Jauhar, sometimes spelled Jowhar or Juhar, was a practice of mass self-immolation by Rajput kshatriya women and girls Eaton, R.M., (2019), India in the Persiante Age 1000–1765, p. 219. Great Britain: Allen Lane in the Indian subcontinent to avoid capture, sex slavery, enslavement, and rape when facing certain defeat during a war.Arvind Sharma (1988), Sati: Historical and Phenomenological Essays, Motilal Banarsidass Publ, , pp. xi, 86 Some reports of jauhar mention women committing self-immolation along with their children to avoid rape by the invading armies. This practice was historically observed in the northwest regions of India, with the most famous jauhars in recorded history occurring during wars between Hindu Rajput kingdoms in Rajasthan and the opposing Muslim armies.Pratibha Jain, Saṅgītā Śarmā, Honour, status & polityMandakranta Bose (2014), Faces of the Feminine in Ancient, Medieval, and Modern India, Oxford University Press, , p. 26Malise Ruthven (2007), Fundamentalism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, , p. 63;John Stratton Hawley (1994), Sati, the Blessing and the Curse, Oxford University Press, , pp. 165–166, Quote: "In this she resembles the sati who dies in jauhar. The jauhar sati dies before and while her husband fights what appears to be an unwinnable battle. By dying, she frees him from worry about her welfare and saves herself from the possible shame of rape by triumphant enemy forces." Jauhar was only performed during war, usually when there was imminent defeat. Jauhar involved Hindu Rajput women committing suicide with their children and valuables in a massive fire, in order to avoid capture and abuse in the face of inescapable military defeat. At the same time or shortly thereafter, the men would ritualistically march to the battlefield expecting certain death, which in the regional tradition is called saka. This practice was intended to show that those committing it valued honor higher than own lives.
Jauhar by Hindu kingdoms has been documented by Muslim historians of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire. Among the most often cited examples of jauhar is the mass suicide committed in 1303 CE by the women of Chittorgarh fort in Rajasthan, when faced with the invading army of the Khilji dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate. The jauhar phenomenon was also observed in other parts of India, such as in the Kampili kingdom of northern Karnataka when it fell in 1327 to Delhi Sultanate armies.
There is an annual celebration of heroism called the Jauhar Mela in Chittorgarh where the local people commemorate their ancestors.
Etymology The word jauhar is connected to Sanskrit , meaning a "house plastered with lac and other combustible materials for burning people alive in". It has also been incorrectly interpreted to have been derived from the Persian , which refers to "gem, worth, virtue". This confusion, as author John Stratton Hawley states, rose from the fact that jivhar and jauhar were written in the same manner with the same letter used to denote v and u. Thus, jivhar has also came to be incorrectly associated with the meaning of jauhar.
Practice The practice of jauhar has been claimed as being culturally related to Sati, with both being a form of suicide by women through self-immolation. However, the two are only superficially similar, with the underlying reason for both being significantly different. Sati was the custom of a Hindu widow committing suicide by sitting on her husband's funeral pyre.Veena Oldenburg, A Comment to Ashis Nandy's "Sati as Profit versus Sati as Spectacle: The Public Debate on Roop Kanwar's Death," in Hawley, Sati the Blessing and the Curse: The Burning of Wives in India, p. 165 Jauhar was collective self-immolation by women in order to escape being captured and forced into slavery by invadersMandakranta Bose (2014), Faces of the Feminine in Ancient, Medieval, and Modern India, Oxford University Press, , p. 26 when defeat was imminent. Self-immolation was preferred over simple suicide because it would negate the possibility of any defilement of their dead bodies which their husbands, children and/or clansmen might have to watch.
Kaushik Roy states that jauhar was observed only during Hindu-Muslim wars, but not during internecine Hindu-Hindu wars among the Rajputs.Kaushik Roy (2012), Hinduism and the Ethics of Warfare in South Asia: From Antiquity to the Present, Cambridge University Press, , pp. 182–184 John Hawley, however, disagrees with this assertion; he links it to the Greek conquerors who also captured Indian women, arguing that the practice of jauhar might have started with the Greek campaigns in the region. Veena Talwar Oldenburg disagrees as well, saying that "internecine warfare among the Rajput kingdoms almost certainly supplied the first occasions for jauhar, well before the Muslim invasions with which the practice is popularly associated" and that "the geopolitics of the northwest, whence a succession of invaders entered the subcontinent, made of Rajasthan a continual war zone, and its socially most respected community was therefore not the Brahmins but the Kshatriyas or Rajput castes, who controlled and defended the land. This history predates the coming of the Muslims by more than a millennium. Commemorative stones unearthed and dated in Rajasthan and Vijayanagara mark the deaths of both sexes. Their dates, which can be reliably determined, match perfectly the times and zones of war."Veena Talwar Oldenburg, "Comment: The Continuing Invention of the Sati Tradition" in John Stratton Hawley (ed.), Sati, the Blessing and the Curse: The Burning of Wives in India, Oxford University Press (1994), p. 165
The phenomenon of jauhar has been reported and perceived by Hindus and Muslims differently. In Hindu traditions, jauhar was a heroic act by the women of a community facing certain defeat and abuse by the enemy. For Muslim historians, jauhar was portrayed as an act forced upon women by their culture. Amir Khusrau the poetic scholar described it, states Arvind Sharma – a professor of Comparative Religion, as "no doubt magical but nevertheless they are heroic".
