The Bābur-nāma

Bābur is said to have left Lāhor on Rajab 4th (936 AH.) – (March 4th, 1530 AD.). From Aḥmad-i-yādgār’s outline of Bābur’s doings in Lāhor, he, or his original, must be taken as ill-informed or indifferent about them. His interest becomes greater when he writes of Samāna.

d. Punishment of the Mundāhirs.

When Bābur, on his return journey, reached Sihrind, he received a complaint from the Qāẓī of Samāna against one Mohan Mundāhir (or Mundhār)2706 Rājpūt who had attacked his estates, burning and plundering, and killed his son. Here-upon ‘Alī-qulī of Hamadān2707 was sent with 3000 horse to avenge the Qāzī’s wrongs, and reached Mohan’s village, in the Kaithal pargana, early in the morning when the cold was such that the archers “could not pull their bows.”2708 A marriage had been celebrated over-night; the villagers, issuing from warm houses, shot such flights of arrows that the royal troops could make no stand; many were killed and nothing was effected; they retired into the jungle, lit fires, warmed themselves(?), renewed the attack and were again repulsed. On hearing of their failure, Bābur sent off, perhaps again from Sihrind, Tarsam Bahādur and Naurang Beg with 6000 horse and many elephants. This force reached the village at night and when marriage festivities were in progress. Towards morning it was formed into three divisions,2709 one of which was ordered to go to the west of the village and show itself. This having been done, the villagers advanced towards it, in the pride of their recent success. The royal troops, as ordered beforehand, turned their backs and fled, the Mundāhirs pursuing them some two miles. Meantime Tarsam Bahādur had attacked and fired the village, killing many of its inhabitants. The pursuers on the west saw the flames of their burning homes, ran back and were intercepted on their way. About 1000 men, women and children were made prisoner; there was also great slaughter, and a pillar of heads was raised. Mohan was captured and later on was buried to the waist and shot to death with arrows.2710 News of the affair was sent to the Pādshāh.2711

As after being in Sihrind, Bābur is said to have spent two months hunting near Dihlī, it may be that he followed up the punitive expedition sent into the Kaithal pargana of the Karnāl District, by hunting in Nardak, a favourite ground of the Tīmūrids, which lies in that district.

Thus the gap of 936 AH. with also perhaps a month of 937 AH. is filled by the “year’s” travel west of Dihlī. The record is a mere outline and in it are periods of months without mention of where Bābur was or what affairs of government were brought before him. At some time, on his return journey presumably, he will have despatched to Kashmīr the expedition referred to in the opening section of this appendix. Something further may yet be gleaned from local chronicles, from unwritten tradition, or from the witness of place-names commemorating his visit.

e. Bābur’s self-surrender to save Humāyūn.

The few months, perhaps 4 to 5, between Bābur’s return to Āgra from his expedition towards the North-west, and the time of his death are filled by Gul-badan and Abū’l-faẓl with matters concerning family interests only.

The first such matter these authors mention is an illness of Humāyūn during which Bābur devoted his own life to save his son’s.2712 Of this the particulars are, briefly: – That Humāyūn, while still in Saṃbhal, had had a violent attack of fever; that he was brought by water to Āgra, his mother meeting him in Muttra; and that when the disease baffled medical skill, Bābur resolved to practise the rite believed then and now in the East to be valid, of intercession and devotion of a suppliant’s most valued possession in exchange for a sick man’s life. Rejecting counsel to offer the Koh-i-nūr for pious uses, he resolved to supplicate for the acceptance of his life. He made intercession through a saint his daughter names, and moved thrice round Humāyūn’s bed, praying, in effect, “O God! if a life may be exchanged for a life, I, who am Bābur, give my life and my being for Humāyūn.” During the rite fever surged over him, and, convinced that his prayer and offering had prevailed, he cried out, “I have borne it away! I have borne it away!”2713 Gul-badan says that he himself fell ill on that very day, while Humāyūn poured water on his head, came out and gave audience; and that they carried her Father within on account of his illness, where he kept his bed for 2 or 3 months.

