The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
and status of parents—naming and the ceremonial observances proper for
Muhammadan children—visits to kinsfolk in Tashkint, and to Samarkand
(æt. 5, p. 35) where he was betrothed—his initiation in school
subjects, in sport, the use of arms—names of teachers—education in the
rules of his Faith (p. 44), appointment to the Andijan Command _etc._,
_etc._
There is now no fit beginning to the book; the present first sentence
and its pendent description of Farghana should be removed to the
position Babur's practice dictates of entering the description of a
territory at once on obtaining it (cf. Samarkand, Kabul, Hindustan). It
might come in on p. 30 at the end of the topic (partly omitted on p. 29
where no ground is given for the manifest anxiety about Babur's safety)
of the disputed succession (Haidar, trs. p. 135) Babur's partisan begs
having the better of Jahangir's (_q.v._), and having testified
obeisance, he became ruler in Farghana; his statement of age (12 years),
comes in naturally and the description of his newly acquired territory
follows according to rule. This removal of text to a later position has
the advantage of allowing the accession to follow and not precede
Babur's father's death.
By the removal there is left to consider the historical matter of pp.
12-13. The first paragraph concerns matter of much earlier date than
`Umar's death in 1494 (p. 13); it may be part of an obituary notice,
perhaps that of Yunas Khan. What follows of the advance of displeased
kinsmen against `Umar Shaikh would fall into place as part of Babur's
record of his boyhood, and lead on to that of his father's death.
The above is a bald sketch of what might be effected in the interests of
the book and to facilitate its pleasant perusal.
CHAPTER III.
THE TURKI MSS. AND WORK CONNECTING WITH THEM.
This chapter is a literary counterpart of "Babur Padshah's Stone-heap,"
the roadside cairn tradition says was piled by his army, each man laying
his stone when passing down from Kabul for Hindustan in the year of
victory 1525 (932).[11]
For a title suiting its contents is "Babur Padshah's Book-pile," because
it is fashioned of item after item of pen-work done by many men in
obedience to the dictates given by his book. Unlike the cairn, however,
the pile of books is not of a single occasion but of many, not of a
single year but of many, irregularly spacing the 500 years through which
he and his autobiography have had Earth's immortality.
Part I. The MSS. themselves.
_Preliminary._—Much of the information given below was published in the
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society from 1900 onwards, as it came into
my possession during a search for reliable Turki text of the
_Babur-nama_. My notes were progressive; some MSS. were in distant
places, some not traceable, but in the end I was able to examine in
England all of whose continued existence I had become aware. It was
inevitable that some of my earlier statements should be superseded
later; my Notes (_see s.n._ JRAS.) need clearing of transitory matter
and summarizing, in particular those on the Elphinstone Codex and
Klaproth's articles. Neither they nor what is placed here makes claim to
be complete. Other workers will supplement them when the World has
renewed opportunity to stroll in the bye-paths of literature.
Few copies of the _Babur-nama_ seem to have been made; of the few I have
traced as existing, not one contains the complete autobiography, and one
alone has the maximum of dwindled text shewn in the Persian translation
(1589). Two books have been reputed to contain Babur's authentic text,
one preserved in Hindustan by his descendants, the other issuing from
Bukhara. They differ in total contents, arrangement and textual worth;
moreover the Bukhara book compiles items of divers diction and origin
and date, manifestly not from one pen.
The Hindustan book is a record—now mutilated—of the Acts of Babur alone;
the Bukhara book as exhibited in its fullest accessible example, Kehr's
Codex, is in two parts, each having its preface, the first reciting
Babur's Acts, the second Humayun's.
The Bukhara book is a compilation of oddments, mostly translated from
compositions written after Babur's death. Textual and circumstantial
grounds warrant the opinion that it is a distinct work mistakenly
believed to be Babur's own; to these grounds was added in 1903 the
authoritative verdict of collation with the Haidarabad Codex, and in
1921 of the colophon of its original MS. in which its author gives his
name, with the title and date of his compilation (JRAS. 1900, p. 474).
What it is and what are its contents and history are told in Part III of
this chapter.
Part II. Work on the Hindustan MSS.
BABUR'S ORIGINAL CODEX.
My latest definite information about Babur's autograph MS. comes from
the _Padshah-nama_ (Bib. Ind. ed. ii, 4), whose author saw it in
Shah-i-jahan's private library between 1628 and 1638. Inference is
justified, however, that it was the archetype of the Haidarabad Codex
which has been estimated from the quality of its paper as dating _cir._
1700 (JRAS. 1906, p. 97). But two subsequent historic disasters
complicate all questions of MSS. missing from Indian libraries, namely,
Nadir Shah's vengeance on Dihli in 1739 and the dispersions and fires of
the Mutiny. Faint hope is kept alive that the original Codex may have
drifted into private hands, by what has occurred with the Rampur MS. of
Babur's Hindustan verses (App. J), which also appears once to have
belonged to Shah-i-jahan.
