A History of Agriculture in India v2.c67.s5: Babur-Nama—An Autobiography and a Book on Natural History
A History of Agriculture in India v2.c67.s5
- Language
- English
Babur-Nama—An Autobiography and a Book on Natural History
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Babur-nama reflects the character and interests of the author, Zehir-ud-din Muhammad Babur. Babur, the founder of the Mughal dynasty in India, is regarded as one of the most romantic and interesting personalities of Asian history. He was a man of indomitable will, a great soldier, and an inspiring leader. But unlike most men of action he was also a man of letters with fine literary taste and fastidious critical perception. In Persian, he was an accomplished poet, and in his mother-tongue, the Turki, he was master of a simple forceful style.
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He was conscious of his own importance and kept a record of his daily activities in the form of brief notes. He made use of these notes when, soon after the capture of Chanderi on 29 January 1528, he decided to dictate his memoirs. He chose one of the many gardens around Agra that he had been creating ever since he had proclaimed himself the Padshah of Hindustan and dictated his memoirs, almost continuously till his death on 26 December 1530. In less than three years, he succeeded in giving final form to his autobiography.
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Babur’s autobiography, to which he had perhaps himself given the title of Babur-nama, was written ‘in the purest dialect of the Turki language.’ It is reckoned among the most enthralling and romantic works in the literature of all times. It makes a delightful reading and ‘deservedly holds a high place in the history of human literature.’
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It appears that in spite of a brilliant translation in Persian available since A.D. 1589 it was the Turki Babur-nama that held the place of honour in the Royal Library of the Mughal Emperor. It seems something of an irony, therefore, that its original should have been lost and unlike the Persian Waqiat-i-Baburi should have been unavailable even in copy to the European scholars when they started taking interest in Babur’s autobiography. It is surmised that the original of the Babur-nama was either destroyed in the sack of Delhi by Nadir Shah in A.D. 1739 or burnt during the Mutiny in that city in A.D. 1857. The Persian Waqiat-i-Baburi, however, escaped either of those two fates and attracted the attention of the European Indologists.
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As was only natural, the first European Indologists to be interested in Babur, as in other personalities of Mughal period of Indian history, were almost all Scots, e.g. Dr Leyden, Willian Erskine, John Malcolm and Mountstuart Elphinstone.
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It was left to Mrs A. S. Beveridge to do the translation into English from a genuine copy of Turki Babur-nama. What made it possible for her to do that was firstly the discovery of a genuine Turki copy of the Babur-nama in Hyderabad and secondly her success in not only procuring it for herself for some time but also have a number of fascimiles made of it by the E. J. Wilkinson Gibb Trust. These fascimiles enabled Mrs Beveridge to prove to scholars that the Hyderabad Babur-nama surpassed, both in volume and quality, all other Banur-namas.
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As a picture of the life of an Eastern sovereign in court and camp, the book stands unrivalled among Oriental autobiographies. ‘It is almost the only specimen of real history in Asia. . . In Babur, the figures, dresses, habits, and tastes, of each individual introduced are described with such minuteness and reality that we seem to live among them, and to know their persons as well as we do their characters. His descriptions of the countries visited, their scenery, climate, productions, and works of art are more full and accurate than will, perhaps, be found in equal space in any modern traveller.’
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To Lane-Poole ‘Babur’s Memoirs are no rough solider’s chronicles of marches, saps, wines, blinds, zabions, palisades, revelings, half-moons and such trumpery; they contain the personal impressions and acute reflections of a cultivated man of the world, well read in Eastern literature, a close and curious observer, quick in perception, discerning judge of men who was well able to express his thoughts and observations—in clear and vigorous language.’
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Apart from its value as a source book of history, the importance of the Babur-nama lies in the fact that it is the first book on Natural History of India. Babur had keen sense of observation and he describes the physical features of the country, its animals, birds, and vegetation with precision and brevity. The Babur-nama was illustrated during the reign of Akbar. Two illustrated copies of the Babur-nama are complete. One of these is in the British Museum, London. The other, in the National Museum, New Delhi, was illutstrated in A.D. 1605. The value of the illustrations of the Babur-nama lies in the fact that these are the first natural history paintings in India.