The Bābur-nāma

(Dec. 27th) We took our morning early. Ḥaq-dād, the headman of Dūr-namā made me an offering (pesh-kash) of his garden.

(Dec. 28th) Riding thence on Thursday (6th), we dismounted at the villages of the Tājiks in Nijr-aū.

(Dec. 29th) On Friday (7th) we hunted the hill between Forty-ploughs (Chihil-qulba) and the water of Bārān; many deer fell. I had not shot an arrow since my hand was hurt; now, with an easy1519 bow, I shot a deer in the shoulder, the arrow going in to half up the feather. Returning from hunting, we went on at the Other Prayer in Nijr-aū.

(Dec. 30th) Next day (Saturday 8th) the tribute of the Nijr-aū people was fixed at 60 gold mis̤qāls.1520

(Jan. 1st) On Monday (10th) we rode on intending to visit Lamghān.1521 I had expected Humāyūn to go with us, but as he inclined to stay behind, leave was given him from Kūra-pass. We went on and dismounted in Badr-aū (Tag-aū).

(b. Excursions in Lamghān.)

(Jan. …) Riding on, we dismounted at Aūlūgh-nūr.1522 The fishermen there took fish at one draught1523 from the water of Bārān. At the Other Prayer (afternoon) there was drinking on the raft; and there was drinking in a tent after we left the raft at the Evening Prayer.

Ḥaidar the standard-bearer had been sent from Dāwar1524 to the Kāfirs; several Kāfir headmen came now to the foot of Bād-i-pīch (pass), brought a few goat-skins of wine, and did obeisance. In descending that pass a surprising number of …1525 was seen.

(Jan. …) Next day getting on a raft, we ate a confection, got off below Būlān and went to camp. There were two rafts.

(Jan. 5th) Marching on Friday (14th), we dismounted below Mandrāwar on the hill-skirt. There was a late wine-party.

(Jan. 6th) On Saturday (15th), we passed through the Darūta narrows by raft, got off a little above Jahān-namā’ī (Jalālābād) and went to the Bāgh-i-wafā in front of Adīnapūr. When we were leaving the raft the governor of Nīngnahār Qayyām Aūrdū Shāh came and did obeisance. Langar Khān Nīā-zāī, – he had been in Nīl-āb for a time, – waited upon me on the road. We dismounted in the Bāgh-i-wafā; its oranges had yellowed beautifully; its spring-bloom was well-advanced, and it was very charming. We stayed in it five or six days.

As it was my wish and inclination (jū dagh-dagha)to return to obedience (tā’ib) in my 40th year, I was drinking to excess now that less than a year was left.

(Jan. 7th) On Sunday the 16th, having made my morning (ṣubūḥī) and became sober. Mullā Yārak played an air he had composed in five-time and in the five-line measure (makhammas), while I chose to eat a confection (ma’jūn). He had composed an excellent air. I had not occupied myself with such things for some time; a wish to compose came over me now, so I composed an air in four-time, as will be mentioned in time.1526

(Jan. 10th) On Wednesday (19th) it was said for fun, while we were making our morning (ṣubūḥī), “Let whoever speaks like a Sārt (i. e. in Persian) drink a cup.” Through this many drank. At sunnat-waqt1527 again, when we were sitting under the willows in the middle of the meadow, it was said, “Let whoever speaks like a Turk, drink a cup!” Through this also numbers drank. After the sun got up, we drank under the orange-trees on the reservoir-bank.

(Jan. 11th) Next day (20th) we got on a raft from Darūta; got off again below Jūī-shāhī and went to Atar.

(Jan…) We rode from there to visit Nūr-valley, went as far as Sūsān (lily) – village, then turned back and dismounted in Amla.

(Jan. 14th) As Khwāja Kalān had brought Bajaur into good order, and as he was a friend of mine, I had sent for him and had made Bajaur over to Shāh Mīr Ḥusain’s charge. On Saturday the 22nd of the month (Muḥarram), Shāh Mīr Ḥusain was given leave to go. That day in Amla we drank.

