johar

English

Alternative forms

Pronunciation
  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈdʒəʊhɑː/

Noun

johar (uncountable)

  1. (historical) The Rajput practice whereby women are sacrificed in a fire to avoid their being captured by an enemy.
    • 1993, Leigh Minturn, Sita's Daughters, p. 230:
      Probably the most famous immolation of women was the johar, or mass suicide, at Fort Chittor in the thirteenth century, when the Rajput women in the fort were burned to avoid being captured by a licentious Mogul invader.
    • 1997, Kiran Nagarkar, Cuckold, HarperCollins 2013, p. 10:
      No flames here, though; the last ones were quenched over two hundred years ago when Rani Padmini and her women jumped into the johar fires the day Alauddin Khilji captured Chittor.
    • 2003, Paul K Davis, Besieged, p. 112:
      Soon, light from three large fires illuminated the darkness. This was johar: the Rajputs were collectively burning their families rather than have them captured and tortured.

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