The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)

(March 28th) On Saturday the 7th of Rajab we dismounted Fol. 338b.2 or 3 kurohs from Aūd above the junction of the Gagar (Gogra) and Sīrd[a]. Till today Shaikh Bāyazīd will have been on the other side of the Sīrd[a] opposite Aūd, sending letters to the Sult̤ān and discussing with him, but the Sult̤ān getting to know his deceitfulness, sent word to Qarācha at the Mid-day Prayer and made ready to cross the river. On Qarācha’s joining him, they crossed at once to where were some 50 horsemen with 3 or 4 elephants. These men could make no stand; they fled; a few having been dismounted, the heads cut off were sent in.

Following the Sult̤ān there crossed over Bī-khūb (var. Nī-khūb) Sl. and Tardī Beg (the brother) of Qūj Beg, and Bābā Chuhra (the Brave), and Bāqī shaghāwal. Those who had crossed first and gone on, pursued Shaikh Bāyazīd till the Evening Prayer, but he flung himself into the jungle and escaped. Chīn-tīmūr dismounted late on the bank of standing-water, rode on at midnight after the rebel, went as much as 40 kurohs (80 m.), and came to where Shaikh Bāyazīd’s family and relations (nisba?) had been; they however must have fled. He sent gallopers off in all directions from that place; Bāqī shaghāwal and a few braves drove the enemy like sheep before them, overtook the family and brought in some Afghān prisoners.

We stayed a few days on that ground (near Aūd) in order to settle the affairs of Aūd. People praised the land lying along the Sīrd[a] 7 or 8 kurohs (14-16 m.) above Aūd, saying it was hunting-ground. Mīr Muḥammad the raftsman was sent out and returned after looking at the crossings over the Gagar-water (Gogra) and the Sīrd[a]-water (Chauka?).

Here, in all known texts of the Bābur-nāma there is a break of the narrative between April 2nd and Sep. 18th 1528 AD.-Jumāda II. 12th 934 AH. and Muḥarram 3rd 935 AH., which, whether intentional or accidental, is unexplained by Bābur’s personal circumstances. It is likely to be due to a loss of pages from Bābur’s autograph manuscript, happening at some time preceding the making of either of the Persian translations of his writings and of the Elphinstone and Ḥaidarābād transcripts. Though such a loss might have occurred easily during the storm chronicled on f. 376b, it seems likely that Bābur would then have become aware of it and have made it good. A more probable explanation of the loss is the danger run by Humāyūn’s library during his exile from rule in Hindūstān, at which same time may well have occurred the seeming loss of the record of 936 and 937 AH.

Mr. Erskine notes (Mems. p. 381 n.) that he found the gap in all MSS. he saw and that historians of Hindūstān throw no light upon the transactions of the period. Much can be gleaned however as to Bābur’s occupations during the 5-1/2 months of the lacuna from his chronicle of 935 AH. which makes several references to occurrences of “last year” and also allows several inferences to be drawn. From this source it becomes known that the Afghān campaign the record of which is broken by the gap, was carried on and that in its course Bābur was at Jūn-pūr (f. 365), Chausa (f. 365b) and Baksara (f. 366-366b); that he swam the Ganges (f. 366b), bestowed Sarūn on a Farmūlī Shaikh-zāda (f. 374b and f. 377), negociated with Rānā Sangā’s son Bikramājīt (f. 342b), ordered a Chār-bāgh laid out (f. 340), and was ill for 40 days (f. 346b). It may be inferred too that he visited Dūlpūr (f. 353b) recalled ‘Askarī (f. 339), sent Khwāja Dost-i-khāwand on family affairs to Kābul (f. 345b), and was much pre-occupied by the disturbed state of Kābul (see his letters to Humāyūn and Khwāja Kālan written in 935 AH.).2241

It is not easy to follow the dates of events in 935 AH. because in many instances only the day of the week or a “next day” is entered. I am far from sure that one passage at least now found s.a. 935 AH. does not belong to 934 AH. It is not in the Ḥai. Codex (where its place would have been on f. 363b), and, so far as I can see, does not fit with the dates of 935 AH. It will be considered with least trouble with its context and my notes (q.v. f. 363b and ff. 366-366b).

Another is the light an account of the second illness of 934 AH. might have thrown on a considerable part of the Collection of verses already written in Hindūstān and now known to us as the Rāmpūr Dīwān. The Bābur-nāma allows the dates of much of its contents to be known, but there remain poems which seem prompted by the self-examination of some illness not found in the B.N. It contains the metrical version of Khwāja ‘Ubaidu’l-lāh’s Wālidiyyah of which Bābur writes on f. 346 and it is dated Monday Rabī‘ II. 15th 935 AH. (Dec. 29th 1528 AD.). 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.