The Bābur-nāma

An abridgement of the Memoirs – R. M. Caldecott (London, 1844).

History of India – Baber and Humayun – W. Erskine (Longmans, 1854).

Babar – Rulers of India series – Stanley Lane-Poole (Oxford, 1899).

Tuzuk-i-babari or Waqi‘at-i-babari (i. e. the Persian trs.) – Elliot and Dowson’s History of India, 1872, vol. iv.

Babur Padshah Ghazi– H. Beveridge (Calcutta Review, 1899).

Babur’s diamond, was it the Koh-i-nur? – H. Beveridge, Asiatic Quarterly Review, April, 1899.

Was ‘Abdu’r-rahim the translator of Babur’s Memoirs? (i. e. the Babur-nama) – H. Beveridge, AQR., July and October, 1900.

An Empire-builder of the 16th century, Babur – Laurence F. L. Williams (Allahabad, 1918).

Notes on the MSS. of the Turki text (Babur-nāma) – A. S. Beveridge, JRAS. 1900, 1902, 1921, 1905, and Part II 1906, 1907, 1908, p. 52 and p. 828, 1909 p. 452 (see Index, s. n. A. S. B. for topics).

[For other articles and notes by H. B. see Index s. n.]

Part III. The “Bukhara Babur-nama”

This is a singular book and has had a career as singular as its characteristics, a very comedy of (blameless) errors and mischance. For it is a compilation of items diverse in origin, diction, and age, planned to be a record of the Acts of Babur and Humayun, dependent through its Babur portion on the ‘Abdu’r-rahim Persian translation for re-translation, or verbatim quotation, or dove-tailing effected on the tattered fragments of what had once been Kamran’s Codex of the Babur-nama proper, the whole interspersed by stop-gaps attributable to Jahangir. These and other specialities notwithstanding, it ranked for nearly 200 years as a reproduction of Babur’s authentic text, as such was sent abroad, as such was reconstructed and printed in Kasan (1857), translated in Paris (1871), catalogued for the Petrograd Oriental School (1894), and for the India Office (1903).[22 - The last blow was given to the phantasmal reputation of the book by the authoritative Haidarabad Codex which now can be seen in facsimile in many Libraries.]

Manifest causes for the confusion of identity are, (1) lack of the guidance in Bukhara and Petrograd of collation with the true text, (2) want of information, in the Petrograd of 1700-25, about Babur’s career, coupled with the difficulties of communication with Bukhara, (3) the misleading feature in the compiled book of its author’s retention of the autobiographic form of his sources, without explanation as to whether he entered surviving fragments of Kamran’s Codex, patchings or extracts from ‘Abdu’r-rahim’s Persian translation, or quotations of Jahangir’s stop-gaps. Of these three causes for error the first is dominant, entailing as it does the drawbacks besetting work on an inadequate basis.

