Sation Ka Pagothia - Jauhar Place
Also called the Jauhar Place it was here that the most celebrated as
well as frightening of all Rajput customs was performed. To the
Rajputs, honour came before all else –even life. Quite often what
was important to them during a battle was not victory or defeat, but
how well they fought. By this code, rather than face defeat they
performed their own last rites, dressed in saffron robes worn during
weddings (a concept similar to the Japanese practice of ritual suicide
or hara-kiri).
¤ The Grand Jauhar--Mass Self Immolation
From the Rajput’s rigid sense of honour arose the practice of
jauhar or mass suicide by women when their men folk faced defeat in
battle. They would dress themselves in their bridal finery and embrace
their funeral pyres with a smile on their lips. The men would then
fling open the castle gates and fight to the last man. This terrible
but at the same time fascinating ritual took place exactly two and a
half times in the history of Jaisalmer.
On the first occasion when Allauddin Khilji vanquished Jaisalmer
24,000 women sacrificed themselves in the fiery inferno. A few decades
later when Firoz Shah Tughlaq invaded the city 16,000 women gave up
their lives at the altar of honour. The last and half jauhar was the
most intriguing of all. Amir Ali, the Afghan got Maharawal Lunakaran’s
permission to let his begums (wives) visit the ranis (queens) of
Jaisalmer. But he played a ‘Trojan horse’ trick on the
Maharawal, and the palanquin he sent inside the fort was full of
warriors, not women. When it seemed to the Maharawal that he was
fighting a losing battle he slaughtered his womenfolk with his own
hands as their was little time to arrange a funeral pyre. Hence, it is
called a half - jauhar or Sako. The most ironical part of it was that
immediately after the deed was done, reinforcements arrived in the
shape of other princes and Amir Ali was defeated and blown up by a
cannon ball.
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