Though the Rani could have asked for truce and paid off the Mughals, she chose to fight and defy the might of the Mughals.

This is what the Italian traveler Manucci has to say, though confusing the gender:

“The purpose that Shahjahan had of righting with the Rana was diverted to a campaign against the Hindu prince of Srinaguer, which is in the midst of lofty mountains in the north, covered all the year with snow. But it did not happen to him as he had hoped. To effect his purpose he despatched a general at the head of thirty thousand horsemen besides infantry.

“The prince allowed his enemy to penetrate into the mountains, retiring as they advanced. When the soldiers of Shahjahan had got a certain distance he closed the roads, so that they could neither advance any farther nor retreat, and there was no way of deliverance for them. Finding himself in this danger, the general sent proposals for peace negotiations, but the Hindu prince returned the answer that his resolve to retreat was too late. Already the commander had a deficiency of supplies, and all his camp was in great confusion. He therefore requested from the prince permission to withdraw, and although the rajah could have destroyed them every one, he did not wish to do so. He sent to say that he would grant them their lives, but his soldiers required all their noses as a memorial of having given them a gift of their lives.

“Shahjahan’s soldiers finding themselves in such dreadful straits, rather than lose their lives, were content to lose their noses. They abandoned their arms, throwing them down where they stood, and issued one by one, leaving their noses behind them on the spot. From this Shahjahan out of shame never again attempted to make war against the rajah, and he gave an order that ever afterwards this prince should be spoken of as the Nactirany—that is to say, ‘ Cut-nose’—and until this day he is known by this name. The general, who could not endure coming back with his nose cut off, took poison, and put an end to his life before he got back to the plains.”

The story is repeated in essence by Tavernier, and the Ma’asir al-umara, though there are differences over whether the general escaped before losing his nose, and whether he committed suicide, or went back to court and was stripped of his rank and possessions.

A digression on cutting off noses. This has been a means of punishment since yore, especially in India. It is mentioned in the Ramayana, meted out to Shurpanakha, and was the way to truly humiliate a defeated enemy. “Nak katana” is still a colloquial phrase used in Hindi for utter humiliation. Hence, nasal reconstruction was always good business in India because there were plenty of clients. It started early—plastic surgery tracts by Sushruta from the 5th century BCE describe the process. The first plastic surgery technique, reconstruction of noses, went to Britain from India in an interesting way. East India Company surgeons Thomas Cruso and James Findlay saw a nose reconstruction process carried out on a Company bullock cart driver called Cowasjee, whose nose had been cut off when he was captured by the Mysore troops during the Third Anglo–Mysore War (1789–1792). This procedure was carried out by a potter in Poona using hereditary knowledge. The surgeons minutely documented it and published it in the Madras Gazette, and in 1794 in London, giving birth to the flourishing plastic surgery industry today. We hope that there were plenty of Indian surgeons skilled in plastic surgery in Shah Jahan’s time as well.

Other cultures also used this mode of punishment. There are accounts of ancient Egypt. The Byzantines used blinding or cutting off noses to make contenders ineligible to rule. There is a tale of a deposed king Justinian II “Slit Nose” who had his nose cut off, but had it reconstructed (by an Indian surgeon presumably) and came back to power in the seventh century.

When the “nak kata” troops straggled back to the Mughal court, it was a huge blow to Shah Jahan’s prestige. He sent a couple of punitive expeditions, specially one under Khalilullah Khan, but none of them were able to reach Srinagar, as the fighting season was very short—a few months, after which the terrain became impassable. The Rani’s guerilla troops would delay them until the rains came, which would soon be followed by the snows of winter.