The Memoirs of Bābur 934.3.9

934.3.9

Another is the light an account of the second illness of 934 AH. might have thrown on a considerable part of the Collection of verses already written in Hindūstān and now known to us as the _Rāmpūr Dīwān_. The _Bābur-nāma_ allows the dates of much of its contents to be known, but there remain poems which seem prompted by the self-examination of some illness not found in the _B.N._ It contains the metrical version of Khwāja `Ubaidu'l-lāh's _Wālidiyyah_ of which Bābur writes on f. 346 and it is dated Monday Rabī` II. 15th 935 AH. (Dec. 29th 1528 AD.). I surmise that the reflective verses following the _Wālidiyyah_ belong to the 40 days' illness of 934 AH. _i.e._ were composed in the period of the _lacuna_. The Collection, as it is in the "Rāmpūr Dīwān", went to a friend who was probably Khwāja Kalān; it may have been the only such collection made by Bābur. No other copy of it has so far been found. It has the character of an individual gift with verses specially addressed to its recipient. Any light upon it which may have vanished with pages of 934 AH. is an appreciable loss.