93 Among cavalrymen and foot soldiers, the King of Vijayanagara has over one hundred thousand warriors, who are all regularly paid, and five or six thousand women who he pays to keep at court, and whenever there are wars, he divides them up among the men he sends there, and says that they cannot wage war in a place without women. They are all unmarried and great musicians, acrobats and dancers, who dance most naturally. When the army officers wish to enlist a man, they strip him and measure his height, find out his name and where he comes from; the names of his parents, and thus he is enlisted and is never given leave to return to his village, and should he go without permission and be caught, he is severely punished. There are three gentile castes in this land of Vijayanagara, and they are quite different to each other, and their customs are quite unlike each other’s. Firstly there is that of the kings; great lords, knights and soldiers, who can marry, as I have said, as many wives as they can keep; their sons inherit their property. By dint of an ancient custom, when their husbands die, the wives must set light to themselves and burn themselves to death on their husband’s corpse in order to honour him; and if the women is humble and poor, when the husband dies, she goes to the burning ground with his body, and they dig a very large pit in which they burn it. They set light to a large pile of wood in the hole and throw the husband’s body in, and when it starts to burn, she willingly throws herself on to the pyre, which reduces both the bodies to ashes. If the woman is honourable; rich, and from a good family, however, be she young or old, when her husband dies, she takes his body to the burning ground, and mourning over it, they dig a very large round pit, that they fill with sandalwood, and after they light it, they throw the husband’s body in to the flames and it burns, and she weeps heavily. Then, in order to honour her husband, she calls all the members of both his and her family, so that they come to commemorate and honour her.
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