the aiding or glorifying of sati. The modern laws have proved difficult to implement; as of 2020, at least 250 sati temples existed in India in which prayer ceremonies, or pujas, were performed to glorify the avatar of a mother goddess who immolated herself on a husband's funeral pyre after hearing her father insult him; prayers were also performed to the practice of a wife immolating herself alive on a deceased husband's funeral pyre. Etymology and usage Sati (Sanskrit: सती / ) is derived from the name of the goddess Sati, who self-immolated because she was unable to bear her father Daksha's humiliation of her and her husband Shiva. The term sati was originally interpreted as "chaste woman". Sati appears in Hindi and Sanskrit texts, where it is synonymous with "good wife"; the term suttee was commonly used by Anglo-Indian English writers. Sati designates therefore originally the woman, rather than the rite. Variants are: Sativrata, an uncommon and seldom used term, denotes the woman who makes a vow, vrata, to protect her husband while he is alive and then die with her husband. Satimata denotes a venerated widow who committed sati. The rite itself had technical names: Sahagamana ("going with") or sahamarana ("dying with"). Anvarohana ("ascension" to the pyre) is occasionally met, as well as satidaha as terms to designate the process. Satipratha is also, on occasion, used as a term signifying the custom of burning widows alive. The Indian Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987 Part I, Section 2(c) defines sati as the act or rite itself. Origin and spread The origins and spread of the practice of sati are complex and much debated questions, without a general consensus. It has been speculated that rituals such as widow sacrifice or widow burning have prehistoric roots. The archaeologist Elena Efimovna Kuzmina has listed several parallels between the burial practices of the ancient Asiatic steppe Andronovo cultures (fl. 1800–1400 BCE) and the Vedic Age. She considers sati to be a largely symbolic double burial or a double cremation, a feature she argues is to be found in both cultures, with neither culture observing it strictly. Vedic symbolic practice According to Romila Thapar, in the Vedic period, when "mores of the clan gave way to the norms of caste", wives were obliged to join in quite a few rituals but without much authority. A ritual with support in a Vedic text was