There can be no doubt as to Bābur’s faith in the rite he had practised, or as to his belief that his offering of life was accepted; moreover actual facts would sustain his faith and belief. Onlookers also must have believed his prayer and offering to have prevailed, since Humāyūn went back to Saṃbhal,2714 while Bābur fell ill at once and died in a few weeks.2715

f. A plan to set Bābur’s sons aside from the succession.

Reading the Akbar-nāma alone, there would seem to be no question about whether Bābur ever intended to give Hindūstān, at any rate, to Humāyūn, but, by piecing together various contributory matters, an opposite opinion is reached, viz. that not Khalīfa only whom Abū’l-faẓl names perhaps on Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Aḥmad’s warrant, but Bābur also, with some considerable number of chiefs, wished another ruler for Hindūstān. The starting-point of this opinion is a story in the T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī and, with less detail, in the Akbar-nāma, of which the gist is that Khalīfa planned to supersede Humāyūn and his three brothers in their Father’s succession.2716

The story, in brief, is as follows: – At the time of Bābur’s death Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Aḥmad’s father Khwāja Muḥammad Muqīm Harāwī was in the service of the Office of Works.2717 Amīr Niz̤āmu’d-dīn ‘Alī Khalīfa, the Chief of the Administration, had dread and suspicion about Humāyūn and did not favour his succession as Pādshāh. Nor did he favour that of Bābur’s other sons. He promised “Bābur Pādshāh’s son-in-law (dāmād)” Mahdī Khwāja who was a generous young man, very friendly to himself, that he would make him Pādshāh. This promise becoming known, others made their salām to the Khwāja who put on airs and accepted the position. One day when Khalīfa, accompanied by Muqīm, went to see Mahdī Khwāja in his tent, no-one else being present, Bābur, in the pangs of his disease, sent for him2718 when he had been seated a few minutes only. When Khalīfa had gone out, Mahdī Khwāja remained standing in such a way that Muqīm could not follow but, the Khwāja unaware, waited respectfully behind him. The Khwāja, who was noted for the wildness of youth, said, stroking his beard, “Please God! first, I will flay thee!” turned round and saw Muqīm, took him by the ear, repeated a proverb of menace, “The red tongue gives the green head to the wind,” and let him go. Muqīm hurried to Khalīfa, repeated the Khwāja’s threat against him, and remonstrated about the plan to set all Bābur’s sons aside in favour of a stranger-house.2719 Here-upon Khalīfa sent for Humāyūn,2720 and despatched an officer with orders to the Khwāja to retire to his house, who found him about to dine and hurried him off without ceremony. Khalīfa also issued a proclamation forbidding intercourse with him, excluded him from Court, and when Bābur died, supported Humāyūn.

As Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Aḥmad was not born till 20 years after Bābur died, the story will have been old before he could appreciate it, and it was some 60 years old when it found way into the T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī and, with less detail, into the Akbar-nāma.

Taken as it stands, it is incredible, because it represents Khalīfa, and him alone, planning to subject the four sons of Bābur to the suzerainty of Mahdī Khwāja who was not a Tīmūrid, who, so far as well-known sources show, was not of a ruling dynasty or personally illustrious,2721 and who had been associated, so lately as the autumn of 1529 AD., with his nephew Raḥīm-dād in seditious action which had so angered Bābur that, whatever the punishment actually ordered, rumour had it both men were to die.2722 In two particulars the only Mahdī Khwāja then of Bābur’s following, does not suit the story; he was not a young man in 1530 AD.,2723 and was not a dāmād of Bābur, if that word be taken in its usual sense of son-in-law, but he was a yazna, husband of a Pādshāh’s sister, in his case, of Khān-zāda Begīm.2724 Some writers style him Sayyid Mahdī Khwāja, a double title which may indicate descent on both sides from religious houses; one is suggested to be that of Tirmiẕ by the circumstance that in his and Khān-zāda Begīm’s mausoleum was buried a Tirmiẕ sayyid of later date, Shāh Abū’l-ma‘ālī. But though he were of Tirmiẕ, it is doubtful if that religious house would be described by the word khānwāda which so frequently denotes a ruling dynasty.

