Identifier: cu31924022984136 Title: India revisited Year: 1891 (1890s) Authors: Arnold, Edwin, Sir, 1832-1904 Subjects: Publisher: London : K. Paul, Trench, Trübner Contributing Library: Cornell University Library Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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Text Appearing Before Image: y-sevenyears supported by a cross-bar, without once reclining—the saint at Kankaria declined a rupee, with politecontempt for earthly comforts. The tank covers seventy-two acres, and is one ofthe largest in India. On a temple near its furtherextremity was stamped the impress of a hand in redochre, which marks where a Sati had perished in theflames. The gates of cities, and the walls of burning-ghats, as has been before remarked, often bear the sametoken of that passionate love or deep despair which inold days moved so many Hindu widows to die besidetheir husbands on the funeral pyre. One such Sati iscommemorated at Karjaia.near Bhaonagar, in verses saidto have been uttered by the victim. Her husband wascalled away to fight some plundering BabriSs at themoment when he was putting on the wedding coat,and fastening the mindhol berries to his right wrist.He was killed, and his bride before mounting the pilebeside him, recited the lament still preserved in theplace. It may be translated:

Text Appearing After Image: THE MOSQUES OF AHMEDABAD. 125 I shall not pace around the fire with thee, Lord of Karj&ia, the red wreath is torn !I shall not wear the bridal-cloth, nor see Shels happy hanks; for this I am forlorn !Thy men came back, but thou wilt never come ! Lord of KarjSlft ! bloody thou dost lie ;Oh, Wfij& ! when the ship was well-nigh home It sank, and in these deep waves I must die. Such instances of wifely devotion—as has beenalso observed—were never very common in India;■which, indeed, the eager perpetuation of their memoryproves. Some of them may have been due, no doubt,to the miserable prospects of widows here, for the lotof a Hindu widow was, and still too often is, almostworse than any death. Some may be ascribed to theabsence of any such fear of death in Hindustan asthat which darkens the hearts and minds of Europeanpeoples. The Hindu is quite assured that he haslived many previous lives, and has many more toexperience, and, whether Vaishnav or Shivaite, istroubled with no

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