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BABAR
THE chief authority for Babar’s life is his own Memoirs or Commentaries, the Wakai or Tuzak-i-Bábary. The English translation by Erskine and Leyden, and Pavet de Courteille’s French version, are both cited, but not always verbatim. The blanks in the Memoirs are to some extent filled by notices in the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, a history of the Mongols in Central Asia, written by Babar’s cousin, Mirza Haidar, and completed within seventeen years after the Emperor’s death : this important work has been admirably translated and edited by Professor E. Denison Boss and the late Consul-General N. Elias (1895). The Tabakat-i-Babari of Shaikh Zain-ad-dín is little more than an inflated paraphrase of the later portions of the Memoirs. Babar’s daughter, Gul-badan, who survived her father, also left some interesting Memoirs, which remain in MS. in the British Museum. The Shaibáni-náma of Muhammad Salih gives the rhapsodical view of an enemy, and Mirzá Iskandar’s history throws light upon Babar’s relations with Shah Ismail; on which the coins of the period also bear evidence, as interpreted in the late Professor R. Stuart Poole’s Catalogue of Persian Coins in the British Museum (1887). Farishta, and Abu-1-Fazl (in the Akbar-náma) base their narratives upon the Memoirs, with little addition of much consequence, and there are but few supplementary notices in Badáóni and other writers extracted in Elliot and Dowson’s great History of India as told by its own Historians. Erskine made excellent use of most of the available materials in the first volume of his History of India (1854), a most scholarly and profound work. Mr. H. G. Keene has also treated the subject ably in his Turks in India (1879). Essays relating to Babar have been published by Silvestre do Sacy, Teufel; and also by Mr. H. Beveridge, to whom, through Sir W. W. Hunter, I am indebted for bibliographical information. Unfortunately there was no European traveller who visited Babar’s court either in Farghana, or Kabul, or Agra, and we are thus deprived of the advantage of a western estimate of his person and character.
The map is based upon several sources : my own map of mediaeval India, published in my Catalogue of Indian Coins in the British Museum; Mr. Elias’s admirable map of Central Asia in the Tarikh-i-Rashidi; Sir H. Yule’s map in Wood's Oxus; Waddington’s map prefixed to Erskine's translation of Babar’s Memoirs; and my map of Western Asia in the Historical Atlas edited by my brother (Oxford, 1899).
The portrait is from the MS. in the British Museum, and though probably not earlier than the end of the sixteenth century, doubtless represents a tradition, and probably copies an earlier miniature. The British Museum possesses a magnificent copy of the best Persian translation of the Memoirs, illustrated by a series of sixty-eight exquisitely beautiful pictures of scenes in Babar’s life, painted chiefly by Hindu artists of the time of Akbar, some of whom are mentioned by Abu-l-Fazl in the Ain-i-Akbari.
The map is based upon several sources : my own map of mediaeval India, published in my Catalogue of Indian Coins in the British Museum; Mr. Elias’s admirable map of Central Asia in the Tarikh-i-Rashidi; Sir H. Yule’s map in Wood's Oxus; Waddington’s map prefixed to Erskine's translation of Babar’s Memoirs; and my map of Western Asia in the Historical Atlas edited by my brother (Oxford, 1899).
The portrait is from the MS. in the British Museum, and though probably not earlier than the end of the sixteenth century, doubtless represents a tradition, and probably copies an earlier miniature. The British Museum possesses a magnificent copy of the best Persian translation of the Memoirs, illustrated by a series of sixty-eight exquisitely beautiful pictures of scenes in Babar’s life, painted chiefly by Hindu artists of the time of Akbar, some of whom are mentioned by Abu-l-Fazl in the Ain-i-Akbari.
210 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1899
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About the author
Stanley Lane-Poole
458 books101 followersStanley Lane-Poole was a British orientalist and archaeologist.
Poole was from a famous orientalist family as his paternal grandmother Sophia Lane Poole, uncle Reginald Stuart Poole and great-uncle Edward William Lane were famous for their work in this field.
