The Memoirs of Bābur 933.5
The Bābur-nāma in English (A. S. Beveridge) 933.5
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- English
933.5.1
The proper course (_sabīl_) for all who shelter under the shade of the royal benevolence, whether they be Turk, Tājik, `Arab, Hindī, or Fārsī (Persian), peasants or soldiers, of every nation or tribe of the sons of Adam, is to strengthen themselves by the tenets of religion, and to be full of hope and prayer for the dynasty which is linked with eternity, and to adhere to these ordinances, and not in any way to transgress them. It behoves all to act according to this _farmān_; they are to accept it as authentic when it comes attested by the Sign-Manual. Written by order of the Exalted one,—May his excellence endure for ever! on the 24th of Jumāda I. 933 (February 26th 1527). (_t. Alarm in Bābur's camp._) [Sidenote: Fol. 314b.] In these days, as has been mentioned, (our people) great and small, had been made very anxious and timid by past occurrences. No manly word or brave counsel was heard from any one soever. What bold speech was there from the wazīrs who are to speak out (_dīgūchī_), or from the amīrs who will devour the land (_wilāyat-yīghūchī_)?[2031] None had advice to give, none a bold plan of his own to expound. Khalīfa (however) did well in this campaign, neglecting nothing of control and supervision, painstaking and diligence. At length after I had made enquiry concerning people's want of heart and had seen their slackness for myself, a plan occurred to me; I summoned all the begs and braves and said to them, "Begs and braves!
933.5.2
(_Persian_) Who comes into the world will die; What lasts and lives will be God. (_Turkī_) He who hath entered the assembly of life, Drinketh at last of the cup of death. He who hath come to the inn of life, Passeth at last from Earth's house of woe. "Better than life with a bad name, is death with a good one. (_Persian_) Well is it with me, if I die with good name! A good name must I have, since the body is death's.[2032] "God the Most High has allotted to us such happiness and has created for us such good-fortune that we die as martyrs, we kill as avengers of His cause. Therefore must each of you take oath [Sidenote: Fol. 315.] upon His Holy Word that he will not think of turning his face from this foe, or withdraw from this deadly encounter so long as life is not rent from his body." All those present, beg and retainer, great and small, took the Holy Book joyfully into their hands and made vow and compact to this purport. The plan was perfect; it worked admirably for those near and afar, for seërs and hearers, for friend and foe. (_u. Bābur's perilous position._)
933.5.3
In those same days trouble and disturbance arose on every side:—Ḥusain Khān _Nuḥānī_ went and took Rāprī; Quṯb Khān's man took Chandwār[2033]; a mannikin called Rustam Khān who had collected quiver-wearers from Between-the-two-waters (Ganges and Jamna), took Kūl (Koel) and made Kīchīk 'Alī prisoner; Khwāja Zāhid abandoned Saṃbal and went off; Sl. Muḥammad _Dūldāī_ came from Qanūj to me; the Gūālīār pagans laid siege to that fort; 'Ālam Khān when sent to reinforce it, did not go to Gūālīār but to his own district. Every day bad news came from every side. Desertion of many Hindūstānīs set in; Haibat Khān _Karg-andāz_[2034] deserted and went to Saṃbal; Ḥasan Khān of Bārī deserted and joined the Pagan. We gave attention to none of them but went straight on with our own affair. (_v. Bābur advances to fight._) The apparatus and appliances, the carts and wheeled tripods being ready, we arrayed in right, left and centre, and marched forward on New Year's Day,[2035] Tuesday, the 9th of the second [Sidenote: Fol. 315b.] Jumāda (March 13th), having the carts[2036] and wheeled tripods moving in front of us, with Ustād `Alī-qulī and all the matchlock-men ranged behind them in order that these men, being on foot, should not be left behind the array but should advance with it.
933.5.4
When the various divisions, right, left and centre, had gone each to its place, I galloped from one to another to give encouragement to begs, braves, and _sipāhīs_. After each man had had assigned to him his post and usual work with his company, we advanced, marshalled on the plan determined, for as much as one _kuroh_ (2 m.)[2037] and then dismounted. The Pagan's men, for their part, were on the alert; they came from their side, one company after another. The camp was laid out and strongly protected by ditch and carts. As we did not intend to fight that day, we sent a few unmailed braves ahead, who were to get to grips with the enemy and thus take an omen. They made a few pagans prisoner, cut off and brought in their heads. Malik Qāsim also cut off and brought in a few heads; he did well. By these successes the hearts of our men became very strong. When we marched on next day, I had it in my mind to fight, but Khalīfa and other well-wishers represented that the camping-ground previously decided on was near and that it would favour our fortunes if we had a ditch and defences made there and went there direct. Khalīfa accordingly rode off to get [Sidenote: Fol. 316.] the ditch dug; he settled its position with the spades-men, appointed overseers of the work and returned to us. (_w. The battle of Kānwa._)[2038]
933.5.5
On Saturday the 13th of the second Jumāda (March 17th, 1527 AD.) we had the carts dragged in front of us (as before), made a _kuroh_ (2 m.) of road, arrayed in right, left and centre, and dismounted on the ground selected. A few tents had been set up; a few were in setting up when news of the appearance of the enemy was brought. Mounting instantly, I ordered every man to his post and that our array should be protected with the carts.[2039] *As the following Letter-of-victory (_Fatḥ-nāma_) which is what Shaikh Zain had indited, makes known particulars about the army of Islām, the great host of the pagans with the position of their arrayed ranks, and the encounters had between them and the army of Islām, it is inserted here without addition or deduction.[2040] SHAIKH ZAIN'S LETTER-OF-VICTORY. (_a. Introduction._) _Praise be to God the Faithful Promiser, the Helper of His servants, the Supporter of His armies, the Scatterer of hostile hosts, the One alone without whom there is nothing._ [Sidenote: Fol. 316b.] _O Thou the Exalter of the pillars of Islām, Helper of thy faithful minister, Overthrower of the pedestals of idols, Overcomer of rebellious foes, Exterminator to the uttermost of the followers of darkness!_ _Lauds be to God the Lord of the worlds, and may the blessing of God be upon the best of His creatures Muḥammad, Lord of ghāzīs and champions of the Faith, and upon his companions, the pointers of the way, until the Day of judgment._
