The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)

[2829] Hesitation about accepting the colophon as unquestionably applying to the whole contents of the manuscript is due to its position of close association with one section only of the three in the manuscript (cf. post p. lx).

[2830] Plate XI, and p. 15 (mid-page) of the Facsimile booklet.—The Facsimile does not show the whole of the marginal quatrain, obviously because for the last page of the manuscript a larger photographic plate was needed than for the rest. With Dr. Ross’ concurrence a photograph in which the defect is made good, accompanies this Appendix.

[2831] The second section ends on Plate XVII, and p. 21 of the Facsimile booklet.

[2832] Needless to say that whatever the history of the manuscript, its value as preserving poems of which no other copy is known publicly, is untouched. This value would be great without the marginal entries on the last page; it finds confirmation in the identity of many of the shorter poems with counterparts in the Bābur-nāma.

[2833] Another autograph of Shāh-i-jahān’s is included in the translation volume (p. xiii) of Gul-badan Begam’s Humāyūn-nāma. It surprises one who works habitually on historical writings more nearly contemporary with Bābur, in which he is spoken of as Firdaus-makānī or as Gītī-sitānī Firdaus-makānī and not by the name used during his life, to find Shāh-i-jahān giving him the two styles (cf. Jahāngīr’s Memoirs trs. ii, 5). Those familiar with the writings of Shāh-i-jahān’s biographers will know whether this is usual at that date. There would seem no doubt as to the identity of ān Ḥaẓrat.—The words ān ḥaẓrat by which Shāh-i-jahān refers to Bābur are used also in the epitaph placed by Jahāngīr at Bābur’s tomb (Trs. Note p. 710-711).