His name may have found its way into Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Aḥmad’s story as a gloss mistakenly amplifying the word dāmād, taken in its less usual sense of brother-in-law. To Bābur’s contemporaries the expression “Bābur Pādshāh’s dāmād” (son-in-law) would be explicit, because for some 11 years before he lay on his death-bed, he had one son-in-law only, viz. Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā Bāī-qarā,2725 the husband of Ma‘ṣūma Sult̤ān Begīm. If that Mīrzā’s name were where Mahdī Khwāja’s is entered, the story of an exclusion of Bābur’s sons from rule might have a core of truth.

It is incredible however that Khālīfa, with or without Bābur’s concurrence, made the plan attributed to him of placing any man not a Tīmūrid in the position of Pādshāh over all Bābur’s territory. I suggest that the plan concerned Hindūstān only and was one considered in connection with Bābur’s intended return to Kābul, when he must have left that difficult country, hardly yet a possession, in charge of some man giving promise of power to hold it. Such a man Humāyūn was not. My suggestion rests on the following considerations: —

(1) Bābur’s outlook was not that of those in Āgra in 1587 AD. who gave Abū’l-faẓl his Bāburiana material, because at that date Dihlī had become the pivot of Tīmūrid power, so that not to hold Hindūstān would imply not to be Pādshāh. Bābur’s outlook on his smaller Hindūstān was different; his position in it was precarious, Kābul, not Dihlī, was his chosen centre, and from Kābul his eyes looked northwards as well as to the East. If he had lost the Hindūstān which was approximately the modern United Provinces, he might still have held what lay west of it to the Indus, as well as Qandahār.

(2) For several years before his death he had wished to return to Kābul. Ample evidence of this wish is given by his diary, his letters, and some poems in his second Dīwān (that found in the Rāmpūr MS.). As he told his sons more than once, he kept Kābul for himself.2726 If, instead of dying in Āgra, he had returned to Kābul, had pushed his way on from Badakhshān, whether as far as Samarkand or less, had given Humāyūn a seat in those parts, – action foreshadowed by the records – a reasonable interpretation of the story that Humāyūn and his brothers were not to govern Hindūstān, is that he had considered with Khalīfa the apportionment of his territories according to the example of his ancestors Chīngīz Khān, Tīmūr and Abū-sa‘īd; that by his plan of apportionment Humāyūn was not to have Hindūstān but something Tramontane; Kāmrān had already Qandahār; Sulaimān, if Humāyūn had moved beyond the out-post of Badakhshān, would have replaced him there; and Hindūstān would have gone to “Bābur Pādshāh’s dāmād”.

(3) Muḥammad-i-zamān had much to recommend him for Hindūstān: – Tīmūrid-born, grandson and heir of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, husband of Ma‘ṣūma who was a Tīmūrid by double descent,2727 protected by Bābur after the Bāī-qarā débacle in Herāt, a landless man leading such other exiles as Muḥammad Sult̤ān Mīrzā,2728 ‘Ādil Sult̤ān, and Qāsim-i-ḥusain Sult̤ān, half-Tīmūrids all, who with their Khurāsānī following, had been Bābur’s guests in Kābul, had pressed on its poor resources, and thus had helped in 932 AH. (1525 AD.) to drive him across the Indus. This Bāī-qarā group needed a location; Muḥammad-i-zamān’s future had to be cared for and with his, Ma‘ṣūma’s.

