The raja, anticipating his death in battle, has appointed two trusted men, Bhoj Kaith and Miyan Bhikari Rumi to supervise the jauhar of the women of the house. ‘It is the custom of Indian rajas under such circumstances’, the appalled Mughal general is told, ‘to collect wood, cotton, grass, ghee and such like into one place, and to bring the women and burn them, willing or unwilling’. The two attendants have a further, more macabre, role for those women who find themselves unable to confront the monstrous flames. ‘Whoever out of feebleness of soul was backward (to sacrifice herself) was, in
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