Rani Sati

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.

Legends

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. [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: 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 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 Jalan clan of the Agarwal community, and was completed in 1936. There are other Sati shrines belonging to other satis in the same family in the compound. There are other Sati temples in Jhunjhunu belonging to other communities.

A Rajasthani movie Laj Rakho Rani Sati was released in 1973.

Perhaps the oldest existing Rani Sati temple outside Jhunjhunu dates to 1837 and is located at Kankurgachi in Kolkata. Hundreds of other Rani Sati temples are located in Bombay, Delhi, Varanasi, Kolkata, Hyderabad and other places in India, as well as in Rangoon, Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and the United States. ) committed sati in 1987 in the nearby town of Deorala. Following Kanwar's immolation, the Indian government issued an order proscribing the 'glorification of Sati', and tried banning the annual fair at Jhunjhunu. The Calcutta High Court lifted the ban, and on appeal, the Supreme Court of India modified it to allow worship of Rani Sati within the temple while forbidding the celebration of her sati through the chunari ceremonies in which brides seek the Goddess's blessings by offering her their bridal veils. The court also disallowed the fair, which is held on the temple's outer grounds. However the controversy and court decisions, brought even greater attention to the town of Deorala and the Rani Sati temple, and attracted thousands of pilgrims to the temple and the fair that year. Elsewhere in India, while many Rani Sati temples halted their public celebrations soon after Roop Kanwar's death, their activities resumed within a few years.