Bābur

“ They even said they had no daughter to give. Bābur replied with a “beautiful” royal letter, told of his visit disguised to Shāh Manṣūr’s house, of his seeing Bībī Mubāraka and as token of the truth of his story, asked them to search for the food he had hidden. They [Pg xl] searched and found. Aḥmad and Manṣūr were still averse, but the tribesmen urged that as before they had always made sacrifice for the tribe so should they do now, for by giving the daughter in marriage, they would save the tribe from Bābur’s anger. ”

“ Bābur’s campaign in Transoxiana begun.
The Mīrzā’s letter was brought over passes blocked by snow; Bābur, with all possible speed, took the one winter-route through Āb-dara, kept the Ramẓān Feast in Bāmīān, and reached Qūndūz in Shawwāl (Jan. 1511 AD.) . Ḥaidar’s detail about the Feast seems likely to have been recorded because he had read Bābur’s own remark, made in Ramẓān 933 AH. (June 1527) that up to that date, when he kept it in Sīkrī, he had not since his eleventh year kept it twice in the same place (f. 330) .
c. Mughūl affairs. ”

“ Khwāja Aḥrārī’s promises did nothing to fulfil Bābur’s wishes for 908 AH. while those of Ya‘qūb for immediate victory were closely followed by defeat and exile. Bābur knew the facts; the passage cannot be his. It looks as though the writer saw Bābur in Karnān across Tīmūrid success in Hindūstān.
xi. The style and wording of the passage are not in harmony with those of the true text.
Other reasons for rejection are marked change in choice of the details chosen for commemoration, e.g. when Bābur mentions prayer, he does so simply; when he tells a dream, it seems a real one. ”

“ These Mughūls had for chiefs men who when Sa‘īd went to Andijān, elected to stay with Bābur. One of the three named by Ḥaidar was Ayūb Begchīk. He repented his disloyalty; when he lay dying some two years later (920 AH.) in Yāngī-ḥiṣār, he told Sa‘īd Khān who visited him, that what was “lacerating his bowels and killing him with remorse”, was his faithlessness to Bābur in Ḥiṣār, the oath he had broken at the instigation of those “hogs and bears”, the Mughūl chiefs (T.R. p. 315) .
In this year but before the Mughūl treachery to Bābur, Ḥaidar left him, starting in Rajab (Sep.-Oct.) ”

“ This ancient town of the Sahāranpūr district is associated with a saint revered by Hindūs and Muḥammadans. Cf. W. Crooke’s Popular Religion of Northern India p. 133. Its chashma may be inferred (from Bābur’s uses of the word q.v. Index) as a water-head, a pool, a gathering place of springs.
[1657] He was the eighth son of Bābur’s maternal-uncle Sl. Aḥmad Khān Chaghatāī and had fled to Bābur, other brothers following him, from the service of their eldest brother Manṣūr, Khāqān of the Mughūls (Tārīkh-i-rashīdī trs. p. 161) . ”

“ If Aḥmad-i-yādgār’s account of a journey made by Bābur to Lāhor and the Panj-āb be accepted, the lacuna of 936 AH. is appropriately filled. He places the expedition in the 3rd year of Bābur’s rule in Hindūstān, which, counting from the first reading of the khut̤ba for Bābur in Dihlī (f. 286) , began on Rajab 15th 935 AH. (March 26th 1529 AD.) . ”

“ Of Bābur it is said that he, who was the reserve, did not fight at all; it is difficult to see good cause why, under all the circumstances, he should risk the loss of his men. It seems likely that Ḥaidar’s strong language about this defeat would suit Bābur’s temper also. “The victorious breezes of Islām overturned the banners of the schismatics.... Most of them perished on the field; the rents made by the sword at Qarshī were sewn up at Ghaj-davān by the arrow-stitches of vengeance. Najm S̤ānī and all the Turkmān amīrs were sent to hell.” ”

“ Such a change is explicable by desire to avoid encounter with Bābur’s following, here perhaps the army of Aūd, and the same desire is manifested by their abandonment of a fort captured (f. 377b) some days before the rumour reached Bābur of their crossing Sarū and Gogar.—Since translating the passage on f. 338, I have been led, by enforced attention to the movement of the confluence of Ghogrā with Ganges (Sarū with Gang) to see that that translation, eased in obedience to distances shewn in maps, may be wrong and that Bābur’s statement that he dismounted 2-3 kurohs (4-6 m.) ”

“ Shāh Beg was succeeded in Sind by his son Ḥasan, who read the khut̤ba for Bābur and drew closer links with Bābur’s circle by marrying, either this year or the next, Khalīfa’s daughter Gul-barg, with whom betrothal had been made during Ḥasan’s visit to Bābur in Kābul. Moreover Khalīfa’s son Muḥibb-i-‘alī married Nāhīd the daughter of Qāsim Kūkūldāsh and Māh-chūchūk Arghūn (f. 214b) . These alliances were made, says Ma‘ṣūm, to strengthen Ḥasan’s position at Bābur’s Court. ”

