Hail the Fire Goddesses
In Mahabharata, we are told that when Krishna dies, Rukmini and Jambavati, along with other junior wives, perform sati, while Satyabhama takes refuge in the forest as an ascetic. This is an obvious interpolation because the Kaurava widows do not commit sati. In folk narrations from Tamil Nadu, Draupadi after the war walks through fire to purify herself and prove her purity. She invites Kaurava widows to do the same. They are burnt alive, and join their husbands in paradise.
The popular story of Madri committing sati is also a later invention. The epic has two versions of Madri's tale. In one, the later one, she commits sati out of guilt that her husband, Pandu, died when he touched her erotically, thus succumbing to a curse. In the earlier one, both die when Pandu touches her. They are both cremated by the orphan Pandavas.
It is a known fact that Vedic literature has absolutely no reference to the practice of burning widows. This practice started appearing in India roughly around 500 AD. The practice started to wane after the arrival of British rule, following fierce condemnation by social reformers and new laws. By Indian law, any glamorisation of the practice of sati—widow burning—is prohibited. While some have argued that these sati practices were a means by which women protected themselves from being violated by invaders, the fact remains that sati stones began to appear in almost every corner of India, at least five centuries before the rise of the Islamic period of India.
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