[2690] Several incidents recorded by Gul-badan (writing half a century later) as following Māhīm’s arrival in Āgra, will belong to the record of 935 AH. because they preceded Humāyūn’s arrival from Badakhshān. Their omission from Bābur’s diary is explicable by its minor lacunæ. Such are:—(1) a visit to Dhūlpūr and Sīkrī the interest of which lies in its showing that Bībī Mubārika had accompanied Māhīm Begīm to Āgra from Kābul, and that there was in Sīkrī a quiet retreat, a chaukandī, where Bābur “used to write his book”;—(2) the arrival of the main caravan of ladies from Kābul, which led Bābur to go four miles out, to Naugrām, in order to give honouring reception to his sister Khān-ẓāda Begīm;—(3) an excursion to the Gold-scattering garden (Bāgh-i-zar-afshān), where seated among his own people, Bābur said he was “bowed down by ruling and reigning”, longed to retire to that garden with a single attendant, and wished to make over his sovereignty to Humāyūn;—(4) the death of Dil-dār’s son Alwār (var. Anwār) whose birth may be assigned to the gap preceding 932 AH. because not chronicled later by Bābur, as is Farūq’s. As a distraction from the sorrow for this loss, a journey was “pleasantly made by water” to Dhūlpūr.
[2691] Cf. f. 381b n. 2. For his earlier help to Raḥīm-dād see f. 304. For Biographies of him see Blochmann’s A.-i-A. trs. p. 446, and Badāyūnī’s Muntakhabu-'t-tawārīkh (Ranking’s and Lowe’s trss.).
[2692] Beyond this broken passage, one presumably at the foot of a page in Bābur’s own manuscript, nothing of his diary is now known to survive. What is missing seems likely to have been written and lost. It is known from a remark of Gul-badan’s (H.N. p. 103) that he “used to write his book” after Māhīm’s arrival in Āgra, the place coming into her anecdote being Sīkrī.
[2693] Jauhar’s Humāyūn-nāma and Bāyazīd Bīyāt’s work of the same title were written under the same royal command as the Begīm’s. They contribute nothing towards filling the gap of 936 AH.; their authors, being Humāyūn’s servants, write about him. It may be observed that criticism of these books, as recording trivialities, is disarmed if they were commanded because they would obey an order to set down whatever was known, selection amongst their contents resting with Abū’l-faẓl. Even more completely must they be excluded from a verdict on the literary standard of their day.—Abū’l-faẓl must have had a source of Bāburiana which has not found its way into European libraries. A man likely to have contributed his recollections, directly or transmitted, is Khwāja Muqīm Harāwī. The date of Muqīm’s death is conjectural only, but he lived long enough to impress the worth of historical writing on his son Niz̤āmu'-d-dīn Aḥmad. (Cf. E. and D.’s H. of I. art. T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī v, 177 and 187; T̤.-i-A. lith. ed. p. 193; and for Bāyazīd Bīyāt’s work, JASB. 1898, p. 296.)
[2694] Ibn Batuta (Lee’s trs. p. 133) mentions that after his appointment to Gūālīār, Raḥīm-dād fell from favour ... but was restored later, on the representation of Muḥammad Ghaus̤; held Gūālīār again for a short time, (he went to Bahādur Shāh in Gujrāt) and was succeeded by Abū’l-fatḥ (i.e. Shaikh Gūran) who held it till Bābur’s death.
[2695] Its translation and explanatory noting have filled two decades of hard-working years. Tanti labores auctoris et traductoris!
[2696] I am indebted to my husband for acquaintance with Niz̤āmu'-d-dīn Aḥmad’s record about Bābur and Kashmīr.
[2697] In view of the vicissitudes to which under Humāyūn the royal library was subjected, it would be difficult to assert that this source was not the missing continuation of Bābur’s diary.
[2698] E. and D.’s H. of I. art. Tārīkh-i Khān-i-jahān Lūdī v, 67. For Aḥmad-i-yādgār’s book and its special features vide l.c. v, 2, 24, with notes; Rieu’s Persian Catalogue iii, 922a; JASB. 1916, H. Beveridge’s art. Note on the Tārīkh-i-salāt̤īn-i-afāghana.
[2699] Humāyūn’s last recorded act in Hindūstān was that of 933 AH. (f. 329b) when he took unauthorized possession of treasure in Dihlī.