I
Amongst items of work done during Babur's life are copies of his book
(or of the Hindustan section of it) he mentions sending to sons and
friends.
II
The _Tabaqat-i-baburi_ was written during Babur's life by his Persian
secretary Shaikh Zainu'd-din of Khawaf; it paraphrases in rhetorical
Persian the record of a few months of Hindustan campaigning, including
the battle of Panipat.
TABLE OF THE HINDUSTAN MSS. OF THE BABUR-NAMA.[12]
----------------------+---------------+--------------------+-----------+
| Date of | Folio-standard | |
Names. | completion. | 382.[13] |Archetype. |
----------------------+---------------+--------------------+-----------+
1. Babur's Codex. |1530. |Originally much | -- |
| |over 382. | |
| | | |
2. Khwaja Kalan |1529. |Undefined 363(?), |No. 1. |
_Ahraris_ Codex. | |p. 652. | |
| | | |
| | | |
3. Humayun's Codex |1531(?). |Originally = No. 1 |No. 1. |
= (commanded | |(unmutilated). | |
and annotate?).[14]| | | |
| | | |
4. Muhammad Haidar |Between 1536 |No. 1 (unmutilated).|No. 1 or |
_Dughlat's_ Codex. |and 40(?). | |No. 2. |
| | | |
5. Elphinstone Codex. |Between 1556 |In 1816 and 1907, |No. 3. |
|and 1567. |286 ff. | |
| | | |
6. British Museum MS. |1629. |97 (fragments). |Unknown. |
| | | |
| | | |
7. Bib. Lindesiana MS.|Scribe living |71 (an extract). |Unknown. |
[now John Rylands] |in 1625. | | |
| | | |
| | | |
8. Haidarabad Codex. |Paper indicates|382. |(No. 1) |
|_cir._ 1700. | |mutilated. |
| | | |
----------------------+---------------+--------------------+-----------+
----------------------+-------------+------------------+----------------
| | Latest known |
Names. | Scribe. | location. | Remarks.
----------------------+-------------+------------------+----------------
1. Babur's Codex. |Babur. |Royal Library |Has disappeared.
| |between 1628-38. |
| | |
2. Khwaja Kalan |Unknown. |Sent to Samarkand |Possibly still
_Ahraris_ Codex. | |1529. |in Khwaja
| | |Kalan's family.
| | |
3. Humayun's Codex |`Ali'u-'l- |Royal Library |Seems the
= (commanded | katib(?). |between 1556-1567.|archetype of
and annotate?).[14]| | |No. 5.
| | |
4. Muhammad Haidar |Haidar(?) |Kashmir 1540-47. |Possibly now in
_Dughlat's_ Codex. | | |Kashghar.
| | |
5. Elphinstone Codex. |Unknown. |Advocates' Library|Bought in
| |(1816 to 1921). |Peshawar 1810.
| | |
6. British Museum MS. |`Ali'u'l- |British Museum. | --
| _kashmiri_.| |
| | |
7. Bib. Lindesiana MS.|Nur-muhammad |John Rylands | --
[now John Rylands] |(nephew of |Library. |
|`Abu'l-fazl).| |
| | |
8. Haidarabad Codex. |No colophon. |The late Sir |Centupled in
| |Salar-jang's |facsimile, 1905.
| |Library. |
----------------------+-------------+------------------+----------------
III
During the first decade of Humayun's reign (1530-40) at least
two important codices seem to have been copied.
The earlier (_see_ Table, No. 2) has varied circumstantial
warrant. It meets the need of an archetype, one marginally
annotated by Humayun, for the Elphinstone Codex in which a few
notes are marginal and signed, others are pell-mell,
interpolated in the text but attested by a scrutineer as having
been marginal in its archetype and mistakenly copied into its
text. This second set has been ineffectually sponged over. Thus
double collation is indicated (i) with Babur's autograph MS. to
clear out extra Babur matter, and (ii) with its archetype, to
justify the statement that in this the interpolations were
marginal.—No colophon survives with the much dwindled Elph.
Codex, but one, suiting the situation, has been observed, where
it is a complete misfit, appended to the Alwar Codex of the
second Persian translation, (estimated as copied in 1589). Into
the incongruities of that colophon it is not necessary to
examine here, they are too obvious to aim at deceit; it appears
fitly to be an imperfect translation from a Turki original,
this especially through its odd fashion of entitling "Humayun