A History of the Mahrattas v2.c48.3

v2.c48.3

¹ [Māhādajī Sindia left four, not three, widows. The fourth, Bhāgīrthī Bāī, was originally a servant in a celebrated temple at Tūljāpur (presumably the temple of Bhavānī), ‘remarkable for Mahrattas only officiating at the sacrifices instead of Brahmans.’ She was a Bhopī by caste, and was only twelve years old when Māhādajī saw her and married her, after settling a jāgīr worth 10,000 rupees upon her uncles, whom she supported out of her earnings at the temple. Māhādajī Sindia died about two years after his marriage with Bhāgīrthī Bāī. Some years later she died at Dātia from poison, administered by herself in order ‘to conceal the too apparent effects of a subsequent and illicit attachment.’ (Broughton, Letters from a Mahratta Camp, Constable (1892), pp. 141, 142; Gazetteer of Gwalior State (1908), p. 28.)]