The above list contains the names of three wives whose parentage is not given or is vaguely given by the well-known sources,—namely, Māhīm, Gul-rukh and Dil-dār. What would sufficiently explain the absence of mention by Bābur of the parentage of Gul-rukh and Dil-dār is that his record of the years within which the two Begīms were married is not now with the Bābur-nāma. Presumably it has been lost, whether in diary or narrative form, in the lacuna of 914-25 AH. (1508-19 AD.). Gul-rukh appears to have belonged to the family of Begchīk Mughūls described by Ḥaidar Mīrzā[2747]; her brothers are styled Mīrzā; she was of good but not royal birth. Dil-dār’s case is less simple. Nothing in her daughter Gul-badan’s book suggests that she and her children were other than of the highest rank; numerous details and shades of expression show their ease of equality with royal personages. It is consistent with Gul-badan’s method of enumerating her father’s wives that she should not state her own mother’s descent; she states it of none of her “mothers”. There is this interest in trying to trace Dil-dār’s parentage, that she may have been the third daughter of Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā and Pasha Begīm, and a daughter of hers may have been the mother of
Salīma Sult̤ān Begīm who was given in marriage by Humāyūn to Bairām Khān, later was married by Akbar, and was a woman of charm and literary accomplishments. Later historians, Abū’l-faẓl amongst their number, say that Salīma’s mother was a daughter of Bābur’s wife Sālḥa Sult̤ān Begīm, and vary that daughter’s name as Gul-rang-rukh-barg or -‘iẕār (the last form being an equivalent of chihra, face). As there cannot have been a wife with her daughter growing up in Bābur’s household, who does not appear in some way in Gul-badan’s chronicle, and as Salīma’s descent from Bābur need not be questioned, the knot is most readily loosened by surmising that “Sālḥa” is the real name of Gul-badan’s “Dildār”. Instances of double names are frequent, e.g. Māhīm, Māh-chīchām, Qarā-gūz, Āq, (My Moon, My Moon sister, Black-eyed, Fair). “Heart-holding” (Dil-dār) sounds like a home-name of affection. It is the Ma‘āsir-ī-raḥīmī which gives Sālḥa as the name of Bābur’s wife, Pasha’s third daughter. Its author may be wrong, writing so late as he did (1025 AH.-1616 AD.), or may have been unaware that Sālḥa was (if she were) known as Dil-dār. It would not war against seeming facts to take Pasha’s third daughter to be Bābur’s wife Dil-dār, and Dil-dār’s daughter Gul-chihra to be Salīma’s mother. Gul-chihra was born in about 1516 AD., married to Tūkhta-būghā in 1530 AD., widowed in cir. 1533 AD., might have remarried with Nūru’d-dīn Chaqānīānī (Sayyid Amīr), and in 945 AH. might have borne him Salīma; she was married in 1547 AD. (954 AH.) to ‘Abbās Sult̤ān Aūzbeg.[2748] Two matters, neither having much weight, make against taking Dil-dār to be a Mīrān-shāhī; the first being that the anonymous annotator who added to the archetype of Kehr’s Codex what is entered in Appendix L.—On Māhīm’s adoption of Hind-āl, styles her Dil-dār Āghācha; he, however, may have known no more than others knew of her descent; the second, that Māhīm forcibly took Dil-dār’s child Hind-āl to rear; she was the older wife and the mother of the heir, but could she have taken the upper hand over a Mīrān-shāhī? A circumstance complicating the question of Salīma’s maternal descent is, that historians searching the Bābur-nāma or its Persian translation the Wāqi‘āt-i-bāburī for information about the three daughters of Maḥmūd Mīrān-shāhī and Pasha Bahārlū Turkmān, would find an incomplete record, one in which the husbands of the first and second daughters are mentioned and nothing is said about the third who was Bābur’s wife and the grandmother of Salīma. Bābur himself appears to have left the record as it is, meaning to fill it in later; presumably he waited for the names of the elder two sisters to complete his details of the three. In the Ḥaidarabad Codex, which there is good ground for supposing a copy of his original manuscript, about three lines are left blank (f. 27) as if awaiting information; in most manuscripts, however, this indication of intention is destroyed by running the defective passage on to join the next sentence. Some chance remark of a less well-known writer, may clear up the obscurity and show that Sālḥa was Dil-dār.
