LITMIR.BIZ

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My affairs were in a very good way.

      (e. Birth of Bābur’s first child.)

      After our departure (last year) from Andijān, my mothers and my wife and relations came, with a hundred difficulties and hardships, to Aūrātīpā. We now sent for them to Samarkand. Within a few days after their arrival, a daughter was born to me by ‘Āyisha-sult̤ān Begīm, my first wife, the daughter of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā. They named the child Fakhru’n-nisā’ (Ornament of women); she was my first-born, I was 19. In a month or 40 days, she went to God’s mercy.

      (f. Bābur in Samarkand.)

      On taking Samarkand, envoys and summoners were sent off at once, and sent again and again, with reiterated request for aid and reinforcement, to the khāns and sult̤āns and begs and marchers on every side. Some, though experienced men, made foolish refusal; others whose relations towards our family had been discourteous and unpleasant, were afraid for themselves and took no notice; others again, though they sent help, sent it insufficient. Each such case will be duly mentioned.

      When Samarkand was taken the second time, ‘Alī-sher Beg was alive. We exchanged letters once; on the back of mine to him I wrote one of my Turkī couplets. Before his reply reached me, separations (tafarqa) and disturbances (ghūghā) had happened.543 Mullā Binā’ī had been taken into Shaibāq Khān’s service when the latter took possession of Samarkand; he stayed with him until a few days after I took the place, when he came into the town to me. Qāsim Beg had his suspicions about him and consequently dismissed him towards Shahr-i-sabz but, as he was a man of parts, and as no fault of his came to light, I had him fetched back. He constantly presented me with odes (qaṣīda u ghazal). He brought me a song in the Nawā mode composed to my name and at the same time the following quatrain; —544

      No grain (ghala) have I by which I can be fed (noshīd);

      No rhyme of grain (mallah, nankeen) wherewith I can be clad (poshīd);

      The man who lacks both food and clothes,

      In art or science where can he compete (koshīd)?

      In those days of respite, I had written one or two couplets but had not completed an ode. As an answer to Mullā Binā’ī I made up and set this poor little Turkī quatrain; —545

      As is the wish of your heart, so shall it be (būlghūsīdūr);

      For gift and stipend both an order shall be made (buyurūlghūsīdūr);

      I know the grain and its rhyme you write of;

      The garments, you, your house, the corn shall fill (tūlghūsīdūr).

      The Mullā in return wrote and presented a quatrain to me in which for his refrain, he took a rhyme to (the tūlghūsīdūr of) my last line and chose another rhyme; —

      Mīrzā-of-mine, the Lord of sea and land shall be (yīr būlghūsīdūr);

      His art and skill, world o’er, the evening tale shall be (samar būlghūsīdūr);

      If gifts like these reward one rhyming (or pointless) word;

      For words of sense, what guerdon will there be (nilār būlghūsīdūr)?

      Abū’l-barka, known as Farāqi (Parted), who just then had come to Samarkand from Shahr-i-sabz, said Binā’ī ought to have rhymed. He made this verse; —

      Into Time’s wrong to you quest shall be made (sūrūlghūsīdūr);

      Your wish the Sult̤ān’s grace from Time shall ask (qūlghūsīdūr);

      O Ganymede! our cups, ne’er filled as yet,

      In this new Age, brimmed-up, filled full shall be (tūlghūsīdūr).

      Though this winter our affairs were in a very good way and Shaibāq Khān’s were on the wane, one or two occurrences were somewhat of a disservice; (1) the Merv men who had taken Qarā-kūl, could not be persuaded to stay there and it went back into the hands of the Aūzbegs; (2) Shaibāq Khān besieged Ibrāhīm Tarkhān’s younger brother, Aḥmad in Dabūsī, stormed the place and made a general massacre of its inhabitants before the army we were collecting was ready to march.

      With 240 proved men I had taken Samarkand; in the next five or six months, things so fell out by the favour of the Most High God, that, as will be told, we fought the arrayed battle of Sar-i-pul with a man like Shaibāq Khān. The help those round-about gave us was as follows; – From The Khān had come, with 4 or 5000 Bārīns, Ayūb Begchīk and Qashka Maḥmūd; from Jahāngīr Mīrzā had come Khalīl, Taṃbal’s younger brother, with 100 or 200 men; not a man had come from Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, that experienced ruler, than whom none knew better the deeds and dealings of Shaibāq Khān; none came from Badī‘u’z-zamān Mīrzā; none from Khusrau Shāh because he, the author of what evil done, – as has been told, – to our dynasty! feared us more than he feared Shaibāq Khān.

      (g. Bābur defeated at Sar-i-pul.)

      I marched out of Samarkand, with the wish of fighting Shaibāq Khān, in the month of Shawwāl546 and went to the New-garden where we lay four or five days for the convenience of gathering our men and completing our equipment. We took the precaution of fortifying our camp with ditch and branch. From the New-garden we advanced, march by march, to beyond Sar-i-pul (Bridge-head) and there dismounted. Shaibāq Khān came from the opposite direction and dismounted at Khwāja Kārdzan, perhaps one yīghāch away (? 5 m.). We lay there for four or five days. Every day our people went from our side and his came from theirs and fell on one another. One day when they were in unusual force, there was much fighting but neither side had the advantage. Out of that engagement one of our men went rather hastily back into the entrenchments; he was using a standard; some said it was Sayyidī Qarā Beg’s standard who really was a man of strong words but weak sword. Shaibāq Khān made one night-attack on us but could do nothing because the camp was protected by ditch and close-set branches. His men raised their war-cry, rained in arrows from outside the ditch and then retired.

      In the work for the coming battle I exerted myself greatly and took all precautions; Qaṃbar-‘alī also did much. In Kesh lay Bāqī Tarkhān with 1000 to 2000 men, in a position to join us after a couple of days. In Diyūl, 4 yīghāch off (? 20 m.), lay Sayyid Muḥ. Mīrzā Dūghlāt, bringing me 1000 to 2000 men from my Khān dādā; he would have joined me at dawn. With matters in this position, we hurried on the fight!

      Who lays with haste his hand on the sword,

      Shall lift to his teeth the back-hand of regret.547

      The reason I was so eager to engage was that on the day of battle, the Eight stars548 were between the two armies; they would have been in the enemy’s rear for 13 or 14 days if the fight had been deferred. I now understand that these considerations are worth nothing and that our haste was without reason.

      As we wished to fight, we marched from our camp at dawn, we in our mail, our horses in theirs, formed up in array of right and left, centre and van. Our right was Ibrāhīm Sārū, Ibrāhīm Jānī, Abū’l-qāsim Kohbur and other begs. Our left was Muḥ. Mazīd Tarkhān, Ibrāhīm Tarkhān and other Samarkandī begs, also Sl. Ḥusain Arghūn, Qarā (Black) Barlās, Pīr Aḥmad and Khwāja Ḥusain. Qāsim Beg was (with me) in the centre and also several of my close circle and household. In the van were inscribed Qaṃbar-‘alī the Skinner, Banda-‘alī, Khwāja ‘Alī, Mīr Shāh Qūchīn, Sayyid Qāsim, Lord of the Gate, – Banda-‘alī’s younger brother Khaldar (mole-marked) and Ḥaidar-i-qāsim’s son Qūch, together with all the good braves there

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