(Jan. 15th) It rained (yāmghūr yāghdūrūb) next day (23rd).

When we reached Kula-grām in Kūnār1528 where Malik ‘Alī’s house is, we dismounted at his middle son’s house, overlooking an orange-orchard. We did not go into the orchard because of the rain but just drank where we were. The rain was very heavy. I taught Mullā ‘Alī Khān a t̤alisman I knew; he wrote it on four pieces of paper and hung them on four sides; as he did it, the rain stopped and the air began to clear.

(Jan. 16th) At dawn (24th) we got on a raft; on another several braves went. People in Bajaur, Sawād, Kūnār and thereabouts make a beer (bīr būza)1529 the ferment of which is a thing they call kīm.1530 This kīm they make of the roots of herbs and several simples, shaped like a loaf, dried and kept by them. Some sorts of beer are surprisingly exhilarating, but bitter and distasteful. We had thought of drinking beer but, because of its bitter taste, preferred a confection. ‘Asas, Ḥasan Aīkirik,1531 and Mastī, on the other raft, were ordered to drink some; they did so and became quite drunk. Ḥasan Aīkirik set up a disgusting disturbance; ‘Asas, very drunk, did such unpleasant things that we were most uncomfortable (ba tang). I thought of having them put off on the far side of the water, but some of the others begged them off.

I had sent for Khwāja Kalān at this time and had bestowed Bajaur on Shāh Mīr Ḥusain. For why? Khwāja Kalān was a friend; his stay in Bajaur had been long; moreover the Bajaur appointment appeared an easy one.

At the ford of the Kūnār-water Shāh Mīr Ḥusain met me on his way to Bajaur. I sent for him and said a few trenchant words, gave him some special armour, and let him go.

Opposite Nūr-gal (Rock-village) an old man begged from those on the rafts; every-one gave him something, coat (tūn), turban, bathing-cloth and so on, so he took a good deal away.

At a bad place in mid-stream the raft struck with a great shock; there was much alarm; it did not sink but Mīr Muḥammad the raftsman was thrown into the water. We were near Atar that night.

(Jan. 17th) On Tuesday (25th) we reached Mandrāwar.1532 Qūtlūq-qadam and his father had arranged a party inside the fort; though the place had no charm, a few cups were drunk there to please them. We went to camp at the Other Prayer.

(Jan. 18th) On Wednesday (26th) an excursion was made to Kind-kir1533 spring. Kind-kir is a dependent village of the Mandrāwar tūmān, the one and only village of the Lamghānāt where dates are grown. It lies rather high on the mountain-skirt, its date lands on its east side. At one edge of the date lands is the spring, in a place aside (yān yīr). Six or seven yards below the spring-head people have heaped up stones to make a shelter1534 for bathing and by so-doing have raised the water in the reservoir high enough for it to pour over the heads of the bathers. The water is very soft; it is felt a little cold in wintry days but is pleasant if one stays in it.

(Jan. 19th) On Thursday (27th) Sher Khān Tarkalānī got us to dismount at his house and there gave us a feast (ẓiyāfat). Having ridden on at the Mid-day Prayer, fish were taken out of the fish-ponds of which particulars have been given.1535

(Jan. 20th) On Friday (28th) we dismounted near Khwāja Mīr-i-mīrān’s village. A party was held there at the Evening Prayer.

(Jan. 21st) On Saturday (29th) we hunted the hill between ‘Alī-shang and Alangār. One hunting-circle having been made on the ‘Alī-shang side, another on the Alangār, the deer were driven down off the hill and many were killed. Returning from hunting, we dismounted in a garden belonging to the Maliks of Alangār and there had a party.

Half of one of my front-teeth had broken off, the other half remaining; this half broke off today while I was eating food.

(Jan. 22nd) At dawn (Ṣafar 1st) we rode out and had a fishing-net cast, at mid-day went into ‘Alī-shang and drank in a garden.

