After several fruitless raids with the few troopers who remained faithful to him, he allied himself with his two uncles, Mahmud and Ahmad Khan, in an attack against Tambal, one of the powerful nobles who had revolted against him and set up Jahangir, his brother, on the throne of Farghana. At a critical moment his uncles left Babar to the mercy of his enemy, and he was again forced to fly for his life, hotly pursued by Tambal's horsemen. He was overtaken by two of them, who, not daring to pit themselves against Babar's prodigious strength and courage, tried to inveigle him into a trap. Babar gives a moving description of this great crisis in his life. Thoroughly exhausted, and seeing no prospect of escape, he resigned himself to die:—
"There was a stream in the garden, and there I made my ablutions and recited a prayer of two bowings. Then surrendering myself to meditation, I was about to ask God for His compassion, when sleep closed my eyes. I saw (in my dream) Khwája Yakub, the son of Khwája Yahya, and grandson of his Eminence the Khwája 'Obaid-Allah (a famous saint of Samarkand), with a numerous escort, mounted on dappled grey horses, come before me and say, 'Do not be anxious, the Khwája has sent me to tell you that he will support you and seat you on the throne of sovereignty; whenever a difficulty occurs to you, remember to beg his help, and he will at once respond to your appeal, and victory and triumph shall straightway lean to your side.' I awoke with easy heart, at the very moment when Yusuf the constable and his companions (Tambal's soldiers) were plotting some trick to seize and throttle me. Hearing them discussing it, I said to them, 'All you say is very well, but I shall be curious to see which of you dares to approach me,' As I spoke the tramp of a number of horses was heard outside the garden wall. Yusuf the constable exclaimed, 'If we had taken you and brought you to Tambal, our affairs would have prospered much thereby; as it is, he has sent a large troop to seize you; and the noise you hear is the tramp of horses on your track,' At this assertion my face fell, and I knew not what to devise.
"At this very moment the horsemen, who had not at first found the gate of the garden, made a breach in its crumbling wall, through which they entered. I saw they were Kutluk Muhammad Barlas and Babai Pargári, two of my most devoted followers, with ten or twenty other persons. When they came near to my person they threw themselves off their horses, and, bending the knee at a respectful distance, fell at my feet, and overwhelmed me with marks of their affection.
"Amazed at this apparition, I felt that God had just restored me to life. I called to them at once, 'Seize Yusuf the constable, and the wretched traitors who are with him, and bring them to me bound hand and foot,' Then, turning to my rescuers, I said, 'Whence come you? Who told you what was happening?' Kutluk Muhammad Barlás answered, 'After I found myself separated from you in the sudden flight from Akhsi, I reached Andijan at the very moment when the Khans themselves were making their entry. There I saw, in a dream, Khwája 'Obaid-Allah, who said, "Pádishah Babar is at this instant in a village called Karmán; fly thither and bring him back with you, for the throne is his of right." Rejoicing at this dream, I related it to the big Khan and little Khan…. Three days have we been marching, and thanks be to God for bringing about this meeting.'" [1]
After this exciting adventure Babar rejoined his time-serving uncles, but was forced into exile again in 1503, when, at the battle of Akshi, the Khans were completely defeated by Shaibani. Then he resolved to depart out of Farghana and to give up the attempt to recover his kingdom. Characteristically, when foiled in one enterprise he entered upon another yet more ambitious. Joined by his two brothers, Jahangir and Nasir, and by a motley array of various wandering tribes, he swooped down upon Kabul and captured it.
The description of the new kingdom thus easily won, which fills many pages of the Memoirs, reveals another side of Babar's character—his intense love of nature. He gives minute accounts of the climate, physical characteristics, the fruits, flowers, birds, and beasts, as well as of the human inhabitants. In the intervals between his battles, or between his rollicking drinking parties, which for some years of his life degenerated into drunken orgies, we often find Babar lost in admiration of some beautiful landscape, or collecting flowers and planting fruit trees. Wherever he came, Babar's first care was to dig wells and plant fruit and flower gardens. India owes much to the Great Moguls' love of horticulture.
When Babar had drilled his unruly Afghan subjects into something like order, he made, in 1506, one more unsuccessful attempt to crush Shaibani. However, in 1510, when that doughty warrior was defeated and slain by Ismail, Shah of Persia, Samarkand fell once more into Babar's hands, as a vassal of the Shah. Eight months afterwards he was driven out again. From that time Babar gave up all hopes of re-establishing the empire of his ancestor Timur, and turned his face towards India. In 1519 he gathered an army for his first expedition, which was, however, more of a reconnaissance than a conquest. Four more attempts he made, until at last, in 1526, with only 10,000 men, he defeated the hosts of Ibrahim Lodi, the last of the Afghan kings of Delhi, who, with 15,000 of his troops, were left dead on the field of Panipat.
Thus, after many struggles, Babar became "master and conqueror of the mighty empire of Hindustan," but he had to fight two more great battles before his sovereignty was undisputed—one in 1527 near Fatehpur Sikri, with the great chief of the Rajputs, Raja Sanga of Chitore, and another in 1529 near Buxar, with the Afghans who had settled in Bengal. The next year Babar died in his garden palace at Agra The nobility of his character was conspicuous in his death as it was in his life. He was devotedly attached to his eldest son, Humayun, who was seized with malarial fever while staying at his country estate at Sambhal. Babar had him removed by boat to Agra, but his physicians declared that the case was hopeless. Babar's own health had suffered much during his life in India, and he was terribly agitated by the news. When some one suggested that in such circumstances the Almighty sometimes deigned to accept the thing most valued by one friend in exchange for the life of another, Babar exclaimed that of all things his life was dearest to Humayun, as Humayun's was to him. He would sacrifice his own life to save his son. His courtiers entreated him to give up instead the great diamond taken at Agra, said to be the most valuable on earth. Babar declared that no stone could compare in value with his own life, and after solemnly walking round Humayun's couch, as in a religious sacrifice, he retired to devote himself to prayer. Soon afterwards he was heard to exclaim, "I have borne it away! I have borne it away!" Humayun began to recover, and, as he improved, Babar gradually sank. Commending his son to the protection of his friends, and imploring Humayun to be kind and forgiving to his brothers, the first of the "Great Moguls" of India passed away. He was buried at Kabul, in one of his beloved gardens, which, according to Tartar custom, he had chosen for his tomb, in "the sweetest spot of the neighbourhood." [2]
Babar's connection with Agra.
Babar's connection with Agra began immediately after the battle of Panipat. He sent forward Humayun, who occupied the town without opposition. The story of the great diamond referred to above is here recorded in the Memoirs. The Raja of Gwalior, slain at Panipat, had left his family and the heads of his clan at Agra. In gratitude to Humayun, who treated them magnanimously, and protected them from plunder, they presented to him a peskesh, or token of homage, consisting of a quantity of jewels and precious stones. Among these was one famous diamond which had been acquired by Sultan Alaeddin. "It is so valuable that a judge of diamonds valued it at about half the daily expense of the whole world. It is about eight mikkals" (or about 280 carats). This is generally supposed to be the celebrated Koh-i-nur.