters is that engagement itself institutes a tradition of venerating the satimata and of receiving the satimata 's protection. She becomes

[52] In the central ceremony of a Hindu wedding the groom and bride circumambulate a sacred fire. Here the bride circumambulates an unlighted pyre.

[53] After an engagement is broken by either side, the groom will face no difficulty in becoming engaged to another girl, but the girl may well face great difficulty, for her engagement to marry is a commitment of fidelity to one man alone. On this situation in Bengal, see Fruzetti, Gift of a Virgin , 35.

the family's guardian. Since the time of the curse, the satimata has dutifully protected the family against harm.

Whether a sativrata curses her husband's family—the frequent target—or other relatives and their families, she utters a curse that is taken to be benevolent and protective. The sativrata intends her curse as a lesson to those whom she loves. She wants to deter them from making future blunders.

At times, however, a sativrata curses persons with whom she shares no ties of blood whatsoever. Then she punishes without providing protection. To outsiders she is malevolent and vengeful. The following story provides rich illustration of this point.

At my father's estate there is a satimata . When she was alive she was a kept [local English for a kept woman] of one of my ancestors. She was a Gujar [from an agrarian caste, which is lower than the Rajput]. In those days all the thakurs had to stay many months of the year in Udaipur in order to serve the Maharana. The thakur from our estate died while he was in Udaipur. By the time the news of his death reached the estate, his funeral had already taken place. A sati is supposed to burn with her husband's head on her lap. Because this was not possible, the Gujar girl, who had determined to die a sati , fetched her lord's turban (pagri ) so as to immolate herself with that on her lap.

The family's purohit , Nai [barber], and Dholi [drummer] [all three figure in the procession and ritual] refused to believe that a mere consort would seriously consider becoming a sati . The sister of the deceased rao sahib [the thakur ] taunted her: "My brother is dead and you have taken your bath and put on your finery?"^[54] The consort called the purohit , Dholi, and Nai, but they refused to come. Nobody from the family showed up for her procession.

The kept [woman] then went to the family cremation ground. She took the turban and a coconut as an offering to God. She prayed and her body began to burn by itself. The people who happened by saw by this that she was a true sati . Everybody came running to watch.

The sati was so furious with the "sister-in-law" [the king's sister] for teasing her that she cursed her, saying, "You and all future daughters of this family will have no husbands. Because of this you will have no sons. Also, you will have no wealth." Everyone was stunned. The crowd pleaded for mercy. Moved, the sati changed the curse so that the sister and future daughters of the family would be without one of the three items mentioned. If a daughter had a husband and wealth, she would have no son. If she had a husband and a son, she would have no wealth. If she had a son and wealth, she would lose her husband. This curse lasted for seven generations.

In our generation we are on the margin. I have only one son but I have a husband and enough money. My family has complete faith in Satimata.

[54] She took the purificatory bath (required before processing to a pyre) and put on auspicious pativrata garments.

Whenever we go to the thikana , we pay our respects to her [the implication: the satimata is now pleased with the family].

The satimata also cursed the purohit , Nai, and Dholi. To the purohit she said, "In each generation your family will have only one son and he will be half-cracked [an imbecile]." This is still true of that family. To the Nai she said, "Your family will not have sons." This also has held true. That family has always had to adopt. To the Dholi she gave a curse that was really not too much of a curse. She said, "If you or your descendants are playing your drum at one end of the village, people will not be able to hear the music at the other end of the village." This has remained true to this day.

This story exemplifies ways that a satimata may condemn nonrelatives who cross her. The pronouncements she makes upon them are not tempered by the mercy that she intends toward family members. The fact that she sees them as outsiders is emphasized by the character of the curses she directs toward them. She tailors her curses to relate to the performance of caste duty. Hence the Brahman, whose duty is to learn and teach philosophy and ritual, is condemned to bear the knowledge that his male descendants will be few and afflicted by imbecility. The barber, many of whose ritual functions take place during childbirth ceremonies, is deprived of male children. Finally, the drummer and his descendants will be diminished in their capacity to make music. The sativrata renders them incapable of performing the very services they failed to provide her when she needed them.

In short, the sati can devastate nonrelatives who anger her. Such acts do not cause Rajputs to think of her as having a dark side. The "good mother"—sati mata —may cruelly destroy others who injure her family or who insult it by interfering with its proper performance of tradition. She seeks vengeance against enemies just as the heroic jhumjhar seeks vengeance as he pursues enemies who have decapitated him.^[55]

We might ask whether the satimata has a dark side, at least from the perspective of nonrelatives who have crossed her. Tradition does not really address this question. In all the stories of satis ' curses I gathered during my research, not one explained family misfortune as a result of other people's satimata . Family misfortune is regularly explained by one's failure to perform proper puja to one's own satimata , not by the power of someone else's satimata . This misfortune is never understood as final or complete; if its duration is unspecified, it is assumed to lapse after seven generations. Satimatas simply do not ruin their relatives by

[55] On the pervasive motif of revenge in Rajput culture, see Hitchcock, "Martial Rajput," 12; and Ziegler, "Action, Power," 79–80.

blood and marriage. They punish their "naughty children" but do not destroy the lot of them.^[56]

We might also ask whether, narrative and ideological exegesis to the contrary, Rajput women "really" or "deep down" think of a sati as exacting revenge on her own family for the submission required of her when she was a pativrata . This question too is hard to answer. Whenever I tried to suggest the notion of spite (one that seemed to me an obvious aspect of a curse) I found myself being corrected. One elderly woman refused to discuss satis with me any more; she felt a suggestion like this was insulting to her satimata .

