The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
Padshah." It can be explained as translating the colophon of
the Codex (No. 2) which, as his possession, Humayun allowably
annotated and which makes it known that he had ordered
`Ali'u-'l-katib to copy his father's Turki book, and that it
was finished in February, 1531, some six weeks after Babur's
death.[15]
The later copy made in Humayun's first decade is Haidar Mirza's
(_infra_).
IV
Muhammad Haidar Mirza _Dughlat's_ possession of a copy of the
Autobiography is known both from his mention of it and through
numerous extracts translated from it in his _Tarikh-i-rashidi_.
As a good boy-penman (p. 22) he may have copied down to 1512
(918) while with Babur (p. 350), but for obtaining a transcript
of it his opportunity was while with Humayun before the
Timurid exodus of 1541. He died in 1551; his Codex is likely to
have found its way back from Kashmir to his ancestral home in
the Kashghar region and there it may still be. (_See_ T.R. trs.
Ney Elias' biography of him).
V
The Elphinstone Codex[16] has had an adventurous career. The
enigma of its archetype is posed above; it may have been copied
during Akbar's first decade (1556-67); its, perhaps first,
owner was a Bai-qara rebel (d. 1567) from amongst whose
possessions it passed into the Royal Library, where it was
cleared of foreign matter by the expunction of Humayun's
marginal notes which its scribe had interpolated into its text.
At a date I do not know, it must have left the Royal Library
for its fly-leaves bear entries of prices and in 1810 it was
found and purchased in Peshawar by Elphinstone. It went with
him to Calcutta, and there may have been seen by Leyden during
the short time between its arrival and the autumn month of the
same year (1810) when he sailed for Java. In 1813 Elphinstone
in Poona sent it to Erskine in Bombay, saying that he had
fancied it gone to Java and had been writing to `Izzatu'l-lah
to procure another MS. for Erskine in Bukhara, but that all the
time it was on his own shelves. Received after Erskine had
dolefully compared his finished work with Leyden's (tentative)
translation, Erskine sadly recommenced the review of his own
work. The Codex had suffered much defacement down to 908 (1502)
at the hands of "a Persian Turk of Ganj" who had interlined it
with explanations. It came to Scotland (with Erskine?) who in
1826 sent it with a covering letter (Dec. 12th, 1826), at its
owner's desire, to the Advocates' Library where it now is. In
1907 it was fully described by me in the JRAS.
VI
Of two _Waqi'at-i-baburi_ (Pers. trs.) made in Akbar's reign,
the earlier was begun in 1583, at private instance, by two
Mughuls Payanda-hasan of Ghazni and Muhammad-quli of Hisar.
The Bodleian and British Museum Libraries have copies of it,
very fragmentary unfortunately, for it is careful, likeable,
and helpful by its small explanatory glosses. It has the great
defect of not preserving autobiographic quality in its diction.
VII
The later _Waqi'at-i-baburi_ translated by `Abdu'r-rahim Mirza
is one of the most important items in Baburiana, both by its
special characteristics as the work of a Turkman and not of a
Persian, and by the great service it has done. Its origin is
well-known; it was made at Akbar's order to help Abu'l-faẓl in
the Akbar-nāma account of Babur and also to facilitate perusal
of the _Babur-nama_ in Hindustan. It was presented to Akbar, by
its translator who had come up from Gujrat, in the last week of
November, 1589, on an occasion and at a place of admirable
fitness. For Akbar had gone to Kabul to visit Babur's tomb, and
was halting on his return journey at Barik-ab where Babur had
halted on his march down to Hindustan in the year of victory
1525, at no great distance from "Babur Padshah's Stone-heap".
Abu'l-faẓl's account of the presentation will rest on
`Abdu'r-rahim's information (A.N. trs. cap. ci). The diction of
this translation is noticeable; it gave much trouble to Erskine
who thus writes of it (_Memoirs_ Preface, lx), "Though simple
and precise, a close adherence to the idioms and forms of
expression of the Turki original joined to a want of
distinctness in the use of the relatives, often renders the
meaning extremely obscure, and makes it difficult to discover
the connexion of the different members of the sentence.[17] The
style is frequently not Persian.... Many of the Turki words are
untranslated."
Difficult as these characteristics made Erskine's
interpretation, it appears to me likely that they indirectly
were useful to him by restraining his diction to some extent in
their Turki fettering.—This Turki fettering has another aspect,
apart from Erskine's difficulties, _viz_. it would greatly
facilitate re-translation into Turki, such as has been
effected, I think, in the Farghana section of the Bukhara
compilation.[18]
VIII
This item of work, a harmless attempt of Salim (_i.e_. Jahangir
Padshah; 1605-28) to provide the ancestral autobiography with
certain stop-gaps, has caused much needless trouble and
discussion without effecting any useful result. It is this:—In
his own autobiography, the _Tuzuk-i-jahangiri s.a_. 1607, he
writes of a Babur-nama Codex he examined, that it was all in
Babur's "blessed handwriting" except four portions which were
in his own and each of which he attested in Turki as so being.
Unfortunately he did not specify his topics; unfortunately also
no attestation has been found to passages reasonably enough
attributable to his activities. His portions may consist of the
"Rescue-passage" (App. D) and a length of translation from the
_Akbar-nāma_, a continuous part of its Babur chapter but broken
up where only I have seen it, _i.e._ the Bukhara compilation,
into (1) a plain tale of Kanwa (1527), (2) episodes of Babur's
latter months (1529)—both transferred to the first person—and
(3) an account of Babur's death (December 26th, 1530) and
Court.