His other great-uncle was Richard James Lane, a distinguished Victorian lithographer and engraver.
He worked for the British Museum from 1874 to 1892.
Poole was from a famous orientalist family as his paternal grandmother Sophia Lane Poole, uncle Reginald Stuart Poole and great-uncle Edward William Lane were famous for their work in this field.
His other great-uncle was Richard James Lane, a distinguished Victorian lithographer and engraver.
He worked for the British Museum from 1874 to 1892.
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May 11, 2019
Well, since Indian independence and since our schooldays (the text books) it is constantly being fed to students and to the people of India that the British rule was the worst and they looted India of all her wealth, tortured Indians beyond compare, etc. Also it is forced into our brains that during the Company rule and subsequent British Raj of about 200 years (1757–1947), we Indians were under unparalleled slavery. No one mentions what Indians faced during the the previous foreign rules of more than 500 years (1206–1757).
We come to know about the domination of British rule from books and notes MOSTLY written by Britishers. But we either knowingly IGNORE or have no available well-written documentation of the ill-effects of the previous period, whatsoever.
British looted India no doubt, but they also established multitude of things that were systematically DESTROYED during the previous 500 years due to more of personal focus on merry-making with our wealth.
Here I am sharing some excerpts form this book for my friends to have an idea on when some say that the previous rules (1206–1757) were of our own. They stayed here to rule and did not loot us and take our wealth away like the Britishers.
Excerpts from the book:
Deprived of the last hope of recovering his own land, the banished Emperor turned his eyes eastward. Rejected by his countrymen, Babar might have said with St. Paul, 'Henceforth I turn to the Gentiles'.
.... So wrote the first Emperor of India after the memorable victory at Panipat, on the field where the fate of Hindustan has thrice been decided. He was apt to take the impression of the moment for a permanent conviction, and it may be questioned whether he had really set the conquest of India before his eyes ever since his arrival in Kabul. The evidence points to a much stronger attraction towards Samarkand. When that fervent ambition lay dead, killed by repeated failure and the indomitable ascendancy of the Uzbegs, then, and not before, did Babar's dreams of an Indian empire take distinct form. After that it was five years before he made the first move, and more than twenty years had passed since his conquest of K&bul, before he marched into Delhi. Men of his impetuous and daring nature do not stifle a burning ambition for twenty years, and it was only when a still more ardent hope was quenched theft the alternative began to become urgent, and even then the plan took five years maturing.
'FROM the time when I conquered the land of K&bul in 910 [1504-5] till now,' wrote Babar in 1526,'I had always been bent on subduing Hindustan. In 925 [1519] I gathered an army, and taking the fort of Bajaur by storm in about an hour, put all the garrison to the sword. Then I advanced into Bhira, where I prevented all marauding and plunder, imposed a tax upon the inhabitants, and dividing the proceeds among my troops, returned to Kabul.
It is a piteous story : the unhappy Bajauris with their bows and arrows could make no stand against the mysterious matchlocks.....
'Perhaps upwards of 3,000 were killed' Bdbar records the brutal massacre with righteous satisfaction; despite his generosity and nobility of character, the savage Mongol nature peeps out sometimes. He cut off the heads of the chiefs, and sent them to Kdbul as trophies of victory ; a pyramid of skulls was built near the ill-fated fortress. Bringing in heads was an honourable feat among Bdbar's fellows ......
Later, in India, when an attempt was made to poison him, the Emperor took a bloody revenge : the taster was cut in pieces, the cook flayed alive, a woman trampled under the elephants, and another woman shot. Cultured in the humanities, B&bar sometimes forgot to be humane.
'We were always full of the idea of invading Hindustan,' he says; 'and as Bhira was upon the borders and near at hand, I conceived that if I were now to push on without baggage, the soldiers might light upon some booty.' He arrived there without opposition; levied a contribution of over 16,000 UK Pound on the inhabitants, and sternly suppressed all excesses on the part of his soldiers.
