Jauhar
A mass suicide in which womenand
children threw themselves on a bonfire
to protect the family from dishonor
when the men were defeated or killed in
battle. Jauhar was considered the
women’s counterpart to death in com-
bat. If their husbands and fathers were
heavily outnumbered and faced certain
death in battle, women would perform a
mass suicide after the men left their
fortresses. This phenomenon was most
closely associated with the desert state
of Rajasthan, which has strong martial
traditions and a great stress on the
importance of family honor. It is partic-
ularly associated with the Rajasthani
city of Chittorgarh, where jauhars
occurred in 1303, 1535, and 1568.
Jaya
In Hindu mythology, one of the gate-
keepers of the god Vishnu’s heavenly
abode, Vaikuntha, who, with his brother
Vijaya, is cursed to be born three times
as a demon(asura) and to be killed each
time by Vishnu. The sage Sanakaplaces
this curseon them when they prevent
him from seeing Vishnu. In their first
birththe two are born as Hiranyaksha
and Hiranyakashipu, who are killed by
the Boar avatar and the Man-Lion
avatar respectively. In their second
incarnation they are born as Ravana
and Kumbhakarna, who are both killed
by Vishnu’s Rama avatar. In their final
birth they incarnate as Shisupalaand
Dantavaktraand are killed by Vishnu’s
Krishna avatar. After the conditions of
the curse have been fulfilled, they return
to their duties as Vishnu’s gatekeepers.
Jayadeva
(12th c.) Poet and author of the
Gitagovinda, a lyric devotional poem
that uses the separation and eventual
reunion of the lovers Krishna and
Radhaas a metaphor for the union of
the human soul with God. According to
tradition, Jayadeva lived at the temple of
the god Jagannathin the city of Puri,
where his wife Padmavati was a dancer.
She is said to have been the first to
danceto Jayadeva’s songs as an offering
to Jagannath, and the Gitagovindahas
been sung and danced as a regular part
of temple worship up to the present
time. For further information see
Barbara Stoller Miller (ed. and trans.),
The Love Song of the Dark Lord, 1977.Jayadratha
In the Mahabharata, the later of the two
great Hindu epics, Jayadratha is a king
who is married to the princess Dussala.
Dussala is the only sister of the
Kauravas, a group of one hundred
brothers who are the epic’s antagonists.
Jayadratha once sought the hand of
Draupadi, and because of his bitterness
at having lost her to the warrior Arjuna,
he opposes Arjuna and his brothers, the
Pandavas, for the rest of his life. During
the Mahabharata war between the
Pandavas and the Kauravas, Jayadratha
takes the side of the Kauravas and is
eventually killed by Arjuna. At
Jayadratha’s birtha celestial voice has
prophesied that the head of the person
who causes Jayadratha’s head to fall to
earthwill split into a hundred pieces.
Mindful of this, Arjuna, a peerless
archer, cuts off Jayadratha’s head with an
arrow in such a way that it lands in the
lap of Jayadratha’s father, Brhatkaya.
Brhatkaya is so startled that he allows
the head to fall from his lap to the
ground, and his own head breaks into a
hundred pieces.Jaya Ekadashi
Festival falling on the eleventh day
(ekadashi) of the bright (waxing) half
of the lunar monthof Magh( January–
February). As are all eleventh-day obser-
vances, this festival is dedicated to the
worshipof Vishnu, on this day particu-
larly in his form as Krishna. Most Hindu
festivals have certain prescribed rites,
usually involving fasting (upavasa) and
worship, and often promise specific
benefits for faithful performance:Jauhar