Jahangir's occupation, harmless in itself, led to an imbroglio
of Langlés with Erskine, for the former stating in the
_Biographie Universelle_ art. Babour, that Babour's
Commentaries "_augmentés par Jahangir_" were translated into
Persian by `Abdu'r-rahim. Erskine made answer, "I know not on
what authority the learned Langlés hazarded this assertion,
which is certainly incorrect" (_Memoirs_, Preface, p. ix). Had
Langlés somewhere met with Jahangir's attestations? He had
authority if he had seen merely the statement of 1607, but
Erskine was right also, because the Persian translation
contains no more than the unaugmented Turki text. The royal
stop-gaps are in Kehr's MS. and through Ilminski reached De
Courteille, whence the biting and thorough analysis of the
three "Fragments" by Teufel. Both episodes—the Langlés and the
Teufel ones—are time-wasters but they are comprehensible in
the circumstances that Jahangir could not foresee the
consequences of his doubtless good intentions.
If the question arise of how writings that had had place in
Jahangir's library reached Bukhara, their open road is through
the Padshah's correspondence (App. Q and references), with a
descendant of Ahrari in whose hands they were close to
Bukhara.[19]
It groups scattered information to recall that Salim (Jahangir)
was `Abdu'r-rahim's ward, that then, as now, Babur's
Autobiography was the best example of classic Turki, and that
it would appeal on grounds of piety—as it did appeal on some
sufficient ground—to have its broken story made good. Also that
for three of the four "portions" Abu'l-fazl's concise matter
was to hand.
IX
My information concerning Baburiana under Shah-i-jahan Padshah
(1628-58) is very meagre. It consists of (1) his attestation of
a signature of Babur (App. Q and photo), (2) his possession of
Babur's autograph Codex (_Padshah-nama_, Bib. Ind. ed., ii, 4),
and (3) his acceptance, and that by his literary entourage, of
Mir Abu-talib _Husaini's_ Persian translation of Timur's
Annals, the _Malfuzat_ whose preparation the _Zafar-nama_
describes and whose link with Babur's writings is that of the
exemplar to the emulator.[20]
X
The Haidarabad Codex may have been inscribed under Aurang-zib
Padshah (1655-1707). So many particulars about it have been
given already that little needs saying here.[21] It was the
_grande trouvaille_ of my search for Turki text wherewith to
revive Babur's autobiography both in Turki and English. My
husband in 1900 saw it in Haidarabad; through the kind offices
of the late Sayyid Ali _Bilgrami_ it was lent to me; it proved
to surpass, both in volume and quality, all other Babur-nama
MSS. I had traced; I made its merits known to Professor Edward
Granville Browne, just when the E. J. Wilkinson Gibb Trust was
in formation, with the happy and accordant result that the best
prose book in classic Turki became the first item in the
Memorial—_matris ad filium_—of literary work done in the name
of the Turkish scholar, and Babur's very words were safeguarded
in hundred-fold facsimile. An event so important for
autobiography and for Turki literature may claim more than the
bald mention of its occurrence, because sincere autobiography,
however ancient, is human and social and undying, so that this
was no mere case of multiplying copies of a book, but was one
of preserving a man's life in his words. There were, therefore,
joyful red-letter days in the English story of the
Codex—outstanding from others being those on which its merits
revealed themselves (on Surrey uplands)—the one which brought
Professor Browne's acceptance of it for reproduction by the
Trust—and the day of pause from work marked by the accomplished
fact of the safety of the _Babur-nama._
XI
The period from _cir._ 1700, the date of the Haidarabad Codex,
and 1810, when the Elphinstone Codex was purchased by its
sponsor at Peshawar, appears to have been unfruitful in work on
the Hindustan MSS. Causes for this may connect with historic
events, _e.g._ Nadir Shah's desolation of Dihli and the rise of
the East India Company, and, in Baburiana, with the
disappearance of Babur's autograph Codex (it was unknown to the
Scots of 1800-26), and the transfer of the Elphinstone Codex
from royal possession—this, possibly however, an accident of
royal travel to and from Kabul at earlier dates.
The first quarter of the nineteenth century was, on the
contrary, most fruitful in valuable work, useful impulse to
which was given by Dr. John Leyden who in about 1805 began to
look into Turki. Like his contemporary Julius Klaproth
(_q.v._), he was avid of tongues and attracted by Turki and by
Babur's writings of which he had some knowledge through the
`Abdu'r-rahim (Persian) translation. His Turki text-book would
be the MS. of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,[22] a part-copy of
the Bukhara compilation, from which he had the India Office MS.
copied. He took up Turki again in 1810, after his return from
Malay and whilst awaiting orders in Calcutta for departure to
Java. He sailed in the autumn of the year and died in August
1811. Much can be learned about him and his Turki occupations
from letters (_infra_ xiii) written to Erskine by him and by
others of the Scottish band which now achieved such fine
results for Babur's Autobiography.
It is necessary to say something of Leyden's part in producing
the _Memoirs_, because Erskine, desiring to "lose nothing that
might add to Leyden's reputation", has assigned to him an undue