Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s6.15

v2.c27.s6.15

Johar.—Having thus pointed out the causes of the sacrifice of widows and of infants, I shall touch on the yet more awful rite of Johar, when a whole tribe may become extinct, of which several instances have been recorded in the annals of Mewar. To the fair of other lands the fate of the Rajputni must appear one of appalling hardship. In each stage of life death is ready to claim her ; by the poppy at its dawn, by the flames in riper years ; while the safety of the interval depending on the uncertainty of war, at no period is her existence worth a twelvemonth’s purchase. The loss of a battle, or the capture of a city, is a signal to avoid captivity and its horrors, which to the Rajputni are worse than death. To the doctrines of Christianity Europe owes the boon of protection to the helpless and the fair, who [640] comparatively safe amidst the vicissitudes of war ; to which security the chivalry of the Middle Ages doubtless contributed. But it is singular that a nation so refined, so scrupulous in its ideas with regard to females, as the Rajput, should not have entered into some national compact to abandon such proof of success as the bondage¹ of the sex. We can enter into the feeling, and applaud the deed, which ensured the preservation of their honour by the fatal johar, when the foe was the brutalized Tatar. But the practice was common in the international wars of the Rajputs ; and I possess numerous inscriptions (on stone and on brass) which record as the first token of victory the captive wives of the foeman. When “ the mother of Sisera looked out of the window, and cried through the lattice, Why tarry the wheels of his chariot—have they not sped ? have they not divided the prey ; to every man a damsel or two ? ”² we have a perfect picture of the Rajput mother expecting her son from the foray.