one of the former two having been taken by a white-washed
lamp holder {chirdghddn).
The purport of the verses inscribed on the standing-slab is
as follows :
A ruler from whose brow shone the Light of God was that* Back-bone of the Faith (za/iiru'd-din) Muhammad Babur Padshah. Together with majesty, dominion, fortune, rectitude, the open-hand and the firm Faith, he had share in prosperity, abundance and the triumph of victorious arms. He won the material world and became a moving light; for his every conquest he looked, as for Light, towards the world of souls. When Paradise became his dwelling and Ruzwan 2 asked me the date, I gave him for answer, " Paradise is forever Babur Padshah's abode."
h. Babur's wives and children?
Babur himself mentions several of his wives by name,.but Gul-badan is the authority for complete lists of them and their children.
1. 'AyishaSultan Beglm, daughter of SI. Ahmad MirzaMirdnshdhi was betrothed, when Babur was cir. 5 years old, in 894AH. (1488-89AD.), bore Fakhru'n-nisa' in 906AH. [who died in about one month], left Babur before 909AH. (1503 AD.).
2. Zainab SI. Beglm, daughter of SI. Mahmud Mlrza Mirdnshdht, was married in 91OAH. (1504-5 AD.), died childless two or three years later.
3. Mahlm Beglm, whose parentage is not found stated, was married in 912AH. (1506ad.), bore Bar-bud, Mihr-jan, Alsandaulat, Faruq [who all died in infancy], and Humayun.
4- Ma'suma SI. Beglm, daughter of SI. Ahmad Mlrza Mirdns/idhi, was married in 913AH. (1507AD.), bore Ma'suma and died at her birth, presumably early in the lacuna of 914-925 AH. (1508-19AD.).
1 Sn, a demonstrative suggesting that it refers to an original inscription on the second, but now absent, upright slab, which presumably would bear Babur's name.
2 Ruzwan is the door-keeper of Paradise.
3 Particulars of the women mentioned by Babur, Haidar, Gul-badan and other writers of. their time, can be seen in my Biographical Appendix to the Begim's Sumayun-ndma. As the Appendix was published in 1902, variants from it occurring m this work are corrections superseding earlier and less-informed statements.
