While they were burning, a large serpent came up, and,
ascending the pile, was burnt with them. Soon after another came up,
and did the same. They were seen by the whole multitude, who were
satisfied that they had been the wives of his great-grandfather in a
former birth, and would become so again after this sacrifice. When
the "sraddh", or funeral obsequies, were performed after the
prescribed intervals,[18] the offerings and prayers were regularly
made for _six souls_ instead of four; and, to this day, every member
of his family, and every Hindoo who had heard the story, believed
that these two serpents had a just right to be considered among his
ancestors, and to be prayed for accordingly in all "sraddh".'
A few days after this conversation with the Principal of the
Jubbulpore College, I had a visit from Bholi Sukul, the present head
of the Sihora banker's family, and youngest brother of the Brahman
with whose ashes the Lodhi woman burned herself. I requested him to
tell me all that he recollected about this singular suttee, and he
did so as follows:
'When my eldest brother, the father of the late Duli Sukul, who was
so long a native collector under you in this district, died about
twenty years ago at Sihora, a Lodhi woman, who resided two miles
distant in the village of Khitoli, which has been held by our family
for several generations, declared that she would burn herself with
him on the funeral pile; that she had been his wife in three
different births, had already burnt herself with him three times, and
had to burn with him four times more.
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