Suttee Revisited: From the Iconography of Martyrdom to the Burkean Sublime

Fludernik, Monika

doi:10.1353/nlh.1999.0022

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…His 'tears of commiseration, awe and reverence', for example, followed some of the contemporaneous conventions of sentimentalism, which picked up on some of the patterns identified by Monika Fludernik's exploration of the presence of Burkean aesthetics in late eighteenth-century accounts of sati. 67 Holwell's rendition of sati as an 'object of wonder' conformed exactly to Burke's aesthetic notion of 'the sublime', the essence of which was, according to Burke, the combination of awe and a sense of solemnity. Reflecting Burke's categorisation of the sublime as 'Beauty in distress', 68 Holwell unsurprisingly regarded women of 'an advanced age' as 'less an object of wonder' than 'women in the bloom of youth, and beauty'.…”

Section: Metempsychosis and Voluntary Sacrificementioning

confidence: 64%

An Eighteenth-Century Account of Sati: John Zephaniah Holwell's ‘Religious Tenets of the Gentoos’ and ‘Voluntary Sacrifice’ (1767)

Patterson

2016

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies

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Writing in the period 1765-1779, John Zephaniah Holwell, temporary governor of Bengal (1760), was one of the first British writers to attempt a scholarly engagement with Hinduism. Despite being an important source for several Enlightenment writers, his work has been misrepresented by current scholarship. In particular his account of 'voluntary sacrifice', or sati, has been misunderstood as an example of eighteenth-century rationalism. This article will correct this by situating the account in a much fuller appreciation of Holwell's 'project', which can be broadly understood as an attempt to reconcile his own heterodox Christianity with what he termed 'Gentoo' doctrines. It will show how Holwell's insistence on the essential truth of 'metempsychosis' reveals an account of sati that is far more invested in presenting a particular reading of Indian religious principles than has hitherto been appreciated. This analysis challenges certain assumptions in the historiography of eighteenth-century European encounters with India, with a particular emphasis on intellectual culture.

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Section: Metempsychosis and Voluntary Sacrificementioning

confidence: 64%

An Eighteenth-Century Account of Sati: John Zephaniah Holwell's ‘Religious Tenets of the Gentoos’ and ‘Voluntary Sacrifice’ (1767)

Patterson

2016

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies

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“…4. For details, see Chowdhury (2003), Datta (1988), Fisch (2006), Fludernik (1999, Gaur (1989), Leslie (1993) and Loomba (1993). 5.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Suttee Sainthood through Selflessness

Roye

2011

South Asia Research

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The immolation of Hindu widows has generated much horror while remaining tenaciously mixed with clandestine admiration. Reported in many eyewitness accounts and literary works, the topic has given rise to highly contested sociocultural, legal and ideological debates, strongly linked to women’s rights. But the root question has not gone away: is suttee/sati just painful female victimisation or can it also reflect powerful female agency and the power of devotion? This article examines two literary works, Maud Diver’s Lilamani, in which an Englishwoman unreservedly idolises a suttee, and Krupabai Satthianadhan’s Kamala, where an Indian woman expresses deep pride in sutteehood. Engaging in a search for deeper meanings, this article asks what makes these two women writers revere a suttee so totally. Can one really be a suttee-saint through selflessness, or are there some deeper meanings yet to be uncovered? A wider political interpretation is suggested to re/present the root meaning of suttee.

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“…Later, I realized the deeply racist and colonialist attitude of that kind of literature (Dine, 1997), although the exotic locations instilled me curiosity for travels and encounters with other cultures. The suttee is the “most disturbing Indian practice of a wife’s self-immolation on her husband’s funeral pyre” (Fludernik, 1999, p. 411). Of course, Verne never visited British colonial India.…”

Section: Introduction: En “Exotic” Ritualmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, he explicitly blamed the “barbarous customs” that only the colonial “government” could prevent. Aouda’s episode (Verne, 1995) is an example of the literature used to justify colonialism as a “civilizing mission” (Dine, 1997; Fludernik, 1999), but also an example of how the 19th Century’s Europeans understood the funeral rituals of different cultures. According to the feminist critique (Burns, 2000), the suttee is an example of how colonization and patriarchy canalize the existential experiences to promote a social and gender oppression.…”

Section: Introduction: En “Exotic” Ritualmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A funeral ritual is a way of channeling the personal experience of grief into a socio-cultural framework. Suttee says that the only way for a woman to be praised is through her submission to the husband (Fludernik, 1999), reconfirming a patriarchal social order. By banning suttee, the British colonial power wanted to promote a different patriarchal social order (Fludernik, 1999).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Cultural mediation of grief: the role of aesthetic experience

Tateo

2022

Culture & Psychology

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In Global North’s psychology, some existential experiences such as the loss of beloved persons are understood as purely individual problems. In a society of functioning individuals, the person is responsible for her own condition and for consuming the healthcare services provided to overcome the “problem” as soon as possible to go back to the fully functional role in the society. This vision raises several questions about turning “experiences” into “pathologies.” Historically, mankind made sense of death, loss, and grief as both a personal and collective experiences, mediated by heterogeneous cultural forms. I elaborate theoretically the concept of cultural mediation of grief, focusing on the esthetic and temporal dimensions of such mediation, as it is visible in art, rituals and everyday discourses. The idea is that such mediation is always present, and that psychology must be able to recognize it also in apparently secularized societies.

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Suttee Revisited: From the Iconography of Martyrdom to the Burkean Sublime

Cited by 5 publications

References 16 publications

An Eighteenth-Century Account of Sati: John Zephaniah Holwell's ‘Religious Tenets of the Gentoos’ and ‘Voluntary Sacrifice’ (1767)

An Eighteenth-Century Account of Sati: John Zephaniah Holwell's ‘Religious Tenets of the Gentoos’ and ‘Voluntary Sacrifice’ (1767)

Suttee Sainthood through Selflessness

Cultural mediation of grief: the role of aesthetic experience

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