Babur on Hindustan: Excerpts from the Babur-Nama

Wed, 30 Dec 2015 12:31:44 +0000

Four days ago, December 26 was the death anniversary of Babur the founding Mughal. He died on December 26, 485 years ago in 1530. Reviled in recent Indian history by proponents of the supremacist Hindutva brigade (remember Sadhvi Rithambara’s rantings of Babur ki Aulad to revile all Indian Muslims as the Sangh Parivar legitimised the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992), Babur (Zahiru'd-din Muhammad Babur, original name) was a man of letters who had a keen fascination for flora and fauna besides being an intrepid traveller-warrior. Babur-Nama (Memoirs of Babur), originally written in Turki was translated into Persian during his grandson, Akbar’s reign. We bring you some excerpts

Of Hindustan
Hindustan is of the first climate, the second climate, and the third climate; of the fourth climate it has none. It is a wonderful country. Compared with our countries it is a different world; its mountains, rivers, jungles and deserts, its towns, its cultivated lands, its animals and plants, its peoples and their tongues, its rains, and its winds, are all different. In some respects the hot-country (garm-sil) that depends on Kabul, is like Hindustan, but in others, it is different. Once the water of Sind is crossed, everything is in the Hindustan way (tariq) land, water, tree, rock, people and horde, opinion and custom.

Of the northern mountains
After crossing the Sind-river (eastwards), there are countries, in the northern mountains mentioned above, appertaining to Kashmir and once included in it, although most of them, as for example, Pakli and Shahmang (?), do not now obey it. Beyond Kashmir there are countless peoples and hordes, parganas and cultivated lands, in the mountains. As far as Bengal, as far indeed as the shore of the great ocean, the peoples are without break. About this procession of men no-one has been able to give authentic information in reply to our enquiries and investigations. So far people have been saying that they call these hill-men Kas.[1] It has struck me that as a Hindustan pronounces shin as sin (i.e. sh as s), and as Kashmir is the one respectable town in these mountains, no other indeed being heard of, Hindustanis might pronounce it Kashmir.[2] These people trade in musk-bags, b:hri-qutas,[3] saffron, lead and copper.

Hindus call these mountains Sawalak-parbat. In the Hindi tongue sawai-lak means one lak and a quarter, that is 125,000, and parbat means a hill, which makes 125,000 hills.[4] The snow on these mountains never lessens; it is seen white from many districts of Hind, as, for example, Lahor, Sihrind and Sambal. The range, which in Kabul is known as Hindu-kush, comes from Kabul eastwards into Hindustan, with slight inclination to the south. The Hindustanat[5] are to the south of it. Tibet lies to the north of it and of that unknown horde called Kas.

Of Rivers
Many rivers rise in these mountains and flow through Hindustan. Six rise north of Sihrind, namely Sind, Bahat (Jilam), Chan-ab [sic], Rawl, Biah, and Sutluj [6]; all meet near Multan, flow westwards under the name of Sind, pass through the Tatta country and fall into the ‘Uman (-sea).

Besides these six there are others, such as Jun (Jumna), Gang (Ganges), Rahap (Rapti?), Gumti, Gagar (Ghaggar), Siru, Gandak, and many more; all unite with the Gang-darya, flow east under its name, pass through the Bengal country, and are poured into the great ocean. They all rise in the Sawalak-parbat. Many rivers rise in the Hindustan hills, as, for instance, Chambal, Banas, Bitwi, and Sun (Son). There is no snow whatever on these mountains. Their waters also join the Gang-darya.

Of the Aravalli
Another Hindustan range runs north and south. It begins in the Dihli country at a small rocky hill on which is Firuz Shah’s residence, called Jahan-nama,[7] and, going on from there, appears near Dihli in detached, very low, scattered here and there, rocky little hills.[8] Beyond Miwat, it enters the Biana country. The hills of Sikri, Bari and Dulpur are also part of this same including (tuta) range. The hills of Gualiar – they write it Galiur – although they do not connect with it, are off-sets of this range; so are the hills of Rantanbur, Chitur, Chandiri, and Mandau. They are cut off from it in some places by 7 to 8 kurohs (I4 to I6 m.). These hills are very low, rough, rocky and jungly. No snow whatever falls on them. They are the makers, in Hindustan, of several rivers.