(Jan. 23rd) Next day (Ṣafar 2nd) Ḥamza Khān, Malik of ‘Alī-shang was made over to the avengers-of-blood1536 for his evil deeds in shedding innocent blood, and retaliation was made.

(Jan. 24th) On Tuesday, after reading a chapter of the Qorān (wird), we turned for Kābul by the Yān-būlāgh road. At the Other Prayer, we passed the [Bārān] – water from Aūlūgh-nūr (Great-rock); reached Qarā-tū by the Evening Prayer, there gave our horses corn and had a hasty meal prepared, rode on again as soon as they had finished their barley.1537

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE ON 926 to 932 AH. -1520 to 1525 AD

Bābur’s diary breaks off here for five years and ten months.1538 His activities during the unrecorded period may well have left no time in which to keep one up, for in it he went thrice to Qandahār, thrice into India, once to Badakhshān, once to Balkh; twice at least he punished refractory tribesmen; he received embassies from Hindūstān, and must have had much to oversee in muster and equipment for his numerous expeditions. Over and above this, he produced the Mubīn, a Turkī poem of 2000 lines.

That the gap in his autobiography is not intentional several passages in his writings show;1539 he meant to fill it; there is no evidence that he ever did so; the reasonable explanation of his failure is that he died before he had reached this part of his book.

The events of these unrecorded years are less interesting than those of the preceding gap, inasmuch as their drama of human passion is simpler; it is one mainly of cross-currents of ambition, nothing in it matching the maelstrom of sectarian hate, tribal antipathy, and racial struggle which engulphed Bābur’s fortunes beyond the Oxus.

None-the-less the period has its distinctive mark, the biographical one set by his personality as his long-sustained effort works out towards rule in Hindūstān. He becomes felt; his surroundings bend to his purpose; his composite following accepts his goal; he gains the southern key of Kābul and Hindūstān and presses the Arghūns out from his rear; in the Panj-āb he becomes a power; the Rājpūt Rānā of Chitor proffers him alliance against Ibrāhīm; and his intervention is sought in those warrings of the Afghāns which were the matrix of his own success.

a. Dramatis personæ.

The following men played principal parts in the events of the unchronicled years: —

Bābur in Kābul, Badakhshān and Balkh,1540 his earlier following purged of Mughūl rebellion, and augmented by the various Mīrzās-in-exile in whose need of employment Shāh Beg saw Bābur’s need of wider territory.1541

Sult̤ān Ibrāhīm Lūdī who had succeeded after his father Sikandar’s death (Sunday Ẕū’l-qa‘da 7th 923 AH.-Nov. 21st 1517 AD.)1542, was now embroiled in civil war, and hated for his tyranny and cruelty.

Shāh Ismā‘īl Ṣafawī, ruling down to Rajab 19th 930 AH. (May 24th 1524 AD.) and then succeeded by his son T̤ahmāsp aet. 10.

Kūchūm (Kūchkūnjī) Khān, Khāqān of the Aūzbegs, Shaibānī’s successor, now in possession of Transoxiana.

Sult̤ān Sa‘īd Khān Chaghatāī, with head-quarters in Kāshghar, a ruler amongst the Mughūls but not their Khāqān, the supreme Khānship being his elder brother Manṣūr’s.

Shāh Shujā’ Beg Arghūn, who, during the period, at various times held Qandahār, Shāl, Mustang, Sīwīstān, and part of Sind. He died in 930 AH. (1524 AD.) and was succeeded by his son Ḥasan who read the khut̤ba for Bābur.

Khān Mīrzā Mīrānshāhī, who held Badakhshān from Bābur, with head-quarters in Qūndūz; he died in 927 AH. (1520 AD.) and was succeeded in his appointment by Humāyūn aet. 13.

Muḥammad-i-zamān Bāī-qarā who held Balkh perhaps direct from Bābur, perhaps from Ismā‘īl through Bābur.