“ So far doubtfully might be Bābur’s but it may be Humāyūn’s written as a note for Bābur. What follows appears to be by some-one who knew the details of Māhīm’s household talk and was in Kābul when Dil-dār’s child was taken from her.
“Seemingly women have the custom of taking omens in the following way:—When they have said, ‘Is it to be a boy? is it [Pg xliii] to be a girl?’ they write ‘Alī or Ḥasan on one of two pieces of paper and Fāt̤ima on the other, put each paper into a ball of clay and throw both into a bowl of water. Whichever opens first is taken as an omen ”

“ But as Bābur’s diary-record for 935 AH. is complete down to end of the year, (minor lacunæ excepted) , the time of his leaving Āgra for Lāhor is relegated to 936 AH. He must have left early in the year, (1) to allow time, before the occurrence of the known events preceding his own death, for the long expedition Aḥmad-i-yādgār calls one of a year, and (2) because an early start after Humāyūn’s arrival and Sulaimān’s departure would suit the position of affairs and the dates mentioned or implied by Ḥaidar’s and by Aḥmad-i-yādgār’s narratives. ”

“ The annals of this campaign to the eastward shew that Bābur was little of a free agent; that many acts of his own were merciful; that he sets down the barbarity of others as it was, according to his plan of writing (f. 86) ; and that he had with him undisciplined robbers of Khusrau Shāh’s former following. He cannot be taken as having power to command or control the acts of those, his guest-begs and their following, who dictated his movements in this disastrous journey, one worse than a defeat, says Ḥaidar Mīrzā. ”

“ Bābur names a few men as drunkards, a few as entirely obedient; most of his men seem not to have obeyed the Law and may have been “temperate drinkers”; they effected work, Bābur amongst them, which habitual drunkards could not have compassed. Spite of all he writes of his worst excesses, it must be just to remember his Musalmān conscience, and also the distorting power of a fictitious sin. Though he broke the law binding all men against excess, and this on several confessed occasions, his rule may have been no worse than that of the ordinarily temperate Western. ”

“ P. 251.—Niz̤āmī expresses the opinion that “Fate is an avenging servitor” but not in the words used by Bābur (p. 251) . He does this when moralizing on Farhad’s death, brought about by Khusrau’s trick and casting the doer into dread of vengeance (H. B.) .
P. 266 n. 7.—On p. 266 Bābur allots three daughters to Pāpā Aghācha and on p. 269 four. Various details make for four. But, if four, the total of eleven (p. 261) is exceeded. ”

“ Bābur in 421. Badrū-ferry (Ghogrā, Sarū) ; 667 n. 5. Bādshāh-nagar (U.P. India) , Bābur’s visit gives the name to 678 n. 1. Bāgar (Rājpūtāna) , a holder of 573; identified 573 n. 2. “Bāghdād,” a variant for Būghdā 40 and n. 2. Bāghlān (Qūndūz) , nomads leave Kābul for 402. Bahār or Bihār (Kābul) , seat of a tribe 413; Bābur at 414. Bahat, Bihat, Jhelum-river (Panj-āb) , course of 485; Bābur on 382, *441, 453; crossed in fear of him 382. Bahraich (U.P. India) , revenue of 521; locates Ghazrā crossings 669. Bajaur (N.W.F.P. India) , concerning its name 367 n. ”

“ They moved when they felt themselves strong enough to attack, whether by addition to their own numbers, whether by learning that Bābur had not largely increased his own. Concerning the second alternative it is open to surmise that he hoped for larger reinforcement than he obtained; he appears to have left Qūndūz before the return of Mīrzā Khān from his embassy to Ismā‘īl, to have expected Persian reinforcement with the Mīrzā, and at Pul-i-sangīn, where the Mīrzā joined him in time to fight, to have been strengthened by the Mīrzā’s own following, and few, if any, foreign auxiliaries. ”

“ Matters which make against Bābur’s having a large effective force at Kul-i-malik, and favour Khwānd-amīr’s statement about the affair are these:—‘Ubaid must have formed some estimate of what he had to meet, and he brought 3000 men. Where could Bābur have obtained 40,000 men worth reckoning in a fight? In several times of crisis his own immediate and ever-faithful troop is put at 500; as his cause was now unpopular, local accretions may have been few. Some Mughūls from Merv and from Kābul were near Samarkand (T.R. pp. 263, 265) ; most were with Sa‘īd in Andijān ”

