574
HINDUSTAN
They turn their backs. The command of God is to be performed. Now praise be to God, All-hearing and All-wise, for victory is from God alone, the Mighty, the Wise.1 Written Jumada II. 25th 933 (ah. March 29th 1527 A.D.).2
MINOR SEQUELS OF VICTORY.
{a. Bdbur assumes the. title of Gkdzi.)
After this success Gkdzi (Victor in a Holy-war) was written amongst the royal titles.
1 This passage, entered in some MSS. as if verse, is made up of Qoran, cap. 17, v. 49, cap. 33, v. 38, and cap. 3, v. 122.
* As the day of battle was Jumada II. 13th (March 16th), the Fath-nama was ready and dated twelve days after that battle. It was started for Kabul on Rajab 9th (April nth). Something maybe said here appropriately about the surmise contained in Dr. Ilminsky's Preface and M. de Courteille's note to M4moires\\, 443 and 450, to the effect that Babur wrote a plain account of the battle of Kanwa and for this in his narrative substituted Shaikh Zain's Fath-nama, and that the plain account has been preserved in Kehr's Babur-nama volume [whence Ilminsky reproduced ii, it was translated by M. de Courteille and became known as a " Fragment" of Baburiana]. Almost certainly both scholars would have judged adversely of their suggestion by the light of to-day's easier research. The following considerations making against its value, may be set down :
(1) There is no sign that Babur ever wrote a plain account of the battle or any account of it. The Uaburagainst his doing so his statement that he inserts Shaikh Zain's Fath-nama beeoase it gives particulars. If he had written any account, it would be found preceding the Fath-nama, as his account of his renunciation of wine precedes Shaikh Zain's Farman announcing the act.
(2) Moreover, the "Fragment" cannot be described as a plain account such as would harmonize with Babur's style ; it is in truth highly rhetorical, though less so as Shaikh Zain's.
(3) The '' Fragment" begins with a quotation from the Babur-nama (f. 310* and n.), skips a good deal of Babur's matter preliminary to the battle, and passes on with what there can be no doubt is a translation in inferior Turki of the Akbar-nama account.
(4) The whole of the extra matter is seen to be continuous and not fragmentary, if it is collated with the chapter in which Abu'1-fazl describes the battle, its sequel of events, the death, character, attainments, and Court of Babur. Down to the death, it is changed to the first person so as to make Babur seem to write it. The probable concocter of it is Jahangir.
(5) If the Fragment were Babur's composition, where was it when 'Abdu-r-rahim translated the Babur-nama in 998 AH.-1590 ad. ; where too did Abu'1-fazl find it to reproduce in the Akbar-nama ?
(6) The source of Abu'l-fazl's information seems without doubt to be Babur's own narrative and Shaikh Zain's Fath-nima. There are many significant resemblances between the two rhetoricians' metaphors and details selected.
(7) A good deal might be said of the dissimilarities between Babur's diction and that of the " Fragment". But this is needless in face of the larger and more circumstantial objections already mentioned.
(For a fuller account of the "Fragment" see JRAS. Jan. 1906 pp. 81, 85 and 1908 p. 75 ff.)