Māhīm’s case seems one having a different cause for silence about her parentage. When she was married in Herāt, shortly after the death of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, Bābur had neither wife nor child. What Abū’l-faẓl tells about her is vague; her father’s name is not told; she is said to have belonged to a noble Khurāsān family, to have been related (nisbat-i-khwesh) to Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā and to have traced her descent to Shaikh Aḥmad of Jām. If her birth had been high, even though not royal, it is strange that it is not stated by Bābur when he records the birth of her son Humāyūn, incidentally by Gul-badan, or more precisely by Abū’l-faẓl. Her brothers belonged to Khost, and to judge from a considerable number of small records, seem to have been quiet, unwarlike Khwājas. Her marriage took place in a year of which a full record survives; it is one in the composed narrative, not in the diary. In the following year, this also being one included in the composed narrative, Bābur writes of his meeting with Ma‘ṣūma Mīrān-shāhī in Herāt, of their mutual attraction, and of their marriage. If the marriage with Humāyūn’s mother had been an equal alliance, it would agree with Bābur’s custom to mention its occurrence, and to give particulars about Māhīm’s descent.[2749]
i. Mr. William Erskine’s estimate of Bābur.
“Z̤ahīru’d-dīn Muḥammad Bābur was undoubtedly one of the most illustrious men of his age, and one of the most eminent and accomplished princes that ever adorned an Asiatic throne. He is represented as having been above the middle size, of great vigour of body, fond of all field and warlike sports, an excellent swordsman, and a skilful archer. As a proof of his bodily strength, it is mentioned, that he used to leap from one pinnacle to another of the pinnacled ramparts used in the East, in his double-soled boots; and that he even frequently took a man under each arm and went leaping along the rampart from one of the pointed pinnacles to another. Having been early trained to the conduct of business, and tutored in the school of adversity, the powers of his mind received full development. He ascended the throne at the age of twelve, and before he had attained his twentieth year, had shared every variety of fortune; he had not only been the ruler of subject provinces but had been in thraldom to his own ambitious nobles, and obliged to conceal every sentiment of his heart; he had been alternately hailed and obeyed as a conqueror and deliverer by rich and extensive kingdoms, and forced to lurk in the deserts and mountains of Farghāna as a houseless wanderer. Down to the last dregs of life, we perceive in him strong feelings of affection for his early friends and early enjoyments. * * * He had been taught betimes, by the voice of events that cannot lie, that he was a man dependent on the kindness and fidelity of other men; and, in his dangers and escapes with his followers, had learned that he was only one of an association. * * * The native benevolence and gaiety of his disposition seems ever to overflow on all around him; * * * of his companions in arms he speaks with the frank gaiety of a soldier. * * * Ambitious he was and fond of conquest and glory in all its shapes; the enterprise in which he was for a season engaged, seems to have absorbed his whole soul, and all his faculties were exerted to bring it to a fortunate issue. His elastic mind was not broken by discomfiture, and few who have achieved such glorious conquests, have suffered more numerous or more decisive defeats. His personal courage was conspicuous during his whole life. Upon the whole, if we review with impartiality the history of Asia, we find few princes entitled to rank higher than Bābur in genius and accomplishments. * * * In activity of mind, in the gay equanimity and unbroken spirit with which he bore the extremes of good and bad fortune, in the possession of the manly and social virtues, in his love of letters and his success in the cultivation of them, we shall probably find no other Asiatic prince who can justly be placed beside him.”
The End.