History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c33.s2.21

v3.c33.s2.21

With regard to Jaipal and his family, Mahmud is said to have ordered their detention in a fortress in Khorasan. Whether Jaipal was taken to such a distant place or not, it appears that Mahmud soon released him, taking from him 50 elephants as ransom and his son as hostage and dismissed him to his kingdom which now lay to the east of the Indus. Instead of returning to it, Jaipal, feeling deeply the ignominy of his capture and imprisonment and being perhaps very old, thought himself unfit to rule and burnt himself on a pyre as many Hindus, even kings, in those days did. Utbi says that a letter was received by his son who was a hostage with Mahmud announcing this self-immolation and this son who was Ānandapāla himself, the successor of Jaipal, Mahmud set at liberty and allowed peacefully to go and rule his kingdom. The tragic end of Jaipal and his long life, unfortunate throughout its length, cannot but raise our pity and admiration for his dignified death.