‘Alā’u’d-dīn ‘Ālam Khān Lūdī, brother of the late Sult̤ān Sikandar Lūdī and now desiring to supersede his nephew Ibrāhīm.

Daulat Khān Yūsuf-khail (as Bābur uniformly describes him), or Lūdī (as other writers do), holding Lāhor for Ibrāhīm Lūdī at the beginning of the period.

SOURCES FOR THE EVENTS OF THIS GAP

A complete history of the events the Bābur-nāma leaves unrecorded has yet to be written. The best existing one, whether Oriental or European, is Erskine’s History of India, but this does not exhaust the sources – notably not using the Ḥabību’s-siyar– and could be revised here and there with advantage.

Most of the sources enumerated as useful for filling the previous gap are so here; to them must be added, for the affairs of Qandahār, Khwānd-amīr’s Ḥabību’s-siyar. This Mīr Ma‘ṣūm’s Tārīkh-i-sind supplements usefully, but its brevity and its discrepant dates make it demand adjustment; in some details it is expanded by Sayyid Jamāl’s Tarkhān- or Arghūn-nāma.

For the affairs of Hindūstān the main sources are enumerated in Elliot and Dowson’s History of India and in Nassau Lees’ Materials for the history of India. Doubtless all will be exhausted for the coming Cambridge History of India.

EVENTS OF THE UNCHRONICLED YEARS

926 AH. – DEC. 23rd 1519 to DEC. 12th 1520 AD

The question of which were Bābur’s “Five expeditions” into Hindūstān has been often discussed; it is useful therefore to establish the dates of those known as made. I have entered one as made in this year for the following reasons; – it broke short because Shāh Beg made incursion into Bābur’s territories, and that incursion was followed by a siege of Qandahār which several matters mentioned below show to have taken place in 926 AH.

a. Expedition into Hindūstān.

The march out from Kābul may have been as soon as muster and equipment allowed after the return from Lamghān chronicled in the diary. It was made through Bajaur where refractory tribesmen were brought to order. The Indus will have been forded at the usual place where, until the last one of 932 AH. (1525 AD.), all expeditions crossed on the outward march. Bhīra was traversed in which were Bābur’s own Commanders, and advance was made, beyond lands yet occupied, to Sīālkot, 72 miles north of Lāhor and in the Rechna dū-āb. It was occupied without resistance; and a further move made to what the MSS. call Sayyidpūr; this attempted defence, was taken by assault and put to the sword. No place named Sayyidpūr is given in the Gazetteer of India, but the Āyīn-i-akbarī mentions a Sidhpūr which from its neighbourhood to Sīālkot may be what Bābur took.

Nothing indicates an intention in Bābur to join battle with Ibrāhīm at this time; Lāhor may have been his objective, after he had made a demonstration in force to strengthen his footing in Bhīra. Whatever he may have planned to do beyond Sidhpūr(?) was frustrated by the news which took him back to Kābul and thence to Qandahār, that an incursion into his territory had been made by Shāh Beg.

b. Shāh Shujā‘ Beg’s position.

Shāh Beg was now holding Qandahār, Shāl, Mustang and Sīwīstān.1543 He knew that he held Qandahār by uncertain tenure, in face of its desirability for Bābur and his own lesser power. His ground was further weakened by its usefulness for operations on Harāt and the presence with Bābur of Bāī-qarā refugees, ready to seize a chance, if offered by Ismā‘īl’s waning fortunes, for recovery of their former seat. Knowing his weakness, he for several years had been pushing his way out into Sind by way of the Bolān-pass.

His relations with Bābur were ostensibly good; he had sent him envoys twice last year, the first time to announce a success at Kāhān had in the end of 924 AH. (Nov. 1519 AD.). His son Ḥasan however, with whom he was unreconciled, had been for more than a year in Bābur’s company, – a matter not unlikely to stir under-currents of unfriendliness on either side.

