For other uses, see Sati (disambiguation).
Satī (Devanagari

Devanagari

Devanagari |deva]]" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...

: सती, the feminine of sat "true"; also called suttee) was a religious funeral

Funeral

A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...

 practice among some India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n communities in which a recently widow

Widow

A widow is a woman whose spouse has died, while a widower is a man whose spouse has died. The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed widowhood or occasionally viduity. The adjective form is widowed...

ed woman either voluntarily or by use of force and coercion would have immolated herself

Self-immolation

Self-immolation refers to setting oneself on fire, often as a form of protest or for the purposes of martyrdom or suicide. It has centuries-long traditions in some cultures, while in modern times it has become a type of radical political protest...

 on her husband’s funeral pyre

Pyre

A pyre , also known as a funeral pyre, is a structure, usually made of wood, for burning a body as part of a funeral rite...

. The practice is rare and has been outlawed in India since 1829.

The term is derived from the original name of the goddess Sati, also known as Dakshayani

Dakshayani

Dākshāyani or Satī is a Hindu Goddess of marital felicity and longevity. She is worshipped particularly by Hindu women to seek the long life of their husbands...

, who self-immolated because she was unable to bear her father Daksha

Daksha

In Hinduism, Daksha, "the skilled one", is an ancient creator god, one of the Prajapatis, the Rishis and the Adityas. Daksha is said to be the son of Aditi and Brahma...

's humiliation of her (living) husband Shiva

Shiva

Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...

.