The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)

[2695] Its translation and explanatory noting have filled two decades of hard-working years. _Tanti labores auctoris et traductoris!_ [2696] I am indebted to my husband for acquaintance with Niẕāmu'-d-dīn Aḥmad's record about Bābur and Kashmīr. [2697] In view of the vicissitudes to which under Humāyūn the royal library was subjected, it would be difficult to assert that this source was not the missing continuation of Bābur's diary. [2698] E. and D.'s H. of I. art. _Tārīkh-i Khān-i-jahān Lūdī_ v, 67. For Aḥmad-i-yādgār's book and its special features _vide_ _l.c._ v, 2, 24, with notes; Rieu's _Persian Catalogue_ iii, 922_a_; JASB. 1916, H. Beveridge's art. _Note on the Tārīkh-i-salāṯīn-i-afāghana._ [2699] Humāyūn's last recorded act in Hindūstān was that of 933 AH. (f. 329_b_) when he took unauthorized possession of treasure in Dihlī. [2700] _Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_ trs. p. 387. [2701] T.-i-R. trs. p. 353 _et seq._ and Mr. Ney Elias' notes. [2702] Abū'l-faẓl's record of Humāyūn's sayings and minor doings at this early date in his career, can hardly be anything more accurate than family-tradition. [2703] The statement that Khalīfa was asked to go so far from where he was of the first importance as an administrator, leads to consideration of why it was done. So little is known explicitly of Bābur's intentions about his territories after his death that it is possible only to put that little together and read between its lines. It may be that he was now planning an immediate retirement to Kābul and an apportionment during life of his dominions, such as Abū-sa`īd had made of his own. If so, it would be desirable to have Badakhshān held in strength such as Khalīfa's family could command, and especially desirable because as Barlās Turks, that family would be one with Bābur in desire to regain Transoxiana. Such a political motive would worthily explain the offer of the appointment. [2704] The "Shāh" of this style is derived from Sulaimān's Badakhshī descent through Shāh Begīm; the "Mīrzā" from his Mīrān-shāhī descent through his father Wais Khān Mīrzā. The title Khān Mīrzā or Mīrzā Khān, presumably according to the outlook of the speaker, was similarly derived from forbears, as would be also Shāh Begīm's; (her personal name is not mentioned in the sources). [2705] Sa`īd, on the father's, and Bābur, on the mother's side, were of the same generation in descent from Yūnas Khān; Sulaimān was of a younger one, hence his pseudo-filial relation to the men of the elder one. [2706] Sa`īd was Shāh Begīm's grandson through her son Aḥmad, Sulaimān her great-grandson through her daughter Sulṯān-Nigār, but Sulaimān could claim also as the heir of his father who was nominated to rule by Shāh Begīm; moreover, he could claim by right of conquest on the father's side, through Abū-sa`īd the conqueror, his son Maḥmūd long the ruler, and so through Maḥmūd's son Wais Khān Mīrzā. [2707] The menace conveyed by these words would be made the more forceful by Bābur's move to Lāhor, narrated by Aḥmad-i-yādgār. Some ill-result to Sa`īd of independent rule by Sulaimān seems foreshadowed; was it that if Bābur's restraining hand were withdrawn, the Badakhshīs would try to regain their lost districts and would have help in so-doing from Bābur? [2708] It is open to conjecture that if affairs in Hindūstān had allowed it, Bābur would now have returned to Kābul. Aḥmad-i-yādgār makes the expedition to be one for pleasure only, and describes Bābur as hunting and sight-seeing for a year in Lāhor, the Panj-āb and near Dihlī. This appears a mere flourish of words, in view of the purposes the expedition served, and of the difficulties which had arisen in Lāhor itself and with Sa`īd Khān. Part of the work effected may have been the despatch of an expedition to Kashmīr. [2709] This appears a large amount. [2710] The precision with which the Rāja's gifts are stated, points to a closely-contemporary and written source. A second such indication occurs later where gifts made to Hind-āl are mentioned. [2711] An account of the events in Multān after its occupation by Shāh Ḥasan _Arghūn_ is found in the latter part of the _T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_ and in Erskine's H. of I. i, 393 _et seq._—It may be noted here that several instances of confusion amongst Bābur's sons occur in the extracts made by Sir H. Elliot and Professor Dowson in their _History of India_ from the less authoritative sources [_e.g._ v, 35 Kāmrān for Humāyūn, `Askarī said to be in Kābul (pp. 36 and 37); Hind-āl for Humāyūn _etc._] and that these errors have slipped into several of the District Gazetteers of the United Provinces. [2712] As was said of the offering made by the Rāja of Kahlūr, the precision of statement as to what was given to Hind-āl, bespeaks a closely-contemporary written source. So too does the mention (text, _infra_) of the day on which Bābur began his return journey from Lāhor. [2713] Cf. _G. of I._ xvi, 55; Ibbetson's _Report on Karnāl_. [2714] It is noticeable that no one of the three royal officers named as sent against Mohan _Mundāhir_, is recognizable as mentioned in the _Bābur-nāma_. They may all have had local commands, and not have served further east. Perhaps this, their first appearance, points to the origin of the information as independent of Bābur, but he might have been found to name them, if his diary were complete for 936 AH. [2715] The E. and D. translation writes twice as though the inability to "pull" the bows were due to feebleness in the men, but an appropriate reading would refer the difficulty to the hardening of sinews in the composite Turkish bows, which prevented the archers from bending the bows for stringing. [2716] One infers that fires were burned all night in the bivouac. [2717] At this point the A.S.B. copy (No. 137) of the _Tārīkh-i-salāṯin-i-afāghana_ has a remark which may have been a marginal note originally, and which cannot be supposed made by Aḥmad-i-yādgār himself because this would allot him too long a spell of life. It may show however that the interpolations about the two Tīmūrids were not inserted in his book by him. Its purport is that the Mundāhir village destroyed by Bābur's troops in 936 AH.