(4) It is significant of intention to give Muḥammad-i-zamān ruling status that in April 1529 AD. (Sha‘bān 935 AH.) Bābur bestowed on him royal insignia, including the umbrella-symbol of sovereignty.2729 This was done after the Mīrzā had raised objections, unspecified now in the Bābur-nāma against Bihār; they were overcome, the insignia were given and, though for military reasons he was withheld from taking up that appointment, the recognition of his royal rank had been made. His next appointment was to Jūnpūr, the capital of the fallen Sharqī dynasty. No other chief is mentioned by Bābur as receiving the insignia of royalty.

(5) It appears to have been within a Pādshāh’s competence to select his successor; and it may be inferred that choice was made between Humāyūn and another from the wording of more than one writer that Khalīfa “supported” Humāyūn, and from the word “selected” used in Aḥmad-i-yādgār’s anecdote.2730 Much more would there be freedom of choice in a division of territory such as there is a good deal to suggest was the basis of Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Aḥmad’s story. Whatever the extent of power proposed for the dāmād, whether, as it is difficult to believe, the Pādshāh’s whole supremacy, or whether the limited sovereignty of Hindūstān, it must have been known to Bābur as well as to Khalīfa. Whatever their earlier plan however, it was changed by the sequel of Humāyūn’s illness which led to his becoming Pādshāh. The dāmād was dropped, on grounds it is safe to believe more impressive than his threat to flay Khalīfa or than the remonstrance of that high official’s subordinate Muqīm of Herāt.

Humāyūn’s arrival and continued stay in Hindūstān modified earlier dispositions which included his remaining in Badakhshān. His actions may explain why Bābur, when in 936 AH. he went as far as Lāhor, did not go on to Kābul. Nothing in the sources excludes the surmise that Māhīm knew of the bestowal of royal insignia on the Bāī-qarā Mīrzā, that she summoned her son to Āgra and there kept him, that she would do this the more resolutely if the dāmād of the plan she must have heard of, were that Bāī-qarā, and that but for Humāyūn’s presence in Āgra and its attendant difficulties, Bābur would have gone to Kābul, leaving his dāmād in charge of Hindūstān.

Bābur, however, turned back from Lāhor for Āgra, and there he made the self-surrender which, resulting in Humāyūn’s “selection” as Pādshāh, became a turning point in history.

Humāyūn’s recovery and Bābur’s immediate illness will have made the son’s life seem Divinely preserved, the father’s as a debt to be paid. Bābur’s impressive personal experience will have dignified Humāyūn as one whom God willed should live. Such distinction would dictate the bestowal on him of all that fatherly generosity had yet to give. The imminence of death defeating all plans made for life, Humāyūn was nominated to supreme power as Pādshāh.

g. Bābur’s death.

Amongst other family matters mentioned by Gul-badan as occurring shortly before her Father’s death, was his arrangement of marriages for Gul-rang with Aīsān-tīmūr and for Gul-chihra with Tūkhta-būghā Chaghatāī. She also writes of his anxiety to see Hind-āl who had been sent for from Kābul but did not arrive till the day after the death.

When no remedies availed, Humāyūn was summoned from Saṃbhal. He reached Āgra four days before the death; on the morrow Bābur gathered his chiefs together for the last of many times, addressed them, nominated Humāyūn his successor and bespoke their allegiance for him. Abū’l-faẓl thus summarizes his words, “Lofty counsels and weighty mandates were imparted. Advice was given (to Humāyūn) to be munificent and just, to acquire God’s favour, to cherish and protect subjects, to accept apologies from such as had failed in duty, and to pardon transgressors. And, he (Bābur) exclaimed, the cream of my testamentary dispositions is this, ‘Do naught against your brothers, even though they may deserve it.’ In truth,” continues the historian, “it was through obedience to this mandate that his Majesty Jannat-ashiyānī suffered so many injuries from his brothers without avenging himself.” Gul-badan’s account of her Father’s last address is simple: – “He spoke in this wise, ‘For years it has been in my heart to make over the throne to Humāyūn and to retire to the Gold-scattering Garden. By the Divine grace I have obtained in health of body everything but the fulfilment of this wish. Now that illness has laid me low, I charge you all to acknowledge Humāyūn in my stead. Fail not in loyalty towards him. Be of one heart and mind towards him. I hope to God that he, for his part, will bear himself well towards men. Moreover, Humāyūn, I commit you and your brothers and all my kinsfolk and your people and my people to God’s keeping, and entrust them all to you.’”