WHEN Babar at last invaded India in force he was attacking an organized kingdom. It was no longer a case of wild Mongol or Uzbeg tribes; he had to face a settled civilization supported by a disciplined and numerous army. Since the time, five hundred years before, when Mahmiid of Ghazni first carried the standards of Islam over northern India, and left a permanent lodgement in the Panjab to his successors, six dynasties had upheld the Muhammadan rule in Hindustan, and had extended its sway from Multan to the Gulf of Bengal, and from the Himalayas to the Vindhya mountains, and even into parts of the Deccan. The last of these dynasties, that of the Lodi Afghans, was now represented by Sultan Ibrahim, who ruled a considerable kingdom from his capital at Delhi. It was, however, greatly shrunk in comparison with former centuries. The rise of independent states had cut off Bengal, Jaunpur, Malwa, and Gujarat, from the parent crown......
For Babar was now coming to the grip with the only formidable rival left in Hindustan, the great Bana Sanga of Chittor......All his campaigns hitherto had been against fellow Muslims; now, for the first time, he was marching against 'heathens' ; it was the Jihad, the holy war.
He had seized the royal treasuries at Delhi and Agra, and the first business was to divide the booty among the expectant troops. To Humayun, who had played his part like a man in the great battle, he gave seventy lakhs (of dams, i.e. about 20,000 UK Pound) and a treasure which no one had counted. His chief Begs were rewarded with six to ten lakhs apiece (1,700 UK Pound to 2,800 UK Pound). Every man who had fought received his share, and even the traders and camp-followers were remembered in the general bounty. Besides this, the Emperor's other sons and relations, though absent, had presents of gold and silver, cloth and jewels, and captive slaves. Friends in Farghana, Khurdsan, Kdshghar, and Persia were not forgotten; and holy men in Herat and Samarkand, and Mekka and Medina, received substantial offerings. Finally, to every person in Kabul, man, woman, slave and free, young or old, a silver coin was sent in celebration of the victory. The balance was stored in the treasury to carry on the government and support the army. For himself, Babar kept nothing. When Humayun brought him the glorious diamond, one of the famous historical jewels, valued at 'half the daily expenditure of the whole world' which the family of the late Raja Bikramajit had given him in gratitude for his chivalrous protection, the father gave it back to the young prince. He had no love for wealth or precious stones, except to give away, ......
...A large part of the Empire was scarcely controlled at all, and the polity of Hindustan under his rule was simply the strong hand of military power where it could be used. The lands and cities of the more settled regions were parcelled out among his officers, or jdgirddrs, who levied the land-tax from the peasant cultivators, the duties from the merchants and shopkeepers, and the poll-tax from non-Muslims. The great zamindars or landholders were often in but nominal dependence on the crown ; and India, as Erskine observes, was 'rather a congeries of little states under one prince, than one regular and uniformly governed kingdom.'
We come to know about the domination of British rule from books and notes MOSTLY written by Britishers. But we either knowingly IGNORE or have no available well-written documentation of the ill-effects of the previous period, whatsoever.
British looted India no doubt, but they also established multitude of things that were systematically DESTROYED during the previous 500 years due to more of personal focus on merry-making with our wealth.
Here I am sharing some excerpts form this book for my friends to have an idea on when some say that the previous rules (1206–1757) were of our own. They stayed here to rule and did not loot us and take our wealth away like the Britishers.
Excerpts from the book:
Deprived of the last hope of recovering his own land, the banished Emperor turned his eyes eastward. Rejected by his countrymen, Babar might have said with St. Paul, 'Henceforth I turn to the Gentiles'.
.... So wrote the first Emperor of India after the memorable victory at Panipat, on the field where the fate of Hindustan has thrice been decided. He was apt to take the impression of the moment for a permanent conviction, and it may be questioned whether he had really set the conquest of India before his eyes ever since his arrival in Kabul. The evidence points to a much stronger attraction towards Samarkand. When that fervent ambition lay dead, killed by repeated failure and the indomitable ascendancy of the Uzbegs, then, and not before, did Babar's dreams of an Indian empire take distinct form. After that it was five years before he made the first move, and more than twenty years had passed since his conquest of K&bul, before he marched into Delhi. Men of his impetuous and daring nature do not stifle a burning ambition for twenty years, and it was only when a still more ardent hope was quenched theft the alternative began to become urgent, and even then the plan took five years maturing.