“ Give a hundred thanks, Bābur, that the generous Pardoner
Has given thee Sind and Hind and many a kingdom.
If thou (i.e. the Khwāja) have not the strength for their heats,
If thou say, “Let me see the cold side (yūz) ,” Ghaznī is there.1931 (f. Accretions to Bābur’s force.)
At this juncture, Mullā Apāq was sent into Kūl with royal letters of favour for the soldiers and quiver-wearers (tarkash-band) of that neighbourhood. Shaikh Gūran (G’hūran) 1932 came trustfully and loyally to do obeisance, bringing with him from 2 to 3,000 soldiers and quiver-wearers from Between-two-waters (Mīān-dū-āb) . ”

“ I surmise that the reflective verses following the Wālidiyyah belong to the 40 days’ illness of 934 AH. i.e. were composed in the period of the lacuna. The Collection, as it is in the “Rāmpūr Dīwān”, went to a friend who was probably Khwāja Kalān; it may have been the only such collection made by Bābur. No other copy of it has so far been found. It has the character of an individual gift with verses specially addressed to its recipient. Any light upon it which may have vanished with pages of 934 AH. is an appreciable loss. ”

“ Sult̤ān ‘Alī Mīrzā T̤aghāī Begchīk (Mīrzā Beg T̤aghāī) , brother (?) of Bābur’s wife Gul-rukh—movements of his which bear on the lacuna of 914-924 AH. 408; arrives in Kābul (925) ib.; Kāmrān marries his daughter (934) 619; conveys Bābur’s wedding gifts to Kāmrān (935) 642; takes also a copy of the Wālidiyyah-risāla and of the Hindūstān poems, with writings (sar-khat̤t̤) in the Bāburī script 642. Ustād ‘Alī-qulī—his match-lock shooting at Bajaur (925) 369; shoots prisoners (932) 466; ordered to make Rūmī defences at Pānīpat 469 ”

“ He left no one to represent him in India, he claimed no sovereignty, and founded no dynasty there. There is no doubt much in the prestige of a name; and though six generations had passed away, the people of Northern India still trembled at that of the lame monster. Bābur wished to impress upon the minds of the people the notion that he had at his back the same army of demons that Tīmūr had commanded ”

“ Aḥmad Taṃbal.
[1158] Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ does not show well in his book; he is sometimes coarse, gloats over spoil whether in human captives or goods, and, his good-birth not-forbidding, is a servile flatterer. Bābur’s word “heartless” is just; it must have had sharp prompting from Ṣāliḥ’s rejoicing in the downfall of The Khāns, Bābur’s uncles.
[1159] the Longer (Ḥ.S. iii, 349) .
[1160] Maulānā Badru’d-dīn (Full-moon of the Faith) whose pen-name was Hilālī, was of Astarābād. ”

“ I venture to supplement this by the suggestion that Bābur, by Barā Koh, did not mean the whole of the rocky ridge, the name of which, Takht-i-sulaimān, an ancient name, must have been known to him, but one only of its four marked summits. Writing of the ridge Madame Ujfalvy says, “Il y a quatre sommets dont le plus élevé est le troisième comptant par le nord.” Which summit in her sketch (p. 327) is the third and highest is not certain, but one is so shewn that it may be the third, may be the highest and, as being a peak, can be described as symmetrical i.e. Bābur’s mauzūn. ”

“ For Bābur’s table of measures the Pers. trs. has 40 sers = 1 man; 12 mans = 1 mānī; 100 mānī they call mīnāsa (217, f. 201b, l. 8) .
[1911] Presumably these are caste-names.
[1912] The words in parenthesis appear to be omitted from the text; to add them brings Bābur’s remark into agreement with others on what he several times makes note of, viz. the absence not only of irrigation-channels but of those which convey “running-waters” to houses and gardens. Such he writes of in Farghāna; such are a well-known charm e.g. ”

“ It refers to a date falling within the previous gap, because the man went to Kāshghar while Bābur was ruling in Samarkand (T.R. p. 265) . The last time Bābur came from Khwāst to Kābul was probably in 920 AH.; if later, it was still in the gap. But an alternative explanation is that looking over and annotating the diary section, Bābur made this reference to what he fully meant to write but died before being able to do so.
[1493] Anglicé, the right thumb, on which the archer’s ring (zih-gīr) is worn.
[1494] a daughter of Yūnas Khān, Ḥaidar’s account of whom is worth seeing. ”

“ In those leisurely days I discovered in myself a strange inclination, nay! as the verse says, ‘I maddened and afflicted myself’ for a boy in the camp-bazar, his very name, Bāburī, fitting in. Up till then I had had no inclination for any-one, indeed of love and desire, either by hear-say or experience, I had not heard, I had not talked. At that time I composed Persian couplets, one or two at a time; this is one of the them:—
May none be as I, humbled and wretched and love-sick ”