The History of Humāyūn (Gulbadan Begam) 3.5
The History of Humāyūn (A. S. Beveridge) 3.5
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3.5.1
Most of the journey would be made by horse-litter, and some perhaps by palki with bearers. Men frequently dropped down the Kabul River on rafts, being thus able to do in twelve hours what ten marches covered; but one cannot suppose the ladies would make this adventurous journey, which was attended by risk even when people did not fall off the raft after potations, as some of Babar’s companions had done. Probably the road taken was that by But-khak (Dust of Idols) and Jagdalik, and by Jalalabad and the Khaibar, but there is no certainty, because there is no information. Gul-badan travelled with Maham in advance of her sisters, and thus had experiences all her own and a reception by her father unalloyed by numbers. Her liveliness would while away the tedium of the five months’ travel, and help to distract Maham’s sad thoughts from the loss of Faruq, her youngest born. Unfortunately, she sets down nothing about the journey until near its end. Letters between the Emperor and the travellers were frequent. One of the couriers, named Shirak (Little Lion), who was despatched by him on March 5th, carried not only letters to Maham, but was entrusted with a copy of the Memoirs which had been made to send to Samarqand.
3.5.2
On April 1st, and at Ghazipur, Babar heard that the ladies had been met at the Indus on February 19th by their military escort under his master-of-horse, and by this amir convoyed to the Chanab. This might fitly be told of Maham’s party, for there are other records of covering the distance to the Indus in about a month. On the 22nd a servant of Maham brought letters to Arrah from her whom he had left at the Garden of Purity (Bagh-i-safa), near Pind-dadan Khan, and this is the last such entry. Maham reached Agra on June 27th, and Babar met her outside the city at midnight.
3.5.3
Gul-badan gives amusing particulars of her own arrival, all of which she shall be left to tell. She followed Maham into Agra on the 28th, not having been allowed to travel with her through the previous night. Then she saw her father. Of him she can have kept only a dim memory, and it is likely enough she would stand in some awe of him and his deeds, but no word he has written suggests that a child needed to fear him, and she soon experienced 'happiness such that greater could not be imagined.' Happy child! and happy father, too! who recovered such a clever and attractive little daughter. It is not only her book that lets us know she had a lively mind, but the fact of its composition at an age when wits are apt to be rusted by domestic peace. Only a light that was strong in childhood would have burned so long to guide her unaccustomed pen after half a century of life, and only a youth of happy thoughts and quick perceptions have buoyed her, still gay and vivacious, across the worries and troubles of Humayun's time.
3.5.4
There were pleasant days after the coming to Agra, when Babar took Maham, and the child also, to see his works at Dholpur and Sikri. He had always been a builder and a lover of a view, a maker of gardens and planter of trees. Much of the scenery of his new location displeased him; he thought the neighbourhood of Agra 'ugly and detestable' and 'repulsive and disgusting,' words which do not now link well with that Agra which he and his line have made the goal of the pilgrim of beauty. It is difficult to go back in fancy to the city without a Taj, with no Sikandra near and with Sikri uncrowned.
3.5.5
Dholpur and Sikri had much to show of work done by the orders of the Emperor, — 'my royal father,' as Gulbadan generally calls him, using the home word baba invariably. At Sikri, amongst other buildings, was that in which she says he used to sit and write his book, i.e., the Tuzuk. There, too, the great battle which had been fought in 1527 will not have been ignored to ears so sympathetic as Maham's. Perhaps here the little girl first learnt dimly what it was to be a Ghazi, and to fight on the side of Heaven. She says that when these excursions had been made, and three months after her own arrival had sped by, the begams, with Khanzada as their chief, came within meeting distance of the capital, and that the Emperor went out to welcome them. There is nothing of this in the Memoirs, which are silent after the arrival of Maham as to the doings of the royal ladies. The reunion was soon to be clouded by anxieties and loss. A brief return in the story of Humayun must be made here. In the summer of 1529 he heard in Badakhshan of his father’s failing health, and, without asking leave, set off for India. He passed through Kabul, and there, to Kamran’s surprise, met him, who had just come up from Ghazni. The two conferred, and persuaded the ten-years-old Hindal, who was under orders for Agra, to take up the government of Badakhshan. Humayun then continued his march, and arrived in Agra without announcement to his father.
3.5.6
He came to the presence just when, by a coincidence which Maham may have helped to bring about, his parents were talking of him. It would be natural for the mother, who cannot have been ignorant of her son’s coming, to stir gentle thoughts of him and to warm his father’s heart towards him before they met, and by this to break the shock of the unpermitted absence from duty.
3.5.7
Babar was greatly angered by the desertion, which in truth placed Badakhshan in difficulty by withdrawing both troops and control. Its consequences were important, and caused him profound regret. To stand fast across the mountains and to push out the royal holdings beyond the Oxus from the vantage-ground of Badakhshan was a cherished dream, and one which he had taken steps through both Humayun and Kamran to realize. He wished Humayun to return to his post, but the latter, while saying he must go if ordered, was not willing to leave his people again. Babar then asked Khalifa to go, but this request was evaded, and there is much to arouse surmise that Khalifa saw in it the act of someone who wished him absent from the scene of crisis now foreseen as near. In his objection to leave Agra, affection for his old master would be a natural factor; another was his own supreme influence, the sequel of his character and of Babar’s recent failure in health, and springing from his power was, perhaps the dominant factor of his objection to leave,—a disposition to supplant Humayun in the succession by a ruler of less doubtful character.
3.5.8
The fate of Badakhshan was decided by its bestowal on its hereditary chief, Sulaiman Mirza, Miran-shahi, now a boy of sixteen, while Humayun's youthful locum tenens was ordered to come to India. Humayun betook himself to the idle enjoyments of his jagir of Sambhal, and was there, in a few months, attacked by illness which threatened life and which led to the remarkable episode of Babar’s self-sacrifice to save him. The narrative of this stands in all the histories and need not be repeated, but for the sake of making our princess’ details clear, it is as well to state what was the rite performed by Babar. There was and is in the East belief that if offering be made of the thing most precious to the suppliant, and if the offering be accepted, Heaven will give the life of a sick man in exchange. The rite observed is simple: first prayer of intercession is made, then the suppliant walks three times round the sick man’s bed. Of Babar’s sincerity there is no doubt; in mind and heart he gave himself; he felt conviction that, after the circuits, he had borne away the illness. Humayun was restored and Babar died,—a return from the gate of death and an entry there which might have occurred without Babar’s rite, but none the less was the self-sacrifice complete because he believed in its efficacy and was willing to die.
3.5.9
His health worsened rapidly after this and he made ready to go. Marriages were arranged for Gul-rang and Gul-chihra; the amirs were addressed; Humayun was counselled and named to the succession. Babar died on December 26th, 1530. 'Black fell the day,’ says his daughter; 'we passed that ill-fated day each in a hidden corner.’ The question of Khalifa’s wish to supersede Humayun is of great interest. It is written of by Nizamu-d-din Ahmad, in the Tabaqat, who had the story he retails from his father, Muqim, an old retainer of the Court. Abu’l-fazl repeats the main statement, which is that Khalifa had had thoughts of superseding Humayun by Muhammad Mahdi Khwaja, the husband of Khanzada Begam.