[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Indian literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in) › [Dark Ages](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages) › [Mughals (1526–1857)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal) › [Bābur (1526–1530)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.babur) › [Bāburnāma](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.babur.baburnama) › [The Babur-nama in English (A. S. Beveridge)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.babur.baburnama~en-beveridge) › 900.1 # The Memoirs of Bābur 900.1 The Bābur-nāma in English (A. S. Beveridge) 900.1 - **Language:** English ### [900.1.1](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.babur.baburnama~en-beveridge.900.1.1) 900 AH.-OCT. 2ND. 1494 TO SEP. 21ST. 1495 AD.\[232\] This year Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā sent an envoy, named \`Abdu'l-qadūs Beg,\[233\] to bring me a gift from the wedding he had made with splendid festivity for his eldest son, Mas\`ūd Mīrzā with (Ṣāliḥa-sulṯān), the Fair Begīm, the second daughter of his elder brother, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā. They had sent gold and silver almonds and pistachios. There must have been relationship between this envoy and Ḥasan-i-yaq\`ūb, and on its account he will have been the man sent to make Ḥasan-i-yaq\`ūb, by fair promises, look towards Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā. Ḥasan-i-yaq\`ūb returned him a smooth answer, made indeed as though won over to his side, and gave him leave to go. Five or six months later, his manners changed entirely; he began to behave ill to those about me and to others, and he carried matters so far that he would have dismissed me in order to put Jahāngīr Mīrzā in my place. Moreover his conversation with the whole body of begs and soldiers was not what should be; every-one came to know what was in his mind. Khwāja-i-Qāzī and (Sayyid) Qāsim \_Qūchīn\_ and \`Alī-dost T̤aghāī met other well-wishers of mine in the presence of my grandmother, Āīsān-daulat Begīm and decided to give quietus to Ḥasan-i-yaq\`ūb's disloyalty by his deposition. ### [900.1.2](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.babur.baburnama~en-beveridge.900.1.2) Few amongst women will have been my grandmother's equals for judgment and counsel; she was very wise and far-sighted and most affairs of mine were carried through under her advice. She and my mother were (living) in the Gate-house of the outer fort;\[234\] Ḥasan-i-yaq\`ūb was in the citadel. When I went to the citadel, in pursuance of our decision, he had ridden out, presumably for hawking, and as soon as he had \[Sidenote: Fol. 25.\] our news, went off from where he was towards Samarkand. The begs and others in sympathy with him,\[235\] were arrested; one was Muḥammad Bāqir Beg; Sl. Maḥmud \_Dūldāī\_, Sl. Muḥammad \_Dūldāī's\_ father, was another; there were several more; to some leave was given to go for Samarkand. The Andijān Government and control of my Gate were settled on (Sayyid) Qāsim \_Qūchīn\_. A few days after Ḥasan-i-yaq\`ūb reached Kand-i-badām on the Samarkand road, he went to near the Khūqān sub-division (\_aūrchīn\_) with ill-intent on Akhsī. Hearing of it, we sent several begs and braves to oppose him; they, as they went, detached a scouting party ahead; he, hearing this, moved against the detachment, surrounded it in its night-quarters\[236\] and poured flights of arrows (\_shība\_) in on it. In the darkness of the night an arrow (\_aūq\_), shot by one of his own men, hit him just (\_aūq\_) in the vent (\_qāchār\_) and before he could take vent (\_qāchār\_),\[237\] he became the captive of his own act. "If you have done ill, keep not an easy mind, For retribution is Nature's law."\[238\] ### [900.1.3](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.babur.baburnama~en-beveridge.900.1.3) This year I began to abstain from all doubtful food, my obedience extended even to the knife, the spoon and the table-cloth;\[239\] also the after-midnight Prayer (\_taḥajjud\_) was \[Sidenote: Fol. 25b.\] less neglected. (\_a. Death of Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā.\_) In the month of the latter Rabī\` (January 1495 AD.), Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā was confronted by violent illness and in six days, passed from the world. He was 43 (lunar) years old. \_b. His birth and lineage.\_ He was born in 857 AH. (1453 AD.), was Sl. Abū-sa\`īd Mīrzā's third son and the full-brother of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā.\[240\] \_c. His appearance and characteristics.\_ ### [900.1.4](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.babur.baburnama~en-beveridge.900.1.4) He was a short, stout, sparse-bearded and somewhat ill-shaped person. His manners and his qualities were good, his rules and methods of business excellent; he was well-versed in accounts, not a \_dinār\_ or a \_dirhām\_\[241\] of revenue was spent without his knowledge. The pay of his servants was never disallowed. His assemblies, his gifts, his open table, were all good. Everything of his was orderly and well-arranged;\[242\] no soldier or peasant could deviate in the slightest from any plan of his. Formerly he must have been hard set (\_qātīrār\_) on hawking but latterly he very frequently hunted driven game.\[243\] He carried violence and vice to frantic excess, was a constant wine-bibber and kept many catamites. If anywhere in his territory, there was a handsome boy, he used, by whatever means, to have him brought for a catamite; of his begs' sons and of his sons' begs' sons he made catamites; and laid command for this service on \[Sidenote: Fol. 26.