This is a collection of new essays on the phenomenon of sati (or suttee), the burning of wives in India. The contributors include both American and Indian scholars, and they address basic questions about this controversial phenomenon and the moral issues it involves.

"This book is great--presents elegant and thoughtful essays on a very disturbing issue, one that my students ask me about endlessly."--Martha Ann Selby, Southern Methodist University "Should be required reading for all those interested in women in world history. It expertly displays the recent controversies in a manner that illuminates both historical and contemporary issues."--Lynda Shaffer, Tufts University "This book is not easy to put down: the pace of the arguments is brisk, the historiography is solid, the hypothetical materials are clearly argued and imaginative, and the sparks fly....Scholars of religion will find this work easily accessible. It moves far beyond the bounds of Indology....suberb..."--The Journal of Religion "This volume serves to widen the perspectives on sati and to speak to audiences of varying kinds.... a must for scholars of Hinduism, of gender and religion, and of human rights worldwide."History of Religions "This book is great--presents elegant and thoughtful essays on a very disturbing issue, one that my students ask me about endlessly."--Martha Ann Selby, Southern Methodist University "Should be required reading for all those interested in women in world history. It expertly displays the recent controversies in a manner that illuminates both historical and contemporary issues."--Lynda Shaffer, Tufts University "This book is not easy to put down: the pace of the arguments is brisk, the historiography is solid, the hypothetical materials are clearly argued and imaginative, and the sparks fly....Scholars of religion will find this work easily accessible. It moves far beyond the bounds of Indology....suberb..."--The Journal of Religion "This volume serves to widen the perspectives on sati and to speak to audiences of varying kinds.... a must for scholars of Hinduism, of gender and religion, and of human rights worldwide."History of Religions

John Stratton Hawley is Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion at Barnard College, and Director of the South Asian Institute at Columbia University. He is the editor of Songs of the Saints of India (Oxford, 1988) and Fundamentalism and Gender (Oxford, 1993), as well as numerous other books on Indian religion and literature.