Occurrence Among the most cited cases of jauhar are three occurrences at the fort of Chittaur (Chittaurgarh, Chittorgarh), in Rajasthan, in 1303, 1535, and 1568 CE. Jaisalmer was the scene of two occurrences of jauhar, one in the year 1299 CE, during the reign of the Alauddin Khalji, and another during the reign of the Tughlaq dynasty in 1326. Jauhar and saka were considered heroic acts, and the practice was glorified in the local ballads and folklore of Rajasthan.
Jauhar during invasion of Alexander of Macedon The mass self-immolation by the Agalassoi tribe of northwest India is mentioned in Book 6 of The Anabasis of Alexander, Arrian's 2nd-century CE military history of Alexander the Great between 336 and 323 BCE. Arrian mentions Alexander's army conquering and enslaving peoples of the northwest Indian subcontinent. During a war that killed many in the Macedonian and Agalossoi armies, some 20,000 men, women and children of an Agalossoi town set fire to the town and immolated themselves when they came to believe that military defeat was imminent.The Anabasis of Alexander/Book VI by Arrian, translated by E. J. Chinnock, Wikisource
The Malli tribe also performed a similar act, which Pierre Herman Leonard Eggermont considers jauhar. Arrian states that they started burning their houses with themselves in it, though any Indian captured alive in their houses was slaughtered by the Greeks.
Jauhar of Sindh: Muhammad bin Qasim In 712, Muhammed bin Qasim and his army attacked various kingdoms of the western regions of the Indian subcontinent. He laid siege to the capital of Raja Dahir, then the Hindu king in the area of Sind. After Dahir had been killed, the queen (Ladi) coordinated the defense of the capital for several months. As the food supplies ran out, she and the women of the capital refused to surrender, lit pyres and committed jauhar. The remaining men fought to their deaths at the hands of the invading army.
Jauhar of Gwalior: Iltutmish Shams ud-Din Iltutmish, the Muslim sovereign of the Delhi Sultanate attacked Gwalior in 1232, then under control of the Rajputs. The Rajput women committed jauhar instead of submitting to Iltutmish's army. The place where the women committed mass suicide, in the northern end of the Gwalior fort, is known as Jauhar-tal (or Johar kund, Jauhar Tank).For an image of the site, see Jauhar Kund, Gwalior Fort, Archaeology Dept, Government of Madhya Pradesh, p. 2
Jauhar of Ranthambore: Alauddin Khalji
In 1301, Alauddin Khalji of the Muslim Khalji dynasty, and a ruler of the Delhi Sultanate besieged and conquered the Ranthambore fort. When faced with certain defeat, the defending ruler Hammiradeva decided to fight to death with his soldiers, and his minister Jaja supervised the organization of a jauhar. The queens, daughters and other female relatives of Hammiradeva committed jauhar.
Hammiradev’s wife Rani Rang Devi and his daughter Padmala, along with other women, made the decision to commit jauhar in order to protect their honor from the invading Islamic army. However, they found no time to arrange a huge sacrificial fire and altar in which to commit jauhar, thus they committed mass suicide by jumping into the reservoir at the fort. In her honor, the reservoir has been named "Padmala Talav".
The jauhar at Ranthambore was described by Alauddin's courtier Amir Khusrau, which makes it the first jauhar to be described in a Persian language text.
First Jauhar of Chittor: Alauddin Khalji According to many scholars, the first jauhar of Chittorgarh occurred during the 1303 siege of the Chittor fort.; Quote: "It is particularly associated with the Rajasthani city of Chittorgarh, where jauhars occurred in 1303, 1535 and 1568"; This jauhar became a subject of legendary Rajasthani poems, with Rani Padmini the main character, wherein she and other Rajput women commit jauhar to avoid being captured by Alauddin Khalji, a Muslim ruler of the Delhi Sultanate. The historicity of the first jauhar of Chittor is based on Rajasthani traditional belief as well as Islamic Sufi literature such as Padmavat by Malik Muhammad Jayasi.
Jauhar of Kampili: Muhammad bin Tughluq The Hindu women of the Kampili kingdom of northern Karnataka committed jauhar when it fell in 1327 to the Muslim armies of the Delhi Sultanate ruled by Muhammad bin Tughluq.
Jauhar of Kuva: Mehmud Begada In 1486, Khalil Khan, the prince of the Muzzafarid dynasty rebelled against Rana Vaghoji of Jhalavad. A battle took place between them near Saidpur, 6 km north of Dhrangadhra, where Jhalas gained a decisive victory. Khalil Khan was captured (although it was later released). Mahmud Begada accordingly marched towards Kuva (now Kankavati), which, at the time, was the capital of Jhalals. Rana Vaghoji assembled his vassals in his fort and prepared for battle. Rana Vaghoji lost the battle. In response, Vaghoji's 8 queens, along with 750 women committed Jal Jauhar by jumping into a well.
Rana Vaghoji, consumed by the grief of it all, decided to die on the battlefield. After Rana Vaghoji's death, Mahmud Begada sacked and destroyed the fort of Kuva. The day is known today as Kuva-no-ker (disaster of Kuva).
Jauhar of Chanderi: Babur
The Hindu Rajput king Medini Rai ruled over Chanderi in northern Madhya Pradesh in early 16th century. He tried to help Rana Sanga in the Battle of Khanua against the Muslim armies of Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire. In January 1528 CE, his fort was overwhelmed by the invading forces of Babur. The women and children of the Chanderi fort committed jauhar, the men dressed up in saffron garments and walked the ritual of saka on 29 January.
Second Jauhar of Chittor: Bahadur Shah