\] his very foster brothers and on their own brothers. So common in his day was that vile practice, that no person was without his catamite; to keep one was thought a merit, not to keep one, a defect. Through his infamous violence and vice, his sons died in the day of their strength (\_tamām juwān\_). ### [900.1.5](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.babur.baburnama~en-beveridge.900.1.5) He had a taste for poetry and put a \_dīwān\_\[244\] together but his verse is flat and insipid,—not to compose is better than to compose verse such as his. He was not firm in the Faith and held his Highness Khwāja \`Ubaidu'l-lāh (\_Aḥrārī\_) in slight esteem. He had no heart (\_yūruk\_) and was somewhat scant in modesty,—several of his impudent buffoons used to do their filthy and abominable acts in his full Court, in all men's sight. He spoke badly, there was no understanding him at first. \_d. His battles.\_ He fought two battles, both with Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā (\_Bāīqarā\_). The first was in Astarābād; here he was defeated. The second was at Chīkman (Sarāī),\[245\] near Andikhūd; here also he was defeated. He went twice to Kāfiristān, on the \[Sidenote: Fol. 26b.\] south of Badakhshān, and made Holy War; for this reason they wrote him Sl. Maḥmūd \_Ghāzī\_ in the headings of his public papers. \_e. His countries.\_ ### [900.1.6](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.babur.baburnama~en-beveridge.900.1.6) Sl. Abū-sa\`īd Mīrzā gave him Astarābād.\[246\] After the \`Irāq disaster (\_i.e.\_, his father's death,) he went into Khurāsān. At that time, Qaṃbar-\`alī Beg, the governor of Ḥiṣār, by Sl. Abū-sa\`īd Mīrzā's orders, had mobilized the Hindūstān\[247\] army and was following him into \`Irāq; he joined Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā in Khurāsān but the Khurāsānīs, hearing of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's approach, rose suddenly and drove them out of the country. On this Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā went to his elder brother, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā in Samarkand. A few months later Sayyid Badr and Khusrau Shāh and some braves under Aḥmad \_Mushtāq\_\[248\] took him and fled to Qaṃbar-\`alī in Ḥiṣār. From that time forth, Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā possessed the countries lying south of Quhqa (Quhlugha) and the Kohtin Range as far as the Hindū-kush Mountains, such as Tīrmīẕ, Chaghānīān, Ḥiṣār, Khutlān, Qūndūz and Badakhshān. He also held Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā's lands, after his brother's death. \_f. His children.\_ He had five sons and eleven daughters. ### [900.1.7](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.babur.baburnama~en-beveridge.900.1.7) Sl. Mas\`ūd Mīrzā was his eldest son; his mother was Khān-zāda \[Sidenote: Fol 27.\] Begīm, a daughter of the Great Mīr of Tīrmīẕ. Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā was another; his mother was Pasha (or Pāshā) Begīm. Sl. \`Alī Mīrzā was another; his mother was an Aūzbeg, a concubine called Zuhra Begī Āghā. Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā was another; his mother was Khān-zāda Begīm, a grand-daughter of the Great Mīr of Tīrmīẕ; he went to God's mercy in his father's life-time, at the age of 13. Sl. Wais Mīrzā (Mīrzā Khān) was another; his mother, Sulṯān-nigār Khānīm was a daughter of Yūnas Khān and was a younger (half-) sister of my mother. The affairs of these four Mīrzās will be written of in this history under the years of their occurrence. Of Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā's daughters, three were by the same mother as Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā. One of these, Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā's senior, Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā made to go out to Malik-i-muḥammad Mīrzā, the son of his paternal uncle, Minūchihr Mīrzā.\[249\] \* \* \* \* \* Five other daughters were by Khān-zāda Begīm, the grand-daughter of the Great Mīr of Tīrmīẕ. The oldest of these, (Khān-zāda Begīm)\[250\] was given, after her father's death, to Abā-bikr \[Sidenote: Fol. 27b.\] (\_Dūghlāt\_) \_Kāshgharī\_. The second was Bega Begīm. When Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā besieged Ḥiṣār (901 AH.), he took her for Ḥaidar Mīrzā, his son by Pāyanda Begīm, Sl. Abū-sa\`īd Mīrzā's daughter, and having done so, rose from before the place.\[251\] The third daughter was Āq (Fair) Begīm; ### [900.1.8](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.babur.baburnama~en-beveridge.900.1.8) the fourth\[252\]—,was betrothed to Jahāngīr Mīrzā (\_aet.\_ 5, \_circa\_ 895 AH.) at the time his father, \`Umar Shaikh Mīrzā sent him to help Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā with the Andijān army, against Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, then attacking Qūndūz.\[253\] In 910 AH. (1504 AD.) when Bāqī \_Chaghānīānī\_\[254\] waited on me on the bank of the Amū (Oxus), these (last-named two) Begīms were with their mothers in Tīrmīẕ and joined me then with Bāqī's family. When we reached Kahmard, Jahāngīr Mīrzā took —-- Begīm; one little daughter was born; she now\[255\] is in the Badakhshān country with her grandmother. The fifth daughter was Zainab-sulṯān Begīm; under my mother's insistence, I took her at the time of the capture of Kābul (910 AH.-Oct. 1504 AD.). She did not become very congenial; two or three years later, she left the world, through small-pox. Another daughter was Makhdūm-sulṯān Begīm, Sl. \`Alī Mīrzā's full-sister; she is now in the Badakhshān country. Two others of his daughters, Rajab-sulṯān and Muḥibb-sulṯān, were by mistresses (\_ghūnchachī\_). --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.babur.baburnama~en-beveridge.900.1](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.babur.baburnama~en-beveridge.900.1) · Pramāṇa