-1530 AD. was still in ruins at the time it was written 160 (lunar) years later (_i.e._ in 1096 AH.-1684-85 AD.). The better Codex (No. 3887) of the Imperial Library of Calcutta has the same passage.—Both that remark and its context show acquaintance with Samāna and Kaithal.—The writings now grouped under the title _Tārīkh-i-salāṯīn-i-afāghana_ present difficulties both as to date and contents (cf. Rieu's _Persian Catalogue_ _s. n._). [2718] Presumably in Tihrind. [2719] Cf. G. B.'s H. N. trs. and the _Akbar-nāma_ Bib. Ind. ed. and trs., Index _s.nn._; Hughes' _Dictionary of Islām_ _s.n._ Intercession. [2720] A closer translation would be, "I have taken up the burden." The verb is _bardāshtan_ (cf. f. 349, p. 626 n. 1). [2721] _See_ Erskine's _History of India_ ii, 9. [2722] At this point attention is asked to the value of the Aḥmad-i-yādgār interpolation which allows Bābur a year of active life before Humāyūn's illness and his own which followed. With no chronicle known of 936 AH. Bābur had been supposed ill all through the year, a supposition which destroys the worth of his self-sacrifice. Moreover several inferences have been drawn from the supposed year of illness which are disproved by the activities recorded in that interpolation. [2723] E. and D.'s _History of India_ v, 187; G. B.'s _Humāyūn-nāma_ trs. p. 28. [2724] _dar khidmat-i-dīwānī-i-buyūtāt_; perhaps he was a Barrack-officer. His appointment explains his attendance on Khalīfa. [2725] Khalīfa prescribed for the sick Bābur. [2726] _khānwāda-i-bīgānah_, perhaps, foreign dynasty. [2727] From Saṃbhal; Gul-badan, by an anachronism made some 60 years later, writes Kālanjar, to which place Humāyūn moved 5 months after his accession. [2728] I am indebted to my husband's perusal of Sayyid Aḥmad Khān's _As̤ār-i-ṣanādīd_ (Dihlī ed. 1854 p. 37, and Lakhnau ed. 1895 pp. 40, 41) for information that, perhaps in 935 AH., Mahdī Khwāja set up a tall slab of white marble near Amīr Khusrau's tomb in Dihlī, which bears an inscription in praise of the poet, composed by that Shihābu'd-dīn the Enigmatist who reached Āgra with Khwānd-amīr in Muḥarram 935 AH. (f. 339_b_). The inscription gives two chronograms of Khusrau's death (725 AH.), mentions that Mahdī Khwāja was the creator of the memorial, and gives its date in the words, "The beautiful effort of Mahdī Khwāja."—The Dihlī ed. of the _As̤ār-i-ṣanādīd_ depicts the slab with its inscription; the Lakhnau ed. depicts the tomb, may show the slab _in sitû_, and contains interesting matter by Sayyid Aḥmad Khān. The slab is mentioned without particulars in Murray's _Hand-book to Bengal_, p. 329. [2729] Lee's _Ibn Batuta_ p. 133 and Hirāman's _Tārīkh-i-gūālīārī_. Cf. G. B.'s _Humāyūn-nāma_ trs. (1902 AD.), Appendix B.—_Mahdī Khwāja._ [2730] In an anonymous _Life of Shāh Ismā`īl Ṣafawī_, Mahdī Khwāja [who may be a son of the Mūsa Khwāja mentioned by Bābur on f. 216] is described as being, in what will be 916-7 AH., Bābur's _Dīwān-begī_ and as sent towards Bukhārā with 10,000 men. This was 29 years before the story calls him a young man. Even if the word _jawān_ (young man) be read, as T. _yīgīt_ is frequently to be read, in the sense of "efficient fighting man", Mahdī was over-age. Other details of the story, besides the word _jawān_, bespeak a younger man. [2731] G. B.'s H. N. trs. p. 126; _Ḥabību's-siyar_, B. M. Add. 16,679 f. 370, l. 16, lith. ed. Sec. III. iii, 372 (where a clerical error makes Bābur give Māhdī _two_ of his full-sisters in marriage).—Another _yazna_ of Bābur was Khalīfā's brother Junaid _Barlās_, the husband of Shahr-bānū, a half-sister of Bābur. [2732] Bābur, shortly before his death, married Gul-rang to Aīsān-tīmūr and Gul-chihra to Tūkhta-būghā _Chaghatāī_. Cf. _post_, Section _h_, _Bābur's wives and children_; and G. B.'s H. N. trs. Biographical Appendix _s.nn._ Dil-dār Begīm and Salīma Sulṯān Begīm _Mirān-shāhi_. [2733] Cf. G. B.'s H. N. trs. p. 147. [2734] She is the only adult daughter of a Tīmūrid mother named as being such by Bābur or Gul-badan, but various considerations incline to the opinion that Dil-dār Begīm also was a Tīmūrid, hence her three daughters, all named from the Rose, were so too. Cf. references of penultimate note. [2735] It attaches interest to the Mīrzā that he can be taken reasonably as once the owner of the Elphinstone Codex (cf. JRAS. 1907, pp. 136 and 137). [2736] Death did not threaten when this gift was made; life in Kābul was planned for.—Here attention is asked again to the value of Aḥmad-i-yādgār's Bāburiana for removing the impression set on many writers by the blank year 936 AH. that it was one of illness, instead of being one of travel, hunting and sight-seeing. The details of the activities of that year have the further value that they enhance the worth of Bābur's sacrifice of life.—Ḥaidar Mīrzā also fixes the date of the beginning of illness as 937 AH.