It is necessary to enumerate the items of the Compilation here as they are arranged in Kehr’s autograph Codex, because that codex (still in London) may not always be accessible,[23 - But for present difficulties of intercourse with Petrograd, I would have re-examined with Kehr’s the collateral Codex of 1742 (copied in 1839 and now owned by the Petrograd University). It might be useful; as Kehr’s volume has lost pages and may be disarranged here and there.The list of Kehr’s items is as follows: —1 (not in the Imprint). A letter from Babur to Kamran the date of which is fixed as 1527 by its committing Ibrahim Ludi’s son to Kamran’s charge (p. 544). It is heard of again in the Bukhara Compilation, is lost from Kehr’s Codex, and preserved from his archetype by Klaproth who translated it. Being thus found in Bukhara in the first decade of the eighteenth century (our earliest knowledge of the Compilation is 1709), the inference is allowed that it went to Bukhara as loot from the defeated Kamran’s camp and that an endorsement its companion Babur-nama (proper) bears was made by the Auzbeg of two victors over Kamran, both of 1550, both in Tramontana.[2854 - That Babur-nama of the “Kamran-docket” is the mutilated and tattered basis, allowed by circumstance, of the compiled history of Babur, filled out and mended by the help of the Persian translation of 1589. Cf. Kehr’s Latin Trs. fly-leaf entry; Klaproth s. n.; A.N. trs. H.B., p. 260; JRAS. 1908, 1909, on the “Kamran-docket” where are defects needing Klaproth’s second article (1824).)]2 (not in Imp.). Timur-pulad’s memo. about the purchase of his Codex in cir. 1521 (eo cap. post).3 (Imp. 1). Compiler’s Preface of Praise (JRAS. 1900, p. 474).4 (Imp. 2). Babur’s Acts in Farghana, in diction such as to seem a re-translation of the Persian translation of 1589. How much of Kamran’s MS. was serviceable is not easy to decide, because the Turki fettering of ‘Abdu’r-rahim’s Persian lends itself admirably to re-translation.[2855 - For an analysis of an illustrative passage see JRAS. 1906; for facilities of re-translation seeeo cap. p. xviii, where Erskine is quoted.)]5 (Imp. 3). The “Rescue-passage” (App. D) attributable to Jahangir.6 (Imp. 4). Babur’s Acts in Kabul, seeming (like No. 4) a re-translation or patching of tattered pages. There are also passages taken verbatim from the Persian.7 (Imp. omits). A short length of Babur’s Hindustan Section, carefully shewn damaged by dots and dashes.8 (Imp. 5). Within 7, the spurious passage of App. L and also scattered passages about a feast, perhaps part of 7.9 (Imp. separates off at end of vol.). Translated passage from the Akbar-nāma, attributable to Jahangir, briefly telling of Kanwa (1527), Babur’s latter years (both changed to first person), death and court.[2856 - See A.N. trans., p. 260; Prefaces of Ilminski and de Courteille; ZDMG. xxxvii, Teufel’s art.; JRAS. 1906.)][Babur’s history has been thus brought to an end, incomplete in the balance needed of 7. In Kehr’s volume a few pages are left blank except for what shews a Russian librarian’s opinion of the plan of the book, “Here end the writings of Shah Babur.”]10 (Imp. omits). Preface to the history of Humayun, beginning at the Creation and descending by giant strides through notices of Khans and Sultans to “Babur Mirza who was the father of Humayun Padshah”. Of Babur what further is said connects with the battle of Ghaj-davan (918-1512 q. v.). It is ill-informed, laying blame on him as if he and not Najm Sani had commanded – speaks of his preference for the counsel of young men and of the numbers of combatants. It is noticeable for more than its inadequacy however; its selection of the Ghaj-davan episode from all others in Babur’s career supports circumstantially what is dealt with later, the Ghaj-davani authorship of the Compilation.11 (Imp. omits). Under a heading “Humayun Padshah” is a fragment about (his? Accession) Feast, whether broken off by loss of his pages or of those of his archetype examination of the P. Univ. Codex may show.12 (Imp. 6). An excellent copy of Babur’s Hindustan Section, perhaps obtained from the Ahrari house. [This Ilminski places (I think) where Kehr has No. 7.] From its position and from its bearing a scribe’s date of completion (which Kehr brings over), viz.Tamt shud 1126 (Finished 1714), the compiler may have taken it for Humayun’s, perhaps for the account of his reconquest of Hind in 1555.[The remaining entries in Kehr’s volume are a quatrain which may make jesting reference to his finished task, a librarian’s Russian entry of the number of pages (831), and the words Etablissement Orientale, Fr. v. Adelung, 1825 (the Director of the School from 1793).[2857 - For particulars about Kehr’s Codex see Smirnov’s Catalogue of the School Library and JRAS. 1900, 1906. Like others who have made statements resting on the mistaken identity of the Bukhara Compilation, many of mine are now given to the winds.)]] and because the imprint does not obey its model, but aims at closer agreement of the Bukhara Compilation with Ilminski’s gratefully acknowledged guide —The Memoirs of Baber. Distinction in commenting on the Bukhara and the Kasan versions is necessary; their discrepancy is a scene in the comedy of errors.

