Answer 1: Hindusim's code of ahimsa (non-violence) expressly prohibits suicide, and considers it as equally a violation of Hindu tenets as murdering someone else. According to some Hindu scripture, anyone who commits suicide is destined to become a ghost, wandering the earth until the time when s/he would have otherwise died, had s/he not committed suicide.

However, Hinduism does allow for Prayopavesa, which is the voluntary ending of one's life through starvation in the form of fasting until death. Those who engage in Prayopavesa, though, must, according to the tenets of Hinduism, have nothing left in this world... no ambition, desire, responsibilities, wishes, plans... nothing.

In India's middle age, widows would sometimes self-immolate on their husband's funeral pyres in a practice known as "sati;" however, that has fallen not only out of favor, but into disrepute. And no Hindu sacred text ever prescribed or supported sati.