The Memoirs of Bābur 926.2.2

926.2.2

The events of these unrecorded years are less interesting than those of the preceding gap, inasmuch as their drama of human passion is simpler; it is one mainly of cross-currents of ambition, nothing in it matching the maelstrom of sectarian hate, tribal antipathy, and racial struggle which engulphed Bābur's fortunes beyond the Oxus. None-the-less the period has its distinctive mark, the biographical one set by his personality as his long-sustained effort works out towards rule in Hindūstān. He becomes felt; his surroundings bend to his purpose; his composite following accepts his goal; he gains the southern key of Kābul and Hindūstān and presses the Arghūns out from his rear; in the Panj-āb he becomes a power; the Rājpūt Rānā of Chitor proffers him alliance against Ibrāhīm; and his intervention is sought in those warrings of the Afghāns which were the matrix of his own success. _a. Dramatis personae._ The following men played principal parts in the events of the unchronicled years:— Bābur in Kābul, Badakhshān and Balkh,[1547] his earlier following purged of Mughūl rebellion, and augmented by the various Mīrzās-in-exile in whose need of employment Shāh Beg saw Bābur's need of wider territory.[1548] Sulṯān Ibrāhīm _Lūdī_ who had succeeded after his father Sikandar's death (Sunday Ẕū'l-qa`da 7th 923 _AH._-Nov. 21st 1517 AD.)[1549], was now embroiled in civil war, and hated for his tyranny and cruelty.