Outline of the History of the Compilation

An impelling cause for the production of the Bukhara compilation is suggested by the date 1709 at which was finished the earliest example known to me. For in the first decade of the eighteenth century Peter the Great gave attention to Russian relations with foreign states of Central Asia and negociated with the Khan of Bukhara for the reception of a Russian mission.[24 - See Gregorief’s “Russian policy regarding Central Asia”, quoted in Schuyler’s Turkistan, App. IV.] Political aims would be forwarded if envoys were familiar with Turki; books in that tongue for use in the School of Oriental Languages would be desired; thus the Compilation may have been prompted and, as will be shown later, it appears to have been produced, and not merely copied, in 1709. The Mission’s despatch was delayed till 1719;[25 - The Mission was well received, started to return to Petrograd, was attacked by Turkmans, went back to Bukhara, and there stayed until it could attempt the devious route which brought it to the capital in 1725.] it arrived in Bukhara in 1721; during its stay a member of its secretariat bought a Compilation MS. noted as finished in 1714 and on a fly-leaf of it made the following note: —

“I, Timur-pulad son of Mirza Rajab son of Pay-chin, bought this book Babur-nama after coming to Bukhara with [the] Russian Florio Beg Beneveni, envoy of the Padshah … whose army is numerous as the stars… May it be well received! Amen! O Lord of both Worlds!”

Timur-pulad’s hope for a good reception indicates a definite recipient, perhaps a commissioned purchase. The vendor may have been asked for a history of Babur; he sold one, but “Babur-nama” is not necessarily a title, and is not suitable for the Compilation; by conversational mischance it may have seemed so to the purchaser and thus have initiated the mistake of confusing the “Bukhara Babur-nama” with the true one.

Thus endorsed, the book in 1725 reached the Foreign Office; there in 1737 it was obtained by George Jacob Kehr, a teacher of Turki, amongst other languages, in the Oriental School, who copied it with meticulous care, understanding its meaning imperfectly, in order to produce a Latin version of it. His Latin rendering was a fiasco, but his reproduction of the Arabic forms of his archetype was so obedient that on its sole basis Ilminski edited the Kasan Imprint (1857). A collateral copy of the Timur-pulad Codex was made in 1742 (as has been said).

In 1824 Klaproth (who in 1810 had made a less valuable extract perhaps from Kehr’s Codex) copied from the Timur-pulad MS. its purchaser’s note, the Auzbeg?(?) endorsement as to the transfer of the “Kamran-docket” and Babur’s letter to Kamran (Mémoires relatifs à l’Asie Paris).

In 1857 Ilminski, working in Kasan, produced his imprint, which became de Courteille’s source for Les Mémoires de Baber in 1871. No worker in the above series shews doubt about accepting the Compilation as containing Babur’s authentic text. Ilminski was in the difficult position of not having entire reliance on Kehr’s transcription, a natural apprehension in face of the quality of the Latin version, his doubts sum up into his words that a reliable text could not be made from his source (Kehr’s MS.), but that a Turki reading-book could – and was. As has been said, he did not obey the dual plan of the Compilation Kehr’s transcript reveals, this, perhaps, because of the misnomer Babur-nama under which Timur-pulad’s Codex had come to Petrograd; this, certainly, because he thought a better history of Babur could be produced by following Erskine than by obeying Kehr – a series of errors following the verbal mischance of 1725. Ilminski’s transformation of the items of his source had the ill result of misleading Pavet de Courteille to over-estimate his Turki source at the expense of Erskine’s Persian one which, as has been said, was Ilminski’s guide – another scene in the comedy. A mischance hampering the French work was its falling to be done at a time when, in Paris 1871, there can have been no opportunity available for learning the contents of Ilminski’s Russian Preface or for quiet research and the examination of collateral aids from abroad.[26 - One might say jestingly that the spirit in the book had rebelled since 1725 against enforced and changing masquerade as a phantasm of two other books!]

The Author of the Compilation

The Haidarabad Codex having destroyed acquiescence in the phantasmal view of the Bukhara book, the question may be considered, who was its author?

This question a convergence of details about the Turki MSS. reputed to contain the Babur-nama, now allows me to answer with some semblance of truth. Those details have thrown new light upon a colophon which I received in 1900 from Mr. C. Salemann with other particulars concerning the “Senkovski Babur-nama,” this being an extract from the Compilation; its archetype reached Petrograd from Bukhara a century after Kehr’s [viz. the Timur-pulad Codex]; it can be taken as a direct copy of the Mulla’s original because it bears his colophon.[27 - Neither Ilminski nor Smirnov mentions another “Babur-nama” Codex than Kehr’s.] In 1900 I accepted it as merely that of a scribe who had copied Senkovski’s archetype, but in 1921 reviewing the colophon for this Preface, it seems to me to be that of the original autograph MS. of the Compilation and to tell its author’s name, his title for his book, and the year (1709) in which he completed it.

