1. Sati system was a result of barbaric islamic invasion that used to make Indian hindu women sexual slave to be sold and brought. Women preferred to do Johar and die rather than be raped and enslaved by the invading muslim army. So yes, they did some good to the society.
2. All empires and civilizations all over the world was and is build on Slave Labour. Be it Europe, USA, Middle East, China and India. Untoucability was the local Indian version of slave labour.
You are surely not Hindu,you gotta very poor knowledge.
Few reliable records exist of the practice
before the time of the Gupta empire ,
approximately 400 CE. After about this
time, instances of sati began to be
marked by inscribed memorial stones.
The earliest of these are found in Sagar,
Madhya Pradesh , though the largest
collections date from several centuries
later, and are found in Rajasthan . These
stones, called devli , or sati-stones,
became shrines to the dead woman, who
was treated as an object of reverence and
worship. They are most common in
western India. [4] A description of suttee
appears in a Greek account of the Punjab
written in the first century BCE by
historian Diodorus Siculus. [3] Brahmins
were forbidden from the practice by the
Padma Purana . A chapter dated to
around the 10th century indicates that,
while considered a noble act when
committed by a Kshatriya woman,
anyone caught assisting an upper- caste
Brahmin in self-immolation as a "sati"
was guilty of Brahminicide.
By about the 10th century sati, as
understood today, was known across
much of the subcontinent. It continued to
occur at a low frequency, with regional
variations, until the early 19th century.
Some instances of voluntary self-
immolation by both women and men that
may be regarded as at least partly
historical accounts are included in the
Mahabharata and other works. Also,
neither immolation nor the desire for
self-immolation are regarded as a
custom in the Mahabharata. Use of the
term 'sati' to describe the custom of self-
immolation does not occur in the
Mahabarata, unlike other customs, such
as the Rajasuya yagna. The self-
immolations are viewed as an expression
of extreme grief at the loss of a beloved
one.
The ritual has prehistoric roots, and
many parallels from other cultures are
known. Compare for example the ship
burial of the Rus' described by Ibn
Fadlan, where a female slave is burned
with her master.[5]
Aristobulus of Cassandreia , a Greek
historian who traveled to India with the
expedition of Alexander the Great,
recorded the practice of sati at the city of
Taxila. A later instance of voluntary co-
cremation appears in an account of an
Indian soldier in the army of Eumenes of
Cardia, whose two wives vied to die on
his funeral pyre, in 316 BC. The Greeks
believed that the practice had been
instituted to discourage wives from
poisoning their old husbands. [6]
Voluntary death at funerals has been
described in northern India before the
Gupta empire . The original practices were
called anumarana, and were uncommon.
Anumarana was not comparable to later
understandings of sati, since the
practices were not restricted to widows
rather, anyone, male or female, with
personal loyalty to the deceased could
commit suicide at a loved one's funeral.
These included the deceased's relatives,
servants, followers, or friends. Sometimes
these deaths stemmed from vows of
loyalty, [4]
Sati (practice) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