'FROM the time when I conquered the land of K&bul in 910 [1504-5] till now,' wrote Babar in 1526,'I had always been bent on subduing Hindustan. In 925 [1519] I gathered an army, and taking the fort of Bajaur by storm in about an hour, put all the garrison to the sword. Then I advanced into Bhira, where I prevented all marauding and plunder, imposed a tax upon the inhabitants, and dividing the proceeds among my troops, returned to Kabul.
It is a piteous story : the unhappy Bajauris with their bows and arrows could make no stand against the mysterious matchlocks.....
'Perhaps upwards of 3,000 were killed' Bdbar records the brutal massacre with righteous satisfaction; despite his generosity and nobility of character, the savage Mongol nature peeps out sometimes. He cut off the heads of the chiefs, and sent them to Kdbul as trophies of victory ; a pyramid of skulls was built near the ill-fated fortress. Bringing in heads was an honourable feat among Bdbar's fellows ......
Later, in India, when an attempt was made to poison him, the Emperor took a bloody revenge : the taster was cut in pieces, the cook flayed alive, a woman trampled under the elephants, and another woman shot. Cultured in the humanities, B&bar sometimes forgot to be humane.
'We were always full of the idea of invading Hindustan,' he says; 'and as Bhira was upon the borders and near at hand, I conceived that if I were now to push on without baggage, the soldiers might light upon some booty.' He arrived there without opposition; levied a contribution of over 16,000 UK Pound on the inhabitants, and sternly suppressed all excesses on the part of his soldiers.
WHEN Babar at last invaded India in force he was attacking an organized kingdom. It was no longer a case of wild Mongol or Uzbeg tribes; he had to face a settled civilization supported by a disciplined and numerous army. Since the time, five hundred years before, when Mahmiid of Ghazni first carried the standards of Islam over northern India, and left a permanent lodgement in the Panjab to his successors, six dynasties had upheld the Muhammadan rule in Hindustan, and had extended its sway from Multan to the Gulf of Bengal, and from the Himalayas to the Vindhya mountains, and even into parts of the Deccan. The last of these dynasties, that of the Lodi Afghans, was now represented by Sultan Ibrahim, who ruled a considerable kingdom from his capital at Delhi. It was, however, greatly shrunk in comparison with former centuries. The rise of independent states had cut off Bengal, Jaunpur, Malwa, and Gujarat, from the parent crown......
For Babar was now coming to the grip with the only formidable rival left in Hindustan, the great Bana Sanga of Chittor......All his campaigns hitherto had been against fellow Muslims; now, for the first time, he was marching against 'heathens' ; it was the Jihad, the holy war.
He had seized the royal treasuries at Delhi and Agra, and the first business was to divide the booty among the expectant troops. To Humayun, who had played his part like a man in the great battle, he gave seventy lakhs (of dams, i.e. about 20,000 UK Pound) and a treasure which no one had counted. His chief Begs were rewarded with six to ten lakhs apiece (1,700 UK Pound to 2,800 UK Pound). Every man who had fought received his share, and even the traders and camp-followers were remembered in the general bounty. Besides this, the Emperor's other sons and relations, though absent, had presents of gold and silver, cloth and jewels, and captive slaves. Friends in Farghana, Khurdsan, Kdshghar, and Persia were not forgotten; and holy men in Herat and Samarkand, and Mekka and Medina, received substantial offerings. Finally, to every person in Kabul, man, woman, slave and free, young or old, a silver coin was sent in celebration of the victory. The balance was stored in the treasury to carry on the government and support the army. For himself, Babar kept nothing. When Humayun brought him the glorious diamond, one of the famous historical jewels, valued at 'half the daily expenditure of the whole world' which the family of the late Raja Bikramajit had given him in gratitude for his chivalrous protection, the father gave it back to the young prince. He had no love for wealth or precious stones, except to give away, ......