His relations with Shāh Ismā‘īl were deferential, in appearance even vassal-like, as is shewn by Khwānd-amīr’s account of his appeal for intervention against Bābur to the Shāh’s officers in Harāt. Whether he read the khut̤ba for any suzerain is doubtful; his son Ḥasan, it may be said, read it later on for Bābur.

c. The impelling cause of this siege of Qandahār.

Precisely what Shāh Beg did to bring Bābur back from the Panj-āb and down upon Qandahār is not found mentioned by any source. It seems likely to have been an affair of subordinates instigated by or for him. Its immediate agents may have been the Nīkdīrī (Nūkdīrī) and Hazāra tribes Bābur punished on his way south. Their location was the western border-land; they may have descended on the Great North Road or have raided for food in that famine year. It seems certain that Shāh Beg made no serious attempt on Kābul; he was too much occupied in Sind to allow him to do so. Some unused source may throw light on the matter incidentally; the offence may have been small in itself and yet sufficient to determine Bābur to remove risk from his rear.1544

d. Qandahār.

The Qandahār of Bābur’s sieges was difficult of capture; he had not taken it in 913 AH. (f. 208b) by siege or assault, but by default after one day’s fight in the open. The strength of its position can be judged from the following account of its ruins as they were seen in 1879 AD., the military details of which supplement Bellew’s description quoted in Appendix J.

The fortifications are of great extent with a treble line of bastioned walls and a high citadel in the centre. The place is in complete ruin and its locality now useful only as a grazing ground… “The town is in three parts, each on a separate eminence, and capable of mutual defence. The mountain had been covered with towers united by curtains, and the one on the culminating point may be called impregnable. It commanded the citadel which stood lower down on the second eminence, and this in turn commanded the town which was on a table-land elevated above the plain. The triple walls surrounding the city were at a considerable distance from it. After exploring the citadel and ruins, we mounted by the gorge to the summit of the hill with the impregnable fort. In this gorge are the ruins of two tanks, some 80 feet square, all destroyed, with the pillars fallen; the work is pukka in brick and chunām (cement) and each tank had been domed in; they would have held about 400,000 gallons each.” (Le Messurier’s Kandahar in 1879 AD. pp. 223, 245.)

e. Bābur’s sieges of Qandahār.

The term of five years is found associated with Bābur’s sieges of Qandahār, sometimes suggesting a single attempt of five years’ duration. This it is easy to show incorrect; its root may be Mīr Ma‘ṣūm’s erroneous chronology.

The day on which the keys of Qandahār were made over to Bābur is known, from the famous inscription which commemorates the event (Appendix J), as Shawwāl 13th 928 AH. Working backwards from this, it is known that in 927 AH. terms of surrender were made and that Bābur went back to Kābul; he is besieging it in 926 AH. – the year under description; his annals of 925 AH. are complete and contain no siege; the year 924 AH. appears to have had no siege, Shāh Beg was on the Indus and his son was for at least part of it with Bābur; 923 AH. was a year of intended siege, frustrated by Bābur’s own illness; of any siege in 922 AH. there is as yet no record known. So that it is certain there was no unremitted beleaguerment through five years.

f. The siege of 926 AH. (1520 AD.).

When Bābur sat down to lay regular siege to Qandahār, with mining and battering of the walls,1545 famine was desolating the country round. The garrison was reduced to great distress; “pestilence,” ever an ally of Qandahār, broke out within the walls, spread to Bābur’s camp, and in the month of Tīr (June) led him to return to Kābul.

In the succeeding months of respite, Shāh Beg pushed on in Sind and his former slave, now commander, Mehtar Saṃbhal revictualled the town.

927 AH. – DEC. 12th 1520 to DEC. 1st 1521 AD

a. The manuscript sources.

Two accounts of the sieges of Qandahār in this and next year are available, one in Khwānd-amīr’s Ḥabību’s-siyar, the other in Ma‘ṣūm Bhakkarī’s Tārīkh-i-sind. As they have important differences, it is necessary to consider the opportunities of their authors for information.

