Jauhar

Jauhar, sometimes spelled Johar or Juhar, was the Hindu custom of mass self-immolation by women in parts of the Indian subcontinent, to avoid capture, enslavement and rape by invaders, when facing certain defeat during a war. This practice was historically observed in northwest regions of India, with most famous Jauhars in recorded history occurring during wars between Hindu Rajput kingdoms in Rajasthan and the Muslim armies.Jauhar is related to sati, and sometimes referred in scholarly literature as jauhar sati.

According to Veena Oldenburg, the roots of this practice "almost certainly" lie in the internecine warfare among different Rajput kingdoms. In contrast, according to Kaushik Roy, the jauhar custom was observed only during Hindu-Muslim wars, but not during internecine Hindu-Hindu wars among the Rajputs.

The term jauhar sometimes connotes both jauhar-immolation and saka ritual. During the Jauhar, Rajput women committed suicide with their children and valuables in massive fire, to avoid capture and abuse in the face of inescapable military defeat and capture. Simultaneously or thereafter, the men would ritually march to the battlefield expecting certain death, which in the regional tradition is called saka.

Jauhar by Hindu kingdoms has been documented by Islamic historians of the Delhi Sultanate, and the Mughal Empire. Among the oft cited example of jauhar has been the mass suicide committed in 1303 CE by the women of Chittorgarh fort in Rajasthan, faced with invading army of 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.

The origins of the word jauhar are unknown. The Monier Monier-Williams Sanskrit dictionary with etymology does not contain it. The closest word in Sanskrit, according to Monier-Williams, is jauhava which means "relating to the sacrificial ladle".Jauhar in North Indian languages may be a loanword from Arabic-Persian jauhar, related to Middle-Persian derived gauhar, where it means "jewel, gem" or "main substance, the fundamental element of something".

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