Babur (1490s-1530)

by Caroline Stone

Zahir al-Din Babur (1483-1530) claimed descent from Chinghis (Genghiz) Khan and Timur. He established the Mughul Dynasty in India. This profoundly affected the culture of the northern part of the subcontinent and brought India into much closer contact with the rest of the Eurasian world. Babur set down his experiences in an autobiography, the Babur-nama, which is one of the major works of literature and greatly influenced his descendants. It was, he said, his intention "that the truth should be reached in every matter and that every act should be recorded precisely as it occurred."

Babur was the son of the ruler of Ferghana and at the age of 11 came to the throne, his father, a pigeon fancier, having died in an accidental fall from the pigeon house. He was one of the many descendants of Timur who fought and ruled over a number of principalities across Central Asia. The greatest of these was Samarkand, which Babur conquered in 1497. Aged 14, he was not strong enough to hold the city, which he won and lost again in 1500.

For several years, Babur lived as rough as any bandit chief, but in 1504 he came to occupy the throne of Kabul and his life changed. For the first time, as he points out in his autobiography, he found himself in contact with the outer world. Kabul was linked by its caravan routes with China, India, Iran, Iraq and Turkey. It was a wealthy city where many languages were spoken -- cultured and cosmopolitan in outlook. Not far away was Herat, the most important artistic centre in Central Asia since the time of Shah Rukh, Timur’s son, which was to provide Babur with inspiration in many fields from book production to architecture.

The years Babur spent in Kabul allowed time for thought and leisure, and the education of his sons. It prepared, in effect, the form that Mughul culture was to take in India. Babur did not, however, cease campaigning. In 1511, he retook Samarkand, but could not hold it against the Uzbek enemy. Samarkand was lost -- Babur turned towards India.

Babur felt he had a legal claim to India, going back to Timur’s conquests of 1399. He records that he wrote (perhaps rather naively) to Sultan Ibrahim of Delhi: "I sent him a goshawk and asked for the countries which from old had depended on the Turk." The Sultan did not give up his kingdom, and Babur went to war.

Part of Babur’s account of these years of campaigning is missing, but it is clear that he introduced guns for the first time into the plains of Hindustan. Along the west coast of India, such weapons were familiar, thanks to contact with the Portuguese and the Turks, but inland and to the north they were still unknown. Babur was much interested in the whole subject of artillery and later personally supervised the founding of cannons and mortars for siege use.

In 1526, Babur defeated Sultan Ibrahim at Panipat, secured the treasury at Agra, and on the following Friday the khutba was read in his name at Delhi -- he was now ruler of Hindustan.

The Babur-nama (Memoirs of Babur) includes a particularly interesting forty-page section in which he describes his new territories, including many details on the flora and fauna -- a subject that always interested him greatly. His daughter Gulbadan tells how he liked to write while sitting in the gardens he planted; the introduction of new plants and crops -- bananas and sugar to Kabul, grapes and new varieties of melons to North India -- was one of his great concerns.

Babur died on the 26th of December, 1530. His son and heir Humayun had been sick with a fever and Babur formally offered his life to God if his son should be spared. Thus, Humayun lived and Babur died. His last resting place was, as he had wished, at Kabul, which he had always thought of as home. His grave was on a high terrace, in a garden, washed by the wind and the rain.