Baburnama: Memoirs of Babur

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	Hi	PREFACE

	Codex, patchings or extracts from 'Abdu'r-rahim's Persian translation, or quotations of Jahangir's stop-gaps. Of these three causes for error the first is dominant, entailing as it does the drawbacks besetting work on an inadequate basis. It is necessary to enumerate the items of the Compilation here as they are arranged in Kehr's autograph Codex, because that codex (still in London) may not always be accessible,¹ and because the imprint does not obey its model, but aims at closer agreement of the Bukhara Compilation with Ilminski's gratefully acknowledged guide The Memoirs of Baber. Distinction in commenting on the Bukhara and the Kasan versions is necessary ; their discrepancy is a scene in the comedy of errors. ■ But for present difficulties of intercourse with Petrograd, I would have re-examined with Kehr's the collateral Codex of 1742 (copied In 1839 and now owned by the Petrograd University). It might be useful, as Kehr's volume has lost pages and may be disarranged here and there.

	The list of Kehr's items is as follows : 1 (not in the Imprint). A letter from Babur to Kamran the date of which is fixed as 1527 by its committing Ibrahim LtidCs sen to Kamran's charge (p. 544). It is heard of again in the Bukhara Compilation, is lost from Kehr's Codex, and preserved from his archetype by Klaproth who translated it. Being thus found in Bukhara in the first decade of the eighteenth century (our earliest knowledge of the Compilation is 1709), the inference is allowed that it went to Bukhara as loot from the defeated Kamran's camp and that an endorsement its companion Babur-nama (proper) bears was made by the Auzbeg of two victors over Kamran, both of 1550, both in Tramontana.¹ 2 {not in Imp.). Timur-pulad's memo, about the purchase of his Codex in cir. 1521 ( eo cap. post). 3 (Imp. I). Compiler's Preface of Praise (JRAS. 1900, p. 474). 4 (Imp. 2). Babur's Acts in Farghana, in diction such as to seem a re-translation of the Persian translation of 1589« How much of Kamran's MS. was serviceable is not easy to decide, because the Turki fettering of 'Abdu'r-rahim's Persian lends itself admirably to re-translation.^s 5 (Imp. 3). The " Rescue-passage" (App. D) attributable to Jahangir. 6 (Imp. 4). Babur's Acts in Kabul, seeming (like No. 4) a re-translation or patching of tattered pages. There are also passages taken verbatim from the Persian. 7 (Imp. omits). A short length of Babul's Hindustan Section, carefully shewn damaged by dots and dashes. 8 (Imp. 5). Within 7, the spurious passage of App. L and also scattered passages about a feast, perhaps part of 7. 9 (Imp. separates off at end of vol.). Translated passage from the Akbar-nama, attributable to Jahangir, briefly telling of Kanwa (1527), Babur's latter years (both changed to first person), death and court.³ ¹ That Babur-nama of the " Kamran-docket" is the mutilated and tattered basis, allowed by circumstance, of the compiled history of Babur, filled out and mended by the help of the Persian translation of 1589. Cf. Kehr's Latin Trs. fly-leaf entry; Klaproth s.n.; A.N. trs. H.B., p. 2601 JRAS. 1908, 1909, on the " Kamran-docket" (where are defects needing Klaproth's second article (1824). 2 For an analysis of an illustrative passage see JRAS. 1906; for facilities of re-translation set eo cap. p. xviii, where Erskine is quoted. V » See A.N, trans., p. 2601 Prefaces of Ilminski and de Courteille ; ZDMG. xxivii, Teufel's art. \| JRAS. 1908.

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