What is "sati"

Sati (also spelled suttee) is an obsolete Hindu funeral custom where a widow immolated herself on her husband's pyre, or committed suicide in another fashion shortly after her husband's death.

Mention of the practice can be dated back to the 4th century BC, while evidence of practice by wives of dead kings only appears beginning between the 5th and 9th centuries AD. The practice is considered to have originated within the warrior aristocracy on the Indian subcontinent, gradually gaining in popularity from the 10th century AD and spreading to other groups from the 12th through 18th century AD. The practice was particularly prevalent among some Hindu communities, observed in aristocratic Sikh families, and has been attested to outside South Asia in a number of localities in Southeast Asia, such as in Indonesia, and Champa.

The practice was initially legalized by the colonial British officials specifying conditions when sati was allowed; then the practice was outlawed in 1829 in their territories in India (the collected statistics from their own regions suggesting an estimated 500–600 instances of sati per year), followed up by laws in the same directions by the authorities in the princely states of India in the ensuing decades, with a general ban for the whole of India issued by Queen Victoria in 1861. In Nepal, sati was banned in 1920. The Indian Sati Prevention Act from 1988 further criminalised any type of aiding, abetting, and glorifying of sati.

Sati or SATI may refer to:

• Sati (Buddhism) (Pali), in Buddhism the word ‘Sati’ usually carries the meaning of awareness or skillful attentiveness
• School of mindfulness meditation established by John Garrie Rōshi

• Sati (goddess), Hindu goddess, Shiva's first wife
• Sati (practice), an ancient Indian tradition of the immolation of a widow on her husband's funeral pyre

• Bhai Sati Das, Sikh martyr executed by emperor Aurangzeb

• An alternate spelling of Satis in Egyptian mythology

• Sati, a character in the film The Matrix Revolutions
• Sati (film), 1989 Bengali film directed by Aparna Sen and starring Shabana Azmi
• Violeta "Sati" Jurkonienė, a Lithuanian singer
• Sati (novel), a novel by Christopher Pike
• Sati (castle), a medieval fortified town near Shkodër in contemporary Albania

• Sati-ye Olya, a village in Ardabil Province, Iran
• Sati-ye Sofla, a village in Ardabil Province, Iran
• Sati-ye Vosta, a village in Ardabil Province, Iran

• Samrat Ashok Technological Institute
• South African Translators' Institute

Satī (Pron:ˈsʌti:) ( Devnagri: सती, IAST: satī), or Sati Devi, is also known as Dakshayani ( Devanagari: दाक्षायणी, IAST: dākṣāyaṇī). In the Tamil tradition, Sati is called Poovadakari, and in Telugu tradition she is known as Perantalu. Sati is a Hindu goddess of marital felicity and longevity. An aspect of Adi Parashakti, Dakshayani is the first consort of Shiva, the second being Parvati who is the reincarnation of Sati.

In Hindu legend, both Sati and Parvati successively play the role of bringing Shiva away from ascetic isolation into creative participation with the world. The act of Sati, in which a Hindu widow immolates herself on her husband's funeral pyre as a final and consummate act of loyalty and devotion, is patterned after the deed committed by this goddess to uphold the honour of her husband.

Sati (in Pali; Sanskrit: smṛti) is mindfulness or awareness, a spiritual or psychological faculty ( indriya) that forms an essential part of Buddhist practice. It is the first factor of the Seven Factors of Enlightenment. "Correct" or "right" mindfulness (Pali: sammā-sati, Sanskrit samyak-smṛti) is the seventh element of the Noble Eightfold Path.

Sati is the name of a fantasy novel by Christopher Pike. It was first published in September 1990.

Sati is a Bengali film released in 1989 written and directed by Aparna Sen. Based on a story by Kamal Kumar Majumdar, the film is about mute orphan girl who is married to a Banyan tree because her horoscope suggests that she would be a sati, and her husband would die. The film had Shabana Azmi and Arun Banerjee in lead roles.

Along with her previous films, Parama (1984), Aparna Sen became the first female director in Bengali cinema to explore gender issues and feminist perspective.

Violeta "Sati" Jurkonienė (born April 11, 1976 in Klaipėda) is a Lithuanian singer, a member of band Agama.

Sati was a medieval fortified town near Shkodër in contemporary Albania. Between 1395 and 1459, it passed through the control of the Venetian Republic, the Dukagjini family, the Ottoman Empire, and Skanderbeg, who razed it sometime after 1459.