of general culture. Two other independent sources that mention widows who voluntarily joined their husbands' pyres as a mark of their love are Cicero and Nicolaus of Damascus. Early Sanskrit sources Some of the early Sanskrit authors like Daṇḍin in Daśakumāracarita and Banabhatta in Harshacharita mention that women who burnt themselves wore extravagant dresses. Bana tells about Yasomati who, after choosing to mount the pyre, bids farewell to her relatives and servants. She then decks herself in jewellery which she later distributes to others. Although Prabhakaravardhana's death is expected, Arvind Sharma suggests it is another form of sati. The same work mentions Harsha's sister Rajyasri trying to commit sati after her husband died. In Kadambari, Bana greatly opposes sati and gives examples of women who did not choose sahgamana. Sangam literature Padma Sree asserts that other evidence for some form of sati comes from Sangam literature in Tamilkam: for instance the written in the 2nd century CE. In this tale, Kannagi, the chaste wife of her wayward husband Kovalan, burns Madurai to the ground when her husband is executed unjustly, then climbs a cliff to join Kovalan in heaven. She became an object of worship as a chaste wife, called Pattini in Sinhala and in Tamil, and is still worshipped today. An inscription in an urn burial from the 1st century CE tells of a widow who told the potter to make the urn big enough for both her and her husband. The similarly provides evidence that such practices existed in Tamil lands, and the claims widows prefer to die with their husband due to the dangerous negative power associated with them. However she notes that this glorification of sacrifice was not unique to women: just as the texts glorified "good" wives who sacrificed themselves for their husbands and families, "good" warriors similarly sacrificed themselves for their kings and lands. It is even possible that the sacrifice of the "good" wives originated from the warrior sacrifice tradition. Today, such women are still worshipped as Gramadevatas throughout South India. Inscriptional evidence According to Axel Michaels, the first inscriptional evidence of the practice is from Nepal in 464 CE, and in India from 510 CE. The early evidence suggests that widow-burning practice was seldom carried out in the general population. Centuries later, instances of sati began to be marked by inscribed memorial stones called Sati stones. According to J.C. Harle, the medieval