|
|
||
|
|
||
|
xxviii
PREFACE
any kind about his* prae-accession years, not the date of his birth even, having escaped destruction.1 Happily Haidar Mirza {q.v.) possessed a more complete Codex than has come down to us through the Timurid libraries, and from it he translated many episodes of Baburiana that help to bridge gaps and are of special service here where the personalities of Babur's early environment are being named.
Babur's home-milieu favoured excellence in the quiet Arts and set before its children high standard and example of proficiency. Moreover, by schooling him in obedience to the Law, it planted in him some of Art's essentials, self-restraint and close attention. Amongst primal influences on him, his mother Qut-luq-nigar's ranked high ; she, well-born and a scholar's daughter, would certainly be educated in Turki and Persian and in the home-accomplishments her governess possessed (dtun q.v.). From her and her mother Aisan-daulat, the child would learn respect for the attainments of his wise old grandfather Yunas Khan. Aisan-daulat herself brought to her grandson much that goes to the making of a man ; nomad-born and sternly-bred, she was brave to obey her opinion of right, and was practically the boy's ruling counsellor through his early struggle to hold Farghana. With these two in fine influence must be counted Khan-zada, his five-years elder sister who from his birth to his death proved her devotion to him. Her life-story tempts, but is too long to tell; her girlish promise is seen fulfilled in Gul-badan's pages. 'Umar Shaikh's own mother Shah Sultan Begim brought in a type of merit widely differing from that of Aisan-daulat Begim ; as a town-lady of high Tarkhan birth, used to the amenities of life in a wealthy house of Samarkand, she was, doubtless, an accomplished and cultured woman.
'Umar Shaikh's environment was dominated for many years by two great men, the scholar and lover of town-life Yunas Khan and the saintly Ahrari {i.e. Khwaja 'Ubaidu'1-lah) who were frequently with him in company, came at Babur's birth and assisted at his
1 Cf. Cap. II, PROBLEMS OF THE MUTILATED BABUR-NAMA and Tarlkh-i-raskidi, trs. p. 174. .
|
||
|
|
||