The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
Up till then we had taken no thought where to camp, where to go, where
to stay; we had just marched up and down, camping in fresh places, while
waiting for news.[1314] It was late in the autumn; most lowlanders had
carried in their rice. People knowing the local land and water
represented that the Mīl Kāfirs up the water of the `Alīshang _tūmān_
grow great quantities of rice, so that we might be able to collect
winter supplies from them for the army. Accordingly we rode out of the
Nīngnahār dale (_julga_), crossed (the Bārān-water) at Sāīkal, and went
swiftly as far as the Pūr-amīn (easeful) valley. [Sidenote: Fol. 214b.]
There the soldiers took a mass of rice. The rice-fields were all at the
bottom of the hills. The people fled but some Kāfirs went to their
death. A few of our braves had been sent to a look-out (_sar-kūb_)[1315]
on a naze of the Pūr-anīm valley; when they were returning to us, the
Kāfirs rushed from the hill above, shooting at them. They overtook Qāsim
Beg's son-in-law Pūrān, chopped at him with an axe, and were just taking
him when some of the braves went back, brought strength to bear, drove
them off and got Pūrān away. After one night spent in the Kāfirs'
rice-fields, we returned to camp with a mass of provisions collected.
(_u. Marriage of Muqīm's daughter._)
While we were near Mandrāwar in those days, an alliance was concluded
between Muqīm's daughter Māh-chūchūk, now married to Shāh Ḥasan
_Arghūn_, and Qāsim Kūkūldāsh.[1316]
(_v. Abandonment of the Hindūstān project._)
As it was not found desirable to go on into Hindūstān, I sent Mullā Bābā
of Pashāghar back to Kābul with a few braves. Meantime I marched from
near Mandrāwar to Atar and Shīwa and lay there for a few days. From Atar
I visited Kūnār and Nūr-gal; from Kūnār I went back to camp on a raft;
it was the first time I had sat on one; it pleased me much, and the raft
came into common use thereafter.
(_w. Shaibāq Khān retires from Qandahār._)
In those same days Mullā Bābā of Farkat came from Nāṣir Mīrzā with news
in detail that Shaibāq Khān, after taking the outer-fort of Qandahār,
had not been able to take the citadel but had retired; also that the
Mīrzā, on various accounts, had left Qandahār and gone to Ghaznī.
Shaibāq Khān's arrival before Qandahār, within a few days [Sidenote:
Fol. 215.] of our own departure, had taken the garrison by surprise, and
they had not been able to make fast the outer-fort. He ran mines several
times round about the citadel and made several assaults. The place was
about to be lost. At that anxious time Khwāja Muḥ. Amīn, Khwāja Dost
Khāwand, Muḥ. `Alī, a foot-soldier, and Shāmī (Syrian?) let themselves
down from the walls and got away. Just as those in the citadel were
about to surrender in despair, Shaibāq Khān interposed words of peace
and uprose from before the place. Why he rose was this:—It appears that
before he went there, he had sent his _ḥaram_ to Nīrah-tū,[1317] and
that in Nīrah-tū some-one lifted up his head and got command in the
fort; the Khān therefore made a sort of peace and retired from Qandahār.
(_x. Bābur returns to Kābul._)
Mid-winter though it was we went back to Kābul by the Bād-i-pīch road. I
ordered the date of that transit and that crossing of the pass to be cut
on a stone above Bād-i-pīch;[1318] Ḥāfiẓ Mīrak wrote the inscription,
Ustād Shāh Muḥammad did the cutting, not well though, through haste.
I bestowed Ghaznī on Nāṣir Mīrzā and gave `Abdu'r-razzāq Mīrzā the
Nīngnahār _tūmān_ with Mandrāwar, Nūr-valley, Kūnār and Nūr-gal.[1319]
(_y. Bābur styles himself Pādshāh._)
Up to that date people had styled Tīmūr Beg's descendants _Mīrzā_, even
when they were ruling; now I ordered that people should style me
_Pādshāh_.[1320]
(_z. Birth of Bābur's first son._)
At the end of this year, on Tuesday the 4th day of the month of
Ẕū'l-qa`da (March 6th 1506 AD.), the Sun being in Pisces [Sidenote: Fol.