Other particulars about Hindustan
The towns and country of Hindustan are greatly wanting in charm. Its towns and lands are all of one sort; there are no walls to the orchards (baghat), and most places are on the dead level plain. Under the monsoon-rains the banks of some of its rivers and torrents are worn into deep channels, difficult and troublesome to pass through anywhere. In many parts of the plains thorny jungle grows, behind the good defence of which the people of the pargana become stubbornly rebellious and pay no taxes. Except for the rivers and here and there standing-waters, there is little “running-water”. So much so is this that towns and countries subsist on the water of wells or on such as collects in tanks during the rains.

In Hindustan hamlets and villages, towns indeed, are depopulated and set up in a moment! If the people of a large town, one inhabited for years even, flee from it, they do it in such a way that not a sign or trace of them remains in a day or a day and a half [9]. On the other hand, if they fix their eyes on a place in which to settle, they need not dig water-courses or construct dams because their crops are all rain-grown,[10] and as the population of Hindustan is unlimited, it swarms in. They make a tank of dig a well; they need not build houses or set up walls-khas-grass (Andropogon muricatum) abounds, wood is unlimited, huts are made, and straightway there is a village or a town!

(Excerpted from Babur-Nama (Memories of Babur, author Zahiru’d-din Muhammad Babur Padshah Ghazi, translated by Annette Susannah Beveridge from the original Turki, Complete and unbridged, a Venture of Low Price Publications)

[1] Are they the Khas of Nepal and Sikkim? (G. of I.)

[2] Here Erskine notes that the Persian (trs.) adds, “mir signifying a hill, and kas being the name of the natives of the hill country.” This may not support the name kas as correct but may be merely an explanation of Babur’s meaning. It is not in I.O. 217 f. I89 or in Muh. Shirdzi’s lithographed Waqi-at-i-baburi p. I90

[3] Either yak or the tassels of the yak. See Appendix M

[4] My husband tells me that Babur’s authority for this interpretation of Sawalak may be the Zafar-nama (Bib. Ind. Ed. Ii, I49).

[5] i.e. the countries of Hindustan

[6] so pointed, carefully, in the Hai. MS. Mr. Erskine notes of these rivers that they are the Indus, Hydaspes, Ascesines, Hydraotes, Hesudrus and Hyphasis

[7] Ayin-i-akbari, Jarrett 279

[8] parcha parcha, kichikrak kichikrak, anda munda, tashiq taqghina. The Gazetteer of India (I907 I, I) puts into scientific words, what Babur here describes, the ruin of a great former range

[9] This” notes Erskine (p. 315) “is the wulsa or walsa, so well described by Colonel Wilks in his Historical Sketches vol. i.p. 309, note ‘On the approach of an hostile army, the unfortunate inhabitants of India bury under ground their most cumbrous effects, and each individual, man, woman, and child above six years of age (the infant children being carried by their mothers), with a load of grain proportioned to their strength, issue from their beloved homes, and take the direction of a country (if such can be found,) exempt from the miseries of war; sometimes of a strong fortress, but more generally of the most unfrequented hills and woods, where theyprolong a miserable existence until the departure of the enemy, and if this should be protracted beyond the time for which they have provided food, a large portion necessarily dies of hunger.’ See the note itself. The Historical Sketches should be read by every-one who desires to have an accurate idea of the South of India. It is to be regretted that we do not possess the history of any other part of India, written with the same knowledge or research.”
“The word wulsa or walsa is Dravidian. Telugu has valasa, ‘emigration, flight, or removing from home for fear of a hostile army.’ Kanarese has valase, olase, and olise, ‘flight, a removing from home for fear of a hostile army.’ Tamil has valasei, ‘flying for fear, removing hastily.’ The word is an interesting one. I feel pretty sure it is not Aryan, but Dravidian; and yet it stands alone in Dravidian, with nothing that I can find in the way of a root or affinities to explain its etymology. Possibly it may be a borrowed word in Dravidian. Malayalam has no corresponding word. Can it have been borrowed from Kolarian or other primitive Indian speech?” (Letter to H. Beveridge from Mr. F.E. Pargiter, 8^th August, 1914).
Wulsa seems to be a derivative from Sanscrit ulvash, and to answer to Persian wairani and Turki buzughlughi.

[10] lalmi, which is Afghani (Pushtu) signifies grown without irrigation.

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Babur on Hindustan: Excerpts from the Babur-Nama