Khwānd-amīr finished his history in 1524-29 AD. His account of these affairs of Qandahār is contemporary; he was in close touch with several of the actors in them and may have been in Harāt through their course; one of his patrons, Amīr Ghiyās̤u’d-dīn, was put to death in this year in Harāt because of suspicion that he was an ally of Bābur; his nephew, another Ghiyās̤u’d-dīn was in Qandahār, the bearer next year of its keys to Bābur; moreover he was with Bābur himself a few years later in Hindūstān.

Mīr Ma‘ṣūm wrote in 1600 AD. 70 to 75 years after Khwānd-amīr. Of these sieges he tells what may have been traditional and mentions no manuscript authorities. Blochmann’s biography of him (Āyīn-i-akbarī p. 514) shews his ample opportunity of learning orally what had happened in the Arghūn invasion of Sind, but does not mention the opportunity for hearing traditions about Qandahār which his term of office there allowed him. During that term it was that he added an inscription, commemorative of Akbar’s dominion, to Bābur’s own at Chihil-zīna, which records the date of the capture of Qandahār (928 AH. -1522 AD.).

b. The Ḥabību’s-siyar account (lith. ed. iii, part 4, p. 97).

Khwānd-amīr’s contemporary narrative allows Ma‘ṣūm’s to dovetail into it as to some matters, but contradicts it in the important ones of date, and mode of surrender by Shāh Beg to Bābur. It states that Bābur was resolved in 926 AH. (1520 AD.) to uproot Shāh Shujā‘ Beg from Qandahār, led an army against the place, and “opened the Gates of war”. It gives no account of the siege of 926 AH. but passes on to the occurrences of 927 AH. (1521 AD.) when Shāh Beg, unable to meet Bābur in the field, shut himself up in the town and strengthened the defences. Bābur put his utmost pressure on the besieged, “often riding his piebald horse close to the moat and urging his men to fiery onset.” The garrison resisted manfully, breaching the “life-fortresses” of the Kābulīs with sword, arrow, spear and death-dealing stone, but Bābur’s heroes were most often victorious, and drove their assailants back through the Gates.

c. Death of Khān Mīrzā reported to Bābur.

Meantime, continues Khwānd-amīr, Khān Mīrzā had died in Badakhshān; the news was brought to Bābur and caused him great grief; he appointed Humāyūn to succeed the Mīrzā while he himself prosecuted the siege of Qandahār and the conquest of the Garm-sīr.1546

d. Negociations with Bābur.

The Governor of Harāt at this time was Shāh Ismā‘īl’s son T̤ahmāsp, between six and seven years old. His guardian Amīr Khān took chief part in the diplomatic intervention with Bābur, but associated with him was Amīr Ghiyās̤u’d-dīn – the patron of Khwānd-amīr already mentioned – until put to death as an ally of Bābur. The discussion had with Bābur reveals a complexity of motives demanding attention. Nominally undertaken though intervention was on behalf of Shāh Beg, and certainly so at his request, the Persian officers seem to have been less anxious on his account than for their own position in Khurāsān, their master’s position at the time being weakened by ill-success against the Sult̤ān of Rūm. To Bābur, Shāh Beg is written of as though he were an insubordinate vassal whom Bābur was reducing to order for the Shāh, but when Amīr Khān heard that Shāh Beg was hard pressed, he was much distressed because he feared a victorious Bābur might move on Khurāsān. Nothing indicates however that Bābur had Khurāsān in his thoughts; Hindūstān was his objective, and Qandahār a help on the way; but as Amīr Khān had this fear about him, a probable ground for it is provided by the presence with Bābur of Bāī-qarā exiles whose ambition it must have been to recover their former seat. Whether for Harāt, Kābul, or Hindūstān, Qandahār was strength. Another matter not fitting the avowed purpose of the diplomatic intervention is the death of Ghiyās̤u’d-dīn because an ally of Bābur; this makes Amīr Khān seem to count Bābur as Ismā‘īl’s enemy.