215b.] (_Ḥūt_), Humāyūn was born in the citadel of Kābul. The date of
his birth was found by the poet Maulānā Masnadī in the words _Sulṯān
Humāyūn Khān_,[1321] and a minor poet of Kābul found it in
_Shāh-i-fīrūs-qadr_ (Shāh of victorious might). A few days later he
received the name Humāyūn; when he was five or six days old, I went out
to the Chār-bāgh where was had the feast of his nativity. All the begs,
small and great, brought gifts; such a mass of white _tankas_ was heaped
up as had never been seen before. It was a first-rate feast!
914 AH.—MAY 2ND 1508 TO APRIL 21ST 1509 AD.[1322]
This spring a body of Mahmand Afghāns was over-run near Muqur.[1323]
(_a. A Mughūl rebellion._)
A few days after our return from that raid, Qūj Beg, Faqīr-i-`alī,
Karīm-dād and Bābā _chuhra_ were thinking about deserting, but their
design becoming known, people were sent who took them below Astar-ghach.
As good-for-nothing words of theirs had been reported to me, even during
Jahāngīr M.'s life-time,[1324] I ordered that they should be put to
death at the top of the _bāzār_. They had been taken to the place; the
ropes had been fixed; and they were about to be hanged when Qāsim Beg
sent Khalīfa to me with an urgent entreaty that I would pardon their
offences. To please him I gave them their lives, but I ordered them kept
in custody.
What there was of Khusrau Shāh's retainers from Ḥiṣār and Qūndūz,
together with the head-men of the Mughūls, Chilma, [Sidenote: Fol. 216.]
`Alī Sayyid,[1325] Sakma (?), Sher-qulī and Aīkū-sālam (?), and also
Khusrau Shāh's favourite Chaghatāī retainers under Sl. `Alī _chuhra_ and
Khudabakhsh, with also 2 or 3000 serviceable Turkmān braves led by
Sīūndūk and Shāh Naẕar,[1326] the whole of these, after consultation,
took up a bad position towards me. They were all seated in front of
Khwāja Riwāj, from the Sūng-qūrghān meadow to the Chālāk; `Abdu'r-razzāq
Mīrzā, come in from Nīng-nahār, being in Dih-i-afghān.[1327]
Earlier on Muḥibb-i-`alī the armourer had told Khalīfa and Mullā Bābā
once or twice of their assemblies, and both had given me a hint, but the
thing seeming incredible, it had had no attention. One night, towards
the Bed-time Prayer, when I was sitting in the Audience-hall of the
Chār-bāgh, Mūsa Khwāja, coming swiftly up with another man, said in my
ear, "The Mughūls are really rebelling! We do not know for certain
whether they have got `Abdu'r-razzāq M. to join them. They have
not settled to rise to-night." I feigned disregard and a little
later went towards the _ḥarams_ which at the time were in the
Yūrūnchqa-garden[1328] and the Bāgh-i-khilwat, but after page, servitor
and messenger (_yasāwal_) had turned back on getting [Sidenote: Fol.
216b.] near them, I went with the chief-slave towards the town, and on
along the ditch. I had gone as far as the Iron-gate when Khwāja Muḥ.
`Alī[1329] met me, he coming by the _bāzār_ road from the opposite
direction. He joined me ... of the porch of the Hot-bath
(_ḥammām_)....[1330]
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE ON 914 TO 925 AH.—1508 TO 1519 AD.
From several references made in the _Bābur-nāma_ and from a passage in
Gul-badan's _Humāyūn-nāma_ (f. 15), it is inferrible that Bābur was
composing the annals of 914 AH. not long before his last illness and
death.[1331]
Before the diary of 925 AH. (1519 AD.) takes up the broken thread of his
autobiography, there is a _lacuna_ of narrative extending over nearly
eleven years. The break was not intended, several references in the
_Bābur-nāma_ shewing Bābur's purpose to describe events of the
unchronicled years.[1332] Mr. Erskine, in the Leyden and Erskine
_Memoirs_, carried Bābur's biography through the major _lacunæ_, but
without firsthand help from the best sources, the _Habību's-siyar_ and
_Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_. He had not the help of the first even in his
_History of India_. M. de Courteille working as a translator only, made
no attempt to fill the gaps.