It was on Monday Jumāda 1. 5th 937 AH. (Dec. 26th 153O AD.) that Bābur made answer to his summons with the Adsum of the Musalmān, “Lord! I am here for Thee.”

“Black fell the day for children and kinsfolk and all,” writes his daughter;

“Alas! that time and the changeful heaven should exist without thee;Alas! and Alas! that time should remain and thou shouldst be gone;”

mourns Khwāja Kalān in the funeral ode from which Badāyūnī quoted these lines.2731

The body was laid in the Garden-of-rest (Ārām-bāgh) which is opposite to where the Tāj-i-maḥāll now stands. Khwāja Muḥammad ‘Alī ‘asas2732 was made the guardian of the tomb, and many well-voiced readers and reciters were appointed to conduct the five daily Prayers and to offer supplication for the soul of the dead. The revenues of Sīkrī and 5 laks from Bīāna were set aside for the endowment of the tomb, and Māhīm Begīm, during the two and a half years of her remaining life, sent twice daily from her own estate, an allowance of food towards the support of its attendants.

In accordance with the directions of his will, Bābur’s body was to be conveyed to Kābul and there to be laid in the garden of his choice, in a grave open to the sky, with no building over it, no need of a door-keeper.

Precisely when it was removed from Āgra we have not found stated. It is known from Gul-badan that Kāmrān visited his Father’s tomb in Āgra in 1539 AD. (946 AH.) after the battle of Chausa; and it is known from Jauhar that the body had been brought to Kābul before 1544 AD. (952 AH.), at which date Humāyūn, in Kābul, spoke with displeasure of Kāmrān’s incivility to “Bega Begīm”, the “Bībī” who had conveyed their Father’s body to that place.2733 That the widow who performed this duty was the Afghān Lady, Bībī Mubārika2734 is made probable by Gul-badan’s details of the movements of the royal ladies. Bābur’s family left Āgra under Hind-āl’s escort, after the defeat at Chausa (June 7th, 1539 AD.); whoever took charge of the body on its journey to Kābul must have returned at some later date to fetch it. It would be in harmony with Sher Shāh’s generous character if he safe-guarded her in her task.

The terraced garden Bābur chose for his burial-place lies on the slope of the hill Shāh-i-Kābul, the Sher-darwāza of European writers.2735 It has been described as perhaps the most beautiful of the Kābul gardens, and as looking towards an unsurpassable view over the Chār-dih plain towards the snows of Paghmān and the barren, rocky hills which have been the hunting-grounds of rulers in Kābul. Several of Bābur’s descendants coming to Kābul from Āgra have visited and embellished his burial-garden. Shāh-i-jahān built the beautiful mosque which stands near the grave; Jahāngīr seems to have been, if not the author, at least the prompter of the well-cut inscription adorning the upright slab of white marble of Māīdān, which now stands at the grave-head. The tomb-stone itself is a low grave-covering, not less simple than those of relations and kin whose remains have been placed near Bābur’s. In the thirties of the last century [the later Sir] Alexander Burnes visited and admirably described the garden and the tomb. With him was Munshī Mohan Lāl who added to his own account of the beauties of the spot, copies of the inscriptions on the monumental slab and on the portal of the Mosque.2736 As is shown by the descriptions these two visitors give, and by Daniel’s drawings of the garden and the tomb, there were in their time two upright slabs, one behind the other, near the head of the grave. Mr. H. H. Hayden who visited the garden in the first decade of the present century, shows in his photograph of the grave, one upright stone only, the place of one of the former two having been taken by a white-washed lamp holder (chirāghdān).