Table of Bukhara reputed-Babur-nama MSS. (Waqi‘nama-i-padshahi?).

Senkovski brought it over from his archetype; Mr. Salemann sent it to me in its original Turki form. (JRAS. 1900, p. 474). Senkovski’s own colophon is as follows: —

“J’ai achevé cette copie le 4 Mai, 1824, à St. Petersburg; elle a éte faite d’àpres un exemplaire appartenant à Nazar Bai Turkistani, négociant Boukhari, qui etait venu cette année à St. Petersburg. J. Senkovski.”

The colophon Senkovski copied from his archetype is to the following purport: —

“Known and entitled Waqi‘nama-i-padshahi (Record of Royal Acts), [this] autograph and composition (bayad u navisht) of Mulla ‘Abdu’l-wahhāb the Teacher, of Ghaj-davan in Bukhara – God pardon his mistakes and the weakness of his endeavour! – was finished on Monday, Rajab 5, 1121 (Aug. 31st, 1709).– Thank God!”

It will be observed that the title Waqi‘nama-i-padshahi suits the plan of dual histories (of Babur and Humayun) better than does the “Babur-nama” of Timur-pulad’s note, that the colophon does not claim for the Mulla to have copied the elder book (1494-1530) but to have written down and composed one under a differing title suiting its varied contents; that the Mulla’s deprecation and thanks tone better with perplexing work, such as his was, than with the steadfast patience of a good scribe; and that it exonerates the Mulla from suspicion of having caused his compilation to be accepted as Babur’s authentic text. Taken with its circumstanding matters, it may be the dénoument of the play.

Chapter IV.

THE LEYDEN AND ERSKINE MEMOIRS OF BABER

The fame and long literary services of the Memoirs of Baber compel me to explain why these volumes of mine contain a verbally new English translation of the Babur-nama instead of a second edition of the Memoirs. My explanation is the simple one of textual values, of the advantage a primary source has over its derivative, Babur’s original text over its Persian translation which alone was accessible to Erskine.

If the Babur-nama owed its perennial interest to its valuable multifarious matter, the Memoirs could suffice to represent it, but this it does not; what has kept interest in it alive through some four centuries is the autobiographic presentment of an arresting personality its whole manner, style and diction produce. It is characteristic throughout, from first to last making known the personal quality of its author. Obviously that quality has the better chance of surviving a transfer of Babur’s words to a foreign tongue when this can be effected by imitation of them. To effect this was impracticable to Erskine who did not see any example of the Turki text during the progress of his translation work and had little acquaintance with Turki. No blame attaches to his results; they have been the one introduction of Babur’s writings to English readers for almost a century; but it would be as sensible to expect a potter to shape a vessel for a specific purpose without a model as a translator of autobiography to shape the new verbal container for Babur’s quality without seeing his own. Erskine was the pioneer amongst European workers on Baburiana – Leyden’s fragment of unrevised attempt to translate the Bukhara Compilation being a negligible matter, notwithstanding friendship’s deference to it; he had ready to his hand no such valuable collateral help as he bequeathed to his successors in the Memoirs volume. To have been able to help in the renewal of his book by preparing a second edition of it, revised under the authority of the Haidarabad Codex, would have been to me an act of literary piety to an old book-friend; I experimented and failed in the attempt; the wording of the Memoirs would not press back into the Turki mould. Being what it is, sound in its matter and partly representative of Babur himself, the all-round safer plan, one doing it the greater honour, was to leave it unshorn of its redundance and unchanged in its wording, in the place of worth and dignity it has held so long.

Brought to this point by experiment and failure, the way lay open to make bee-line over intermediaries back to the fountain-head of re-discovered Turki text preserved in the Haidarabad Codex. Thus I have enjoyed an advantage no translator has had since ‘Abdu’r-rahim in 1589.

