At Bahrol there is a very unusual number of tombs built over
the ashes of women who have burnt themselves with the remains of
their husbands. Upon each tomb stands erect a tablet of freestone,
with the sun, the new moon, and a rose engraved upon it in bas-relief
in one field;[3] and the man and woman, hand in hand, in the other.
On one stone of this kind I saw a third field below these two, with
the figure of a horse in bas-relief, and I asked one of the gentlemen
farmers, who was riding with me, what it meant. He told me that he
thought it indicated that the woman rode on horseback to bathe before
she ascended the pile.[4] I asked him whether he thought the measure
prohibiting the practice of burning good or bad.
'It is', said he, 'in some respects good, and in others bad. Widows
cannot marry among us, and those who had no prospect of a comfortable
provision among their husband's relations, or who dreaded the
possibility of going astray, and thereby sinking into contempt and
misery, were enabled in this way to relieve their minds, and follow
their husbands, under the full assurance of being happily united to
them in the next world.
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