Burning and melting, Bride with mourners carrying the bridegroom&x27;s coffin, Walters Manuscript W.649, fol. 14a

Overcome with grief, the young Hindu woman accompanies her bridegroom’s coffin to the funeral pyre and decides to commit sati (self-immolation). An elegantly calligraphed, illuminated and illustrated copy of the poem Sūz va gudāz ('Burning and melting') by Nawʿī Khabūshānī (d.1019 AH /1610 CE) which recounts the love story of a Hindu girl who decides to burn herself on the pyre of her betrothed killed accidentally just before their marriage. Here the young man's coffin is being carried in the presence of his bride-to-be. The present codex was penned by Ibn Sayyid Murād al-Ḥusaynī and illustrated by Muḥammad ʿAlī Mashhadī in 1068 AH / 1657 CE. See this manuscript page by page at the Walters Art Museum website: art.thewalters.org/viewwoa.aspx?id=30391