Rani Katochan

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Rani Katochan (died 1839), also known as Guddan or Mahitab Devi, was a Pahari wife of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and the daughter of Raja Sansar Chand of Kangra. Her sister Raj Banso was also married to Ranjit Singh, but she killed herself after he compared her beauty to that of a dancing girl, an act the Rajput queen found highly offensive.

Katochan was known to be devoted to her husband, and she burned herself on his funeral pyre in 1839. After Ranjit Singh’s death, Dhian Singh visited with the new Maharaja Kharak Singh. Dhian Singh suggested he too would burn himself on Ranjit Singh’s funeral pyre, a move Katochan saw as a political tactic aimed at extracting concessions from Kharak Singh. Kharak Singh panicked and tried to dissuade him, placing his head at Dhian Singh’s feet. Katochan criticized Dhian Singh for his remarks, saying they were disrespectful to the women preparing to commit sati and unfaithful to the maharaja. She then had Dhian Singh swear an oath on the Bhagavad Gita to be loyal to Kharak Singh and the younger prince Nau Nihal Singh (or possibly Sher Singh). She stressed the sanctity of royal and religious rituals.

Katochan was the principal mourner at Ranjit Singh’s funeral. She came into the courtyard unveiled and barefoot for the first time, and held Ranjit Singh’s head in her lap as the pyre burned, while the other three queens and seven concubines performing sati sat in a circle around them. News of her sati reached Kangra, where her family was pleased and commissioned a painting in 1840 depicting the event. Nau Nihal Singh did have a wife named Katochan, but she was a different woman—the daughter of Rai Singh, the illegitimate son of Mian Fateh Singh of Lambagraon.