Taimur represents unprecedented barbarism, one that earned him a reputation of cruelty, even in the medieval context of wars and invasions. This is a tyrant who ordered each soldier to produce two heads of people they had slaughtered when he sacked Delhi. Some allegedly resorted to beheading their own wives when they had run out of people to kill. The story is that Taimur beheaded his own mother. In a land where contextualised morality is well-understood, Taimur’s actions go beyond vile Rakshasas.