933.5.6
The successive gifts of the Almighty are the cause of frequent praises and thanksgivings, and the number of these praises and thanksgivings is, in its turn, the cause of the constant succession of God's mercies. For every mercy a thanksgiving is due, and every thanksgiving is followed by a mercy. To render full thanks is beyond men's power; the mightiest are helpless to discharge their obligations. Above all, adequate thanks cannot be rendered for a benefit than which none is greater in the world and nothing is more blessed, in the world to come, to wit, victory over most powerful infidels and dominion over wealthiest heretics, "_these are the unbelievers_, _the wicked_."[2041] In the eyes of the judicious, no blessing can be greater than this. Thanks be to God! that this great blessing and mighty boon, which from the cradle until now has been the real object of this right-thinking mind (Bābur's), has now manifested itself by the graciousness of the King of the worlds; the Opener who dispenses his treasures without awaiting solicitation, hath opened them with a master-key before our victorious Nawāb (Bābur),[2042] so that the names of our[2043] conquering heroes have been emblazoned in the records of glorious _ghāzīs_. By the help of our victorious soldiers the [Sidenote: Fol. 317.] standards of Islām have been raised to the highest pinnacles. The account of this auspicious fortune is as follows:— (_b. Rānā Sangā and his forces._)
933.5.7
When the flashing-swords of our Islām-guarded soldiers had illuminated the land of Hindūstān with rays of victory and conquest, as has been recorded in former letters-of-victory,[2044] the Divine favour caused our standards to be upreared in the territories of Dihlī, Āgra, Jūn-pūr, Kharīd,[2045] Bihār, _etc._, when many chiefs, both pagans and Muḥammadans submitted to our generals and shewed sincere obedience to our fortunate Nawāb. But Rānā Sangā the pagan who in earlier times breathed submissive to the Nawāb,[2046] now _was puffed up with pride and became of the number of unbelievers_.[2047] Satan-like he threw back his head and collected an army of accursed heretics, thus gathering a rabble-rout of whom some wore the accursed torque (_ṯauq_), the _zīnār_,[2048] on the neck, some had in the skirt the calamitous thorn of apostacy.[2049] Previous to the rising in Hindūstān of the Sun of dominion and the emergence there of the light of the Shāhanshāh's Khalīfate [_i.e._ Bābur's] the authority of that execrated pagan (Sangā)—_at the Judgment Day he shall have no friend_,[2050] was such that not one of all the exalted sovereigns of this wide realm, such as the Sulṯān of Dihlī, the [Sidenote: Fol. 317b.] Sulṯān of Gujrāt and the Sulṯān of Mandū, could cope with this evil-dispositioned one, without the help of other pagans; one and all they cajoled him and temporized with him;
933.5.8
and he had this authority although the rājas and rāīs of high degree, who obeyed him in this battle, and the governors and commanders who were amongst his followers in this conflict, had not obeyed him in any earlier fight or, out of regard to their own dignity, been friendly with him. Infidel standards dominated some 200 towns in the territories of Islām; in them mosques and shrines fell into ruin; from them the wives and children of the Faithful were carried away captive. So greatly had his forces grown that, according to the Hindū calculation by which one _lak_ of revenue should yield 100 horsemen, and one _krūr_ of revenue, 10,000 horsemen, the territories subject to the Pagan (Sangā) yielding 10 _krūrs_, should yield him 100,000 horse. Many noted pagans who hitherto had not helped him in battle, now swelled his ranks out of hostility to the people of Islām. Ten powerful chiefs, each the leader of a pagan host, uprose in rebellion, as smoke rises, and linked themselves, as though [Sidenote: Fol. 318.] enchained, to that perverse one (Sangā); and this infidel decade who, unlike the blessed ten,[2051] uplifted misery-freighted standards which _denounce unto them excruciating punishment_,[2052] had many dependants, and troops, and wide-extended lands.
933.5.9
As, for instance, Ṣalāḥu'd-dīn[2053] had territory yielding 30,000 horse, Rāwal Ūdai Sīngh of Bāgar had 12,000, Medinī Rāī had 12,000, Ḥasan Khān of Mīwāt had 12,000, Bār-mal of Īdr had 4,000, Narpat Hāra had 7,000, Satrvī of Kach (Cutch) had 6,000, Dharm-deo had 4,000, Bīr-sing-deo had 4,000, and Maḥmūd Khān, son of Sl. Sikandar, to whom, though he possessed neither district nor _pargana_, 10,000 horse had gathered in hope of his attaining supremacy. Thus, according to the calculation of Hind, 201,000 was the total of those sundered from salvation. In brief, that haughty pagan, inwardly blind, and hardened of heart, having joined with other pagans, dark-fated and doomed to perdition, advanced to contend with the followers of Islām and to destroy the foundations of the law of the Prince of Men (Muḥammad), on whom be God's blessing! The protagonists of the royal forces fell, like divine destiny, on that one-eyed Dajjāl[2054] who, to understanding men, shewed the truth of the saying, _When Fate arrives, the eye becomes blind_, and, setting before their eyes the scripture which saith, _Whosoever striveth to promote the true religion, striveth for the good of his own soul_,[2055] [Sidenote: Fol. 318b.] they acted on the precept to which obedience is due, _Fight against infidels and hypocrites_.