If sativratas have felt vengeful toward their families, their feelings are simply not interpreted as such by their families, who pass traditions of sati veneration down through the generations. A curse may in fact accomplish vengeance, but a sati cannot be seen as intending vengeance because self-serving intentions belie the very definition of sati and pativrata .^[57] A sati who curses out of spite would not be seen as validating her life as a pativrata , a woman who sacrifices selfish desires on behalf of her husband and his family. An idealized representation of sat , she is seen as benign toward those who are her own.^[58]

Given this notion of protecting "one's own," the story narrated above is especially interesting in that it provides a rare example of a non-Rajput woman who becomes a satimata for Rajputs. The family that doubted her vow's sincerity not only accepts this Gujar woman as a valid sati but venerates her. When she erupts into flames, the family comes to realize that she has made a proper vow, which unfortunately means that her curse too will be valid. Because the Gujar woman is a

[56] It would be interesting to ask members of other castes whether their families have suffered from the curses of Rajput satimatas . Because I was interested in the perceptions of Rajput women, not others, I did not undertake this task, which would be a fascinating though time-consuming one. Recently people have celebrated satis (many from non-Rajput castes and most from eastern Rajasthan) in new melas (fairs), which most Rajput women dismiss as non-Rajput or unnecessary—Rajput families have their own satis . I came across stories of miracles attributed to these satis , but not curses. Journalists and academics have stressed the novelty of these melas , which seem to be more populist and politically charged than the private Rajput sati veneration; see Manushi 42–43; and Seminar 342. Cf. my brief description in chapter 6, note 5, of the Jauhar Mela at Chitor, a festival distinct from the family traditions of Rajput women.

[57] The following chapter explores the satimata 's intentions in detail.

[58] Coccari also notes the attribution of unequivocal goodness to the satis of Banaras. She speaks of the "pure and uplifted character of the Sati." She concludes: "The enshrined Satis in the Banaras area are idealized, honored and revered, yet do not seem to evince the powerful ambivalence which would make them more riveting objects of devotion" ("Bir Babas," 124–25).

consort of a family member and thus part of the household, she magnanimously grants the family her guardianship.

The question arises, how was the Gujar woman able to become a sativrata ? One conjecture can be dismissed immediately. Being the consort of a Rajput did not transfer the Gujar into a Rajput. The Rajput community would not have accepted her children as Rajputs. They would be Darogas (also called Ravana Rajputs), who constitute an endogamous caste of palace servants.^[59]

Rather, the answer has to do with living in a Rajput environment. By associating intimately with Rajputs, especially her Rajput lover, the Gujar woman became Rajput-like. While a consort, explain the Rajputs who worship her, she learned to behave as a Rajput wife does. In other words, through her loving devotion to her lord she attained a higher moral and physical makeup. She acquired large reserves of sat , the sine qua non of a sati .^[60]

Such a thoroughgoing transmutation is, as has been stressed, unusual. A non-Rajput woman's association with her lord does not by itself transform her character. The perfection of the pativrata role is difficult even for Rajput wives. How much less likely it is for a consort, who lacks not only Rajput caste but also the benefits and privileges of wifehood. Thus, more typically, the women of another Rajput family have discredited the death of a non-Rajput consort of an ancestor. Although their family has commemorated her death with a marker, it says that it does not reverence her as a sati and has suffered no harm on this account.

Paradoxically, because the Rajputs think it unlikely that such a consort would accumulate the sat sufficient to become a valid sati , they recognize her as a particularly powerful paradigm. Having received fewer advantages than her married harem mates, she can demonstrate more gratitude than they can. Overcoming an inherent disadvantage, she comes to represent the epitome of pativrata selflessness. In this she compares closely to very young Rajput wives who die as satis . Lacking the

[59] Often Rajput men took women from other castes as consorts and sometimes as wives; Rajput women married only Rajput men. During medieval times the offspring of Rajput men and consorts were not accepted as Rajput, but those of Rajput men and lowercaste wives occasionally were (Ziegler, "Action, Power," 52–55). More research is needed on where and when the marriage of a non-Rajput woman legitimized her offspring as Rajput. Contemporary Rajputs disapprove of all marriages between Rajputs (female or male) and non-Rajputs.

[60] On personal mobility in the traditional Rajasthani context, see ibid., 21–26.

status and privileges of their senior co-wives and having a newer attachment to their husbands, they therefore show greater gratitude in becoming sativratas . If the youngest wife is the only wife who takes sati's vrat , she puts her elders to shame. Her glory stands in heightened contrast to their petty insincerity.^[61] Becoming a sati , the youngest wife, like the sincere consort, illustrates the very purest of intentions.

Ignored or vexed, a sati is a dangerous woman. The nature of her wrath, however, must be interpreted according to its targets and the intentions she holds for them. Even the consort and the young bride, only partially or newly integrated into a household, can prove earnest sati guardians. What qualifies them is the unreserved love and respect they have given those men to whom they have dedicated themselves as pativratas .