Rani Sati, also identified as Narayani Devi and referred
to as Dadiji (grandmother), is said to be a Rajasthani woman who lived sometime
between the 13th and the 17th century and committed sati (self-immolation) on
her husband's death. Various temples in Rajasthan and elsewhere are devoted to
her worship and to commemorate her act.
The accounts of Rani Sati's life and the events leading
to her death vary widely. Her death has been dated to 1295 or 1595 in some
re-tellings, while others place her in the 14th century, or even the 17th
century. One such legend, recounted by Sakuntala Narsimhan, says:
[Rani] was a seventeen year old girl of the Bania caste.
The legend is that the nawab coveted the white mare that her betrothed rode on,
and in the confrontation that ensued, [Rani's husband] Tandhan Das was killed,
leaving his faithful servant as the only survivor apart from Dadi Narayani
Devi, and her mare. When the servant asked her whether he should take her back
to her father's or to her father-in-law's, she is said to have replied that she
would become a sati and wherever the horse stopped while carrying the ashes of
the couple, a temple to their memory should be raised.
Another version of the legend, as related by Anne
Hardgrove, says:
on one day about six hundred years ago a
fourteen-year-old Hindu bride named Narayani Devi was coming home for the first
time with her husband (of the Jalan lineage) just after their marriage. Her
husband worked as a merchant in Jhunjhunu. Muslim invaders suddenly attacked
her husband and his companions, brutally killing them. Only Narayani Devi and (in
some versions) a loyal Muslim servant named "Rana" survived the
attack. According to the story, Narayani Devi then bravely burned herself to
death by spontaneously bursting into flames to avoid being captured and
kidnapped by these invaders.
Other accounts ascribe the killing of her husband to a
band of dacoits, and say that Rani died by the same hand in trying to defend
his honour. Yet other versions regard Rani as the first of thirteen widows in
her Jalan family to commit sati.
Several temples across India, especially in the North
Western state of Rajasthan, are devoted to Rani Sati and her act of sati. Other
temples in that region, commemorate the acts of sati of Narayani Sati in Alwar,
Dholan Sati in Raipur and Rani Bhatiyani in Jasol. Though veneration of Rani
Sati and patronage of these temples cut across caste, regional and even
religious lines, they are particularly prevalent amongst the merchant Marwari
community, and its Agrawal sub-caste.Members of those communities have funded
the construction of Rani Sati temples, and transformed her status from a
kuldevi (family deity) to a goddess subject to public worship.
The most prominent of these shrines is the Rani Sati
Temple in Jhunjhunu in the Shekhavati region of Rajasthan, administered and
attracting a large following from Kolkata. The temple was inaugurated in 1912,
and started off as a set of simple memorial mounds. Construction of a larger
complex began in 1917 financed by donations from the Agarwal Jalan
sub-community, and was completed in 1936. As of today, the temple is a
monumental complex with a multi-storey structure, a main hall made of marble,
and dual courtyards surrounded by rooms that can house up to 300 pilgrims. Rani
Sati herself is represented by a trident, and considered a manifestation of the
goddess Shakti. In the sanctum, there is a depiction of Rani Sati surrounded by
Ganesha, Shiva and Durga, while a wall frieze recounts the events leading to
her husband's death, her self-immolation, and the subsequent construction of
the temple itself. The temple is said to have an annual income of Rupees twenty
lakhs and assets of Rupees eighty lakhs. The temple trustees also organize a
well-attended annual fair to celebrate Rani Sati.
Perhaps the oldest existing Rani Sati temple dates to
1837 and is located at Kankurgachi in Kolkata. Hundreds of other Rani Sati
temples are located in Bombay, Delhi, Varanasi, Kolkata and other places in
India, as well as in Rangoon, Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and the
United States. On 1 December 1980, a public procession by Rani Sati devotees in
New Delhi to celebrate the construction of a new Rani Sati temple in the city
was protested by feminists and those opposed to the practice of sati. This led
to discussion in both houses of the Indian Parliament over promotion of the
sati, and Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi halted construction of the new
temple, calling satipuja (worship of satis) a "barbaric medieval, and
illegal" practice.
In 1996, many of Rani Sati devotees celebrated the 400th
anniversary of her supposed birthday on 4 December, including at a large public
yagna near the temple at Jhunjhunu (the date was possibly picked in tacit
protest of the formal banning of sati in Bengal Presidency by Lord Lord William
Bentinck on 4 December 1829.)
