The Rashīdī History 4.1.3

4.1.3

Perhaps the nearest approaches to histories of the Chaghatais are to be found, (1) in an excellent paper entitled The Chaghatai Mughals, by Mr. E. E. Oliver, in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, where the writer has summarised, in a consecutive manner, most of that which can be gathered on the subject, from European sources and from translations of Asiatic authors; and (2) in Erskine's History of India under Baber and Humayun. The learned translator of Baber's Memoirs had read widely among the Musulman authors, and compiled, in his last work, a more complete epitome of Chaghatai history, from original sources, than is to be found in any other European writings — unless possibly in those of Russian Orientalists, whose books, indeed, are sealed to most European readers. The source from which Mr. Erskine chiefly drew his information was the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, which he not only studied, but, as we have seen in the Preface, partially translated in a summarised form. The Tarikh-i-Rashidi, however, does not begin at the beginning of the Chaghatai history, but at an arbitrary point, dating nearly a hundred years after the allotment of his empire by Chingiz Khan, and at the period when the Khans of Moghulistan, having separated themselves from those of Mavara-un-Nahr, a distinct history of their branch became possible.