The purport of the verses inscribed on the standing-slab is as follows: —

A ruler from whose brow shone the Light of God was that2737 Back-bone of the Faith (z̤ahīru’d-dīn) Muḥammad Bābur Pādshāh. Together with majesty, dominion, fortune, rectitude, the open-hand and the firm Faith, he had share in prosperity, abundance and the triumph of victorious arms. He won the material world and became a moving light; for his every conquest he looked, as for Light, towards the world of souls. When Paradise became his dwelling and Ruẓwān2738 asked me the date, I gave him for answer, “Paradise is forever Bābur Pādshāh’s abode.”

h. Bābur’s wives and children. 2739

Bābur himself mentions several of his wives by name, but Gul-badan is the authority for complete lists of them and their children.

1. ‘Āyisha Sult̤ān Begīm, daughter of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā Mīrān-shāhī was betrothed, when Bābur was cir. 5 years old, in 894 AH. (1488-89 AD.), bore Fakhru’n-nisa’ in 906 AH. [who died in about one month], left Bābur before 909 AH. (1503 AD.).

2. Zainab Sl. Begīm, daughter of Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā Mīrān-shāhī, was married in 910 AH. (1504-5 AD.), died childless two or three years later.

3. Māhīm Begīm, whose parentage is not found stated, was married in 912 AH. (1506 AD.), bore Bār-būd, Mihr-jān, Āīsān-daulat, Farūq [who all died in infancy], and Humāyūn.

4. Ma‘ṣūma Sl. Begīm, daughter of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā Mīrān-shāhī, was married in 913 AH. (1507 AD.), bore Ma‘ṣūma and died at her birth, presumably early in the lacuna of 914-925 AH. (1508-19 AD.).

5. Gul-rukh Begīm, whose parentage is not found stated, was perhaps a Begchīk Mughūl, was married between 914 AH. and 925 AH. (1508-19 AD.), probably early in the period, bore Shāh-rukh, Aḥmad [who both died young], Gul‘iẕār [who also may have died young], Kamrān and ‘Askarī.

6. Dil-dār Begīm, whose parentage is not found stated, was married in the same period as Gul-rukh, bore Gul-rang, Gul-chihra, Hind-āl, Gul-badan and Alwar, [who died in childhood].

7. The Afghān Lady (Afghānī Āghācha), Bībī Mubārika Yūsufzāī, was married in 925 AH. (1519 AD.), and died childless.

The two Circassian slaves Gul-nār Āghācha and Nār-gul Āghācha of whom T̤ahmāsp made gift to Bābur in 933 AH. (f. 305), became recognized ladies of the royal household. They are mentioned several times by Gul-badan as taking part in festivities and in family conferences under Humāyūn. Gul-nār is said by Abū’l-faẓl to have been one of Gul-badan’s pilgrim band in 983 AH. (1575 AD.).

The above list contains the names of three wives whose parentage is not given or is vaguely given by the well-known sources, – namely, Māhīm, Gul-rukh and Dil-dār. What would sufficiently explain the absence of mention by Bābur of the parentage of Gul-rukh and Dil-dār is that his record of the years within which the two Begīms were married is not now with the Bābur-nāma. Presumably it has been lost, whether in diary or narrative form, in the lacuna of 914-25 AH. (1508-19 AD.). Gul-rukh appears to have belonged to the family of Begchīk Mughūls described by Ḥaidar Mīrzā2740; her brothers are styled Mīrzā; she was of good but not royal birth. Dil-dār’s case is less simple. Nothing in her daughter Gul-badan’s book suggests that she and her children were other than of the highest rank; numerous details and shades of expression show their ease of equality with royal personages. It is consistent with Gul-badan’s method of enumerating her father’s wives that she should not state her own mother’s descent; she states it of none of her “mothers”. There is this interest in trying to trace Dil-dār’s parentage, that she may have been the third daughter of Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā and Pasha Begīm, and a daughter of hers may have been the mother of