Baburnama : Babur

The Baburnama (roughly, “History of Babur” or “Letters of Babur”; also known as Tuzk-e Babri) are the memoirs of Ahr-ud-Dn Muhammad Bbur (1483–1530), the founder of the Mughal Empire and a great-great-great-grandson of Timur. It is written in Chagatai, the Andijan-Timurids’ spoken language, which Babur refers to as Türki (“Turkic”). In AH 998 (1589–90 CE), during the reign of Emperor Akbar, a Mughal courtier, Abdul Rahim Khan-i-Khanan, translated the poem into Persian, the Mughal court’s normal literary language.

Bbur was a Timurid prince with an interest in nature, society, politics, and economics, as evidenced by his observations and comments in his memoirs. His vivid depiction of events encompasses not only his personal life, but also the history and geography of the locations he lived in, as well as the people he met. Astronomy, geography, statecraft, military concerns, weapons and wars, plants and animals, biographies and family histories, courtiers and artists, poetry, music and paintings, wine parties, historical monument tours, and contemplations on human nature are among the topics covered in the book. 

Baburnama:Babur

Despite the fact that Babur himself does not appear to have commissioned any illustrated versions, his grandson began as soon as he received the completed Persian translation in November 1589. In 1913, the first of four illustrated versions made under Akbar over the next decade or so was dismantled and sold. There are 70 miniatures in total, 20 of which are housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The National Museum in New Delhi (nearly complete, dated 1597–98), the British Library (143 out of an original 183 miniatures, possibly early 1590s), and the British Museum (a miniature spanning two pages at the British Museum).

and a copy, much of which is missing the text, with the greatest pieces in Moscow’s State Museum of Oriental Art (57 folios) and Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum (30 miniatures). There are solitary miniatures from these variants in several other collections. Later, illustrated texts were created, but not on the same large scale.

Babur appears in the majority of the scenes. As far as we know, no contemporary photos of him exist, but Akbar’s artists constructed a reasonably consistent representation of him, “with a roundish face and droopy moustache,” wearing a Central Asian style of turban and a short-sleeved coat over a robe with long sleeves,” from whatever sources they had.

Baburnama written by Khanzada 

Khanzada Begum (c. 1478–1545) was a Timurid princess and the eldest daughter of Amir of Ferghana Umar Shaikh Mirza II. She was also Babur’s older sister and the Mughal Empire’s founder. Throughout their lifetimes, she and her brother remained strongly committed to one another, even as the dynasty rose from controlling a small and obscure principality in Central Asia to ruling a vast chunk of the Indian subcontinent. After Babur’s death, he bestowed the noble title of Padshah Begum on his sister, and she became the first lady of his empire.

Khanzada Begum is referenced frequently in the Baburnama, her brother’s memoirs, and she is constantly spoken of with warmth and respect. Her niece Gulbadan Begum, who calls her aunt ‘Dearest Lady,’ constantly mentions her in the Humayun-nama (aka janam). She is said to have intervened numerous times when her relatives, particularly her nephews, were having political disagreements.

The Baburnama is part of a long tradition of imperial memoirs and official court biographies that may be found all across the world. These can be traced back to ancient India’s Ashokavadana and Harshacharita, the mediaeval Prithviraj Raso, and the Mughals’ Akbarnama (biography), Tuzk-e-Jahangiri or Jahangir-nameh (memoirs), and Shahjahannama (genre of flattering biographies).

Timur, Akbar’s ancestor, was honoured in a variety of works, most notably the Zafarnama (“Book of Victories”), the best-known of which was also published in an illustrated copy by Akbar’s workshop in the 1590s. A manuscript purported to be Timur’s autobiography that was discovered in Jahangir’s library in the 1620s is today considered a period fake. 

Conclusion

The Baburnama, one of the most important Mughal manuscripts, sheds light on Babur (1483–1530), the Mughal empire’s founder’s literary, intellectual, and cultural world. Baburnama is known for its observations on India’s natural world, which is a feature of the text that is particularly well portrayed in the subject matter here. Three trees are depicted on the page, one on the recto (jackfruit) and the other two on the verso (monkey jack and lote). The photos are interspersed with writing in nasta’liq Persian script that describe the trees and their fruits. Four imperial copies of the Baburnama were constructed during the reign of Babur’s grandson Akbar (1556–1605), each illustrated by top royal atelier artists.This folio is from the first of these copies, a 1589 manuscript that served as a model for following editions. It is believed to have originally comprised 191 pictures, many of which were dispersed in 1913, with a large portion surviving in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Early Mughal workshop practise included collaboration between two or more painters, as illustrated here.