Concerning matters of style and diction, I may mention that three distinct impressions of Babur’s personality are set by his own, Erskine’s and de Courteille’s words and manner. These divergencies, while partly due to differing textual bases, may result mainly from the use by the two Europeans of unsifted, current English and French. Their portrayal might have been truer, there can be no doubt, if each had restricted himself to such under-lying component of his mother-tongue as approximates in linguistic stature to classic Turki. This probability Erskine could not foresee for, having no access during his work to a Turki source and no familiarity with Turki, he missed their lessoning.

Turki, as Babur writes it – terse, word-thrifty, restrained and lucid, – comes over neatly into Anglo-Saxon English, perhaps through primal affinities. Studying Babur’s writings in verbal detail taught me that its structure, idiom and vocabulary dictate a certain mechanism for a translator’s imitation. Such are the simple sentence, devoid of relative phrasing, copied in the form found, whether abrupt and brief or, ranging higher with the topic, gracious and dignified – the retention of Babur’s use of “we” and “I” and of his frequent impersonal statement – the matching of words by their root-notion – the strict observance of Babur’s limits of vocabulary, effected by allotting to one Turki word one English equivalent, thus excluding synonyms for which Turki has little use because not shrinking from the repeated word; lastly, as preserving relations of diction, the replacing of Babur’s Arabic and Persian aliens by Greek and Latin ones naturalized in English. Some of these aids towards shaping a counterpart of Turki may be thought small, but they obey a model and their aggregate has power to make or mar a portrait.

(1) Of the uses of pronouns it may be said that Babur’s “we” is neither regal nor self-magnifying but is co-operative, as beseems the chief whose volunteer and nomad following makes or unmakes his power, and who can lead and command only by remittent consent accorded to him. His “I” is individual. The Memoirs varies much from these uses.

(2) The value of reproducing impersonal statements is seen by the following example, one of many similar: – When Babur and a body of men, making a long saddle-journey, halted for rest and refreshment by the road-side; “There was drinking,” he writes, but Erskine, “I drank”; what is likely being that all or all but a few shared the local vin du pays.

(3) The importance of observing Babur’s limits of vocabulary needs no stress, since any man of few words differs from any man of many. Measured by the Babur-nama standard, the diction of the Memoirs is redundant throughout, and frequently over-coloured. Of this a pertinent example is provided by a statement of which a minimum of seven occurrences forms my example, namely, that such or such a man whose life Babur sketches was vicious or a vicious person (fisq, fāsiq). Erskine once renders the word by “vicious” but elsewhere enlarges to “debauched, excess of sensual enjoyment, lascivious, libidinous, profligate, voluptuous”. The instances are scattered and certainly Erskine could not feel their collective effect, but even scattered, each does its ill-part in distorting the Memoirs portraiture of the man of the one word.[28 - A Correspondent combatting my objection to publishing a second edition of the Memoirs, backed his favouring opinion by reference to ‘Umar Khayyam and Fitzgerald. Obviously no analogy exists; Erskine’s redundance is not the flower of a deft alchemy, but is the prosaic consequence of a secondary source.]

Postscript of Thanks

I take with gratitude the long-delayed opportunity of finishing my book to express the obligation I feel to the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society for allowing me to record in the Journal my Notes on the Turki Codices of the Babur-nama begun in 1900 and occasionally appearing till 1921. In minor convenience of work, to be able to gather those progressive notes together and review them, has been of value to me in noticeable matters, two of which are the finding and multiplying of the Haidarabad Codex, and the definite clearance of the confusion which had made the Bukhara (reputed) Babur-nama be mistaken for a reproduction of Babur’s true text.

Immeasurable indeed is the obligation laid on me by the happy community of interests which brought under our roof the translation of the biographies of Babur, Humayun, and Akbar. What this has meant to my own work may be surmised by those who know my husband’s wide reading in many tongues of East and West, his retentive memory and his generous communism in knowledge. One signal cause for gratitude to him from those caring for Baburiana, is that it was he made known the presence of the Haidarabad Codex in its home library (1899) and thus led to its preservation in facsimile.

It would be impracticable to enumerate all whose help I keep in grateful memory and realize as the fruit of the genial camaraderie of letters.

    Annette S. Beveridge.

Pitfold, Shottermill, Haslemere.

August, 1921.

SECTION I. FARGHĀNA

AH. – Oct. 12th 1493 to Oct. 2nd 1494 AD

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.