Bābur's biography has yet to be completed; much time is demanded by the
task, not only in order to exhaust known sources and seek others further
afield, but to weigh and balance the contradictory statements of writers
deep-sundered in sympathy and outlook. To strike such a balance is
essential when dealing with the events of 914 to 920 AH. because in
those years Bābur had part in an embittered conflict between Sunni and
Shī`a. What I offer below, as a stop-gap, is a mere summary of events,
mainly based on material not used by Mr. Erskine, with a few comments
prompted by acquaintance with Bāburiana.
_USEFUL SOURCES_
Compared with what Bābur could have told of this most interesting period
of his life, the yield of the sources is scant, a natural sequel from
the fact that no one of them had his biography for its main theme, still
less had his own action in crises of enforced ambiguity.
Of all known sources the best are Khwānd-amīr's _Ḥabību's-siyar_ and
Ḥaidar Mīrzā _Dūghlāt's Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_. The first was finished
nominally in 930 AH. (1524-5 AD.), seven years therefore before Bābur's
death, but it received much addition of matter concerning Bābur after
its author went to Hindūstān in 934 AH. (f. 339). Its fourth part, a
life of Shāh Ismā`īl _Ṣafawī_ is especially valuable for the years of
this _lacuna_. Ḥaidar's book was finished under Humāyūn in 953 AH. (1547
AD.), when its author had reigned five years in Kashmīr. It is the most
valuable of all the sources for those interested in Bābur himself, both
because of Ḥaidar's excellence as a biographer, and through his close
acquaintance with Bābur's family. From his eleventh to his thirteenth
year he lived under Bābur's protection, followed this by 19 years
service under Sa`īd Khān, the cousin of both, in Kāshghar, and after
that Khān's death, went to Bābur's sons Kāmrān and Humāyūn in Hindūstān.
A work issuing from a Sunnī Aūzbeg centre, Faẓl bin Ruzbahān _Isfahānī's
Sūlūku'l-mulūk_, has a Preface of special value, as shewing one view of
what it writes of as the spread of heresy in Māwarā'u'n-nahr through
Bābur's invasions. The book itself is a Treatise on Musalmān Law, and
was prepared by order of `Ubaidu'l-lāh Khān _Aūzbeg_ for his help in
fulfilling a vow he had made, before attacking Bābur in 918 AH., at the
shrine of Khwāja Aḥmad _Yasawī_ [in Haẓrat Turkistān], that, if he were
victorious, he would conform exactly with the divine Law and uphold it
in Māwarā'u'n-nahr (Rieu's Pers. Cat. ii, 448).
The _Tārīkh-i Ḥājī Muḥammad `Ārif Qandahārī_ appears, from the frequent
use Firishta made of it, to be a useful source, both because its author
was a native of Qandahār, a place much occupying Bābur's activities, and
because he was a servant of Bairām Khān-i-khānān, whose assassination
under Akbar he witnessed.[1333] Unfortunately, though his life of Akbar
survives no copy is now known of the section of his General History
which deals with Bābur's.
An early source is Yahya _Kazwīnī's Lubbu't-tawārīkh_, written in 948
AH. (1541 AD.), but brief only in the Bābur period. It issued from a
Shī`a source, being commanded by Shāh Ismā`īl _Ṣafawī_'s son Bahrām.
Another work issuing also from a _Ṣafawī_ centre is Mīr Sikandar's
_Tārīkh-i-`ālam-arāī_, a history of Shāh `Abbas I, with an introduction
treating of his predecessors which was completed in 1025 AH. (1616 AD.).
Its interest lies in its outlook on Bābur's dealings with Shāh Ismā`īl.
A later source, brief only, is Firishta's _Tārīkh-i-firishta_, finished
under Jahāngīr in the first quarter of the 17th century.
Mr. Erskine makes frequent reference to Kh(w)āfī Khān's _Tārīkh_, a
secondary authority however, written under Aurangzīb, mainly based on
Firishta's work, and merely summarizing Bābur's period. References to
detached incidents of the period are found in Shaikh `Abdu'l-qādir's
_Tārīkh-i-badāyūnī_ and Mīr Ma`ṣūm's _Tārīkh-i-sind_.