...A large part of the Empire was scarcely controlled at all, and the polity of Hindustan under his rule was simply the strong hand of military power where it could be used. The lands and cities of the more settled regions were parcelled out among his officers, or jdgirddrs, who levied the land-tax from the peasant cultivators, the duties from the merchants and shopkeepers, and the poll-tax from non-Muslims. The great zamindars or landholders were often in but nominal dependence on the crown ; and India, as Erskine observes, was 'rather a congeries of little states under one prince, than one regular and uniformly governed kingdom.'
June 10, 2019
Babur, a descendant of Emperor Timur (or Tamerlane, a Barlas Turk) from Transoxiana, chronicled his life story in a diary over most of his adult life in his native tongue Turki, and in 1899, Stanley Lane-Poole crafted beautifully his story of Babur based on translation of the original manuscript from Turki into Persian, French, and English.
Babur’s everlasting legacy, in his short life span of 48 years, was his incursion into India and the establishment of Great Mughal Empire in early part of the 16th century; and in the following three centuries the Empire flourished to create great wealth, and stupendous cultural and architectural achievements (e.g. Taj Mahal was a crowning Mughal architectural masterpiece).
What emerges from Babur’s Memoirs, in Stanley Lane-Poole’s words : “Memoirs….contain the personal impressions and acute reflections of a cultivated man of the world, well read in eastern literature, a close and curious observer, quick in perception, a discerning judge of persons, and a devoted lover of nature; one, moreover, who was well able to express his thoughts and observations in clear and vigorous language. “His autobiography”, says a sound authority, “is one of those priceless records which are for all time, and is fit to rank with the confession of St, Augustine and Rousseau, and the memoirs of Gibbon and Newton. In Asia it stands almost alone”.
“…The man’s own character is so fresh and buoyant, so free from convention and cant, so rich in hope, courage, resolve, and at the same time so warm and friendly, so very human, that it conquers one’s admiring sympathy. The utter frankness of self-revelation, the unconscious portraiture of all his virtues and follies, his obvious truthfulness and fine sense of honor, give the Memoirs an authority which is equal to their charm. If ever there were a case when testimony of a single historical document, unsupported by other evidence, should be accepted as sufficient proof, it is the case with Babar’s Memoirs. No reader of this prince of autobiographers can doubt his honesty or his competence as witness and chronicler.”
This book is a must read for those who are interested in the origin of the Mughal Empire in India.
Babur’s everlasting legacy, in his short life span of 48 years, was his incursion into India and the establishment of Great Mughal Empire in early part of the 16th century; and in the following three centuries the Empire flourished to create great wealth, and stupendous cultural and architectural achievements (e.g. Taj Mahal was a crowning Mughal architectural masterpiece).
What emerges from Babur’s Memoirs, in Stanley Lane-Poole’s words : “Memoirs….contain the personal impressions and acute reflections of a cultivated man of the world, well read in eastern literature, a close and curious observer, quick in perception, a discerning judge of persons, and a devoted lover of nature; one, moreover, who was well able to express his thoughts and observations in clear and vigorous language. “His autobiography”, says a sound authority, “is one of those priceless records which are for all time, and is fit to rank with the confession of St, Augustine and Rousseau, and the memoirs of Gibbon and Newton. In Asia it stands almost alone”.
“…The man’s own character is so fresh and buoyant, so free from convention and cant, so rich in hope, courage, resolve, and at the same time so warm and friendly, so very human, that it conquers one’s admiring sympathy. The utter frankness of self-revelation, the unconscious portraiture of all his virtues and follies, his obvious truthfulness and fine sense of honor, give the Memoirs an authority which is equal to their charm. If ever there were a case when testimony of a single historical document, unsupported by other evidence, should be accepted as sufficient proof, it is the case with Babar’s Memoirs. No reader of this prince of autobiographers can doubt his honesty or his competence as witness and chronicler.”
This book is a must read for those who are interested in the origin of the Mughal Empire in India.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews