Understanding the poetic expertise of Babur through his Persian Poetry
Owahedur Zaman
Gauhati University, Guwahati, Assam, India
The Journal of Eurasian Turkic Studies ISSN 2636-0810 December, 2020
VOL. 5 pp. 123~131
Abstract
The paper deals with the poetic expertise of Zahīrud-Dīn Muhammad Babur specially in the field of Persian poetry. The Mughal period plays a significant role in India for the advancement of the Persian language and literature. The rulers of this age were fantastic scholars, poets and they broadly patronized the intelligence. Babur himself whom we know as the founder of the Mughal dynasty in India, composed Persian quatrains and ghazals. He composed couplets under the pen-name ‘Babur’. His poetic abilities and skills are critically acclaimed. The general method used in this work is based on thorough study of Babur’s Memoirs, Diwan as well as the primary and secondary sources regarding his composition of Persian poetry. Therefore, it is an attempt to observe, examine, analyze and understand the poetic works of Babur with some examples that he included in his book Babur-Nama and Diwan.
Keywords: Persian poetry, Expertise, Diwan, Babur nama, Mughal Period
INTRODUCTION
During the Mughal era, Persian literature especially prose and poetry advanced immensely. Zahīrud-Dīn Muhammad Babur himself was a man of letter and fond of Poetry. The son and successor of Babur, Humayun, was also a possessor of a Diwan. Not only Humayn but his other sons and other rulers of that period, such as Akbar, Jahangir and Shahjahan, were also patroniser and fond of Persian poetry, with the exception of Aurangzeb, who never patronized and encourage any poets in his court.
Zahīrud-Dīn Muhammad Babur who reigned India from 1525 until 1530, wrote his excellent memories, but he was nevertheless also an accomplished poet in Persian. Babur fought battles, composed poetry and collected books all his life.1 He was born in 1483 in Fergana Valley (Andizhan Province) descending from Tamburlaine on his father's side and Chinggis Khan on his mother‟s side and he came to the throne only just at the age of twelve. At the age of fifteen he took Samarqand but he lost all his lands on the heels of it and took shelter near his maternal uncle in Khujand and took his land and throne back by means of his help. At the age of 18 he was once more defeated and was obliged to escape to Samarqand. When he was 21, he received Kabul in a bloodless way and became the Sultan of that region. He started the campaign of India when he was 36 and established Mughal Empire (1526- 1858) and died at the age of 48 (1530). He had four sons: Humayun, Kamran, Askari and Hindal, all of whom were poets. Askari and Hindal ware known by their stray verses, and Humayun and Kamran had Diwans.2 Babur was such a Sultan of the world who left his home land Farghana and settled into a foreign land but transformed the foreign land into homeland.
Babur and his poetry
He composed Persian verses under the pen-name „Babur‟. His poetical accomplishments and abilities are widely acclaimed. Babur loved to have around him as many poets and men of letters as he could find. However, on account of his earlier political career being devoted continually to struggles for survival and his later years being spent in wars of conquest, he could not gather many persons of literary merits at his court. Even then, a number of learned men joined him and adorned his court first at Kabul and then at Agra.
Babur studied the poems of Sufi poets like Rumi, Ḥāfeẓ-e, and Maulana . that he borrowed some Sufi poets which reflects in his poetry. One can easily witness it from his poetry that Babur was a great follower of the aforesaid Persian poets from whom he frequently quotes poetry in his book. Babur’s Diwan was published by Sir E. Denison Ross in 1910.
Babur composed more poetries in Turkish than Persian and Kamran composed more in Persian than Turkish3). His Memoirs are intermixed with Chagatai and Persian verses. His poetry can best be understood within the framework of his life, which he describes so compellingly in his book Babur-nama. The verses also find a place in his Diwan-i-Babur, due to which the literary value of Babur-nama increases considerably. enough in the poetic intention of Babur.
Babur was not a practicing Sufi in his everyday life but a follower of the Naqshbandi Sufi order. Babur composed of verses when he was sick in India which may convey feelings of Sufi devotionalism4). Verses he composed in periods of his life are indicative of his moods and thoughts at and reveal his inclination towards Sufism.
درویشا نرا اگر نھ از خویشانیم لیک از دل و جان معتقد ایشانیم
دور است مگوی شاھی از درویشی شاھیم ولی دنبة درویشانیم
“Though Sufis do not belong to our category but I am devoted by heart and soul;
Do not say that monarchy is having distance with Darveshi, though I am an emperor but I am the slave of Darveshes.”5)
When Babur saw the battlefield of Panipat, he was in great anxiety by seeing the strange customs, language, and way of fighting of the people. He finds himself distracted in mind and confronted with the vast and strange Indian soldiers adorned with elephants. He composed this verse at the battlefield of Panipat6) itself:
پریشان جمعی و جمعی پریشان گرفتار قومی و قومی عجائب
“Distracted by the mob, ruffled in mind; in the grip of people and strange people. But it is not easy to translate the aforesaid verse without knowing the context.” Babur did not like someone who tries to be clever in front of him. We
can see it within these two verses which he sent to Nizam Khan, Mir of Bayanah Fort with a proverb in the last hemistitch.
با ترک ستیزہ مکن ای میر بیانه چالاکی و مردانگی ترک عیان است
گر زود نیائی و نصیحت نه کنی گوش آنجا که عیان است چه حاجت ببیان است
“Shine not with the Turk, O Mir of Bayana: his courage and skill are obvious. Pay attention to this advice, whatever is obvious, so there is no need to say?”7)
Babur was a kind hearted man too. We can understand it from the following couplets. When Khwaja Obaidullah Ahrar died in 1491AD, Babur expressed sadness in his sad demise:
در ھوای نفس گمرہ عمر ضائع کردہ ایم پیش اھل اللہ از افعال خود شرمندہ ایم یک نظر با مخلصان خسته دل فرما که ما خواجگی را ماندہ ایم و خواجگی را زندہ ایم
“We have wasted our life on the lower, the appetitive self and stand self condemned before men of God.
Cast a single glance on thy single minded and broken heart devotee for we have lived for the master and slaves of the Master.”8)
Babur expressed a spectrum of thoughts and ideas exquisitely in his Persian Ghazals. According to Prof. Nusratullo Jumahoja, “Logical consistency, the strong formation of the system, completeness of the idea are peculiar for all of Babur’s ghazals. They look like a well built architectural memorial. Life dictated us to remember Babur’s ghazals in our everyday life.”9)
Babur wrote beautiful and romantic ghazals of very high standard in simple Persian. A few of his lyrical verses are cited here.
صد وعدہ داد از لب شیرین خویش لیک مردم درین امید که وعدہ و فانه کرد تا او گشاد آن لب پرخند در چمن پیراھنی نه ماند که غنچه قبانه کرد
“A hundred promises made by the sweet lipped beloved, none of them fulfilled The buds learned to open up to themselves from her bright smile in the garden.”
According to S. Naimuddin, Babur did not possess less poetical talents of a high order, his poetries are extremely graceful and are noteworthy for the light it throws on the life and thought of the emperor himself.10)
Here is some examples of Babur that Naimuddin quoted in his books:
ای ماہ شام وصل تو صبح سعادتست روز جدائی تو ولی شام محنتست O! moon of evening: your union with thee is the morning of happiness,
but the day of separation from thee is the evening of sorrow.
جانم بکن جراحت و راحت رسان بدل از تو بجان خسته جراحت چو راحتست O! my beloved: inflict a wound upon me and thereby give comfort to my heart,
for a wound received at thy hands is a solace to my afflicted soul.
But Hadi Hasan opines that the genuine Persian verse of Babur is only 19 whereof 13 are quoted here and 6 others, comprising 3 quatrains are to be found on pages 16 and 18 of the which is edited by Sir E. Denison Ross,Calcutta,1910.11)
Qasim Farista opines that Babur had no parallel in Music, poetry and Prose12). در علم موسیقی و شعر و انشاء و ام ۔ لا نظیر نه تشاد
It is interesting to know that Babur did the poetic translation of the Risala-i-Walidiya of Khowaja Obaidullah Ahrar Naqsbandi. He did this poetic translation when he was suffering from fever. It began in the month of Safar and was completed on 8th Rabiul Awwal 935/1528 AD.13)
One can see the talent of Babur in poetry in Risala-i-Walidiya and how he did the beautiful poetic translation of it from Persian into Turkish.14) He himself records, “I completed the versification of the contents of the Risala, on the day I composed as many as fifty verses”.15)
Praising the poetic qualities of Babur, Mirza Hyder Daughlat says, “He was adorned with various virtues and clad with numberless good qualities. In the composition of Turkic poetry, he was second only to Amir Ali Sher Nawai. He has written a Diwan in the purest and most lucid Turkic.”16) He also added that no one in Babur’s family before him ever possessed such talents as he.17)
It is also worth noting that the invention of a new Khat (handwriting style), which is known as Khat-i-Baburi, is credited to Babur. Interestingly, in that Khat-i-Baburi, Babur transcribed a copy of the Quran that is now being preserved in the Kitab Khana-i-Astana Quds, Mashhad, Iran,18)
Schimmel says:
“Babur’s poetry covers every field of life-live and war, drinking and asceticism
– but it is born always spontaneously, discovering new subjects, and expressing them without difficulty, sometimes simple, sometimes in poetical tours-de-force playing skillfully with words. A careful and critical analysis of his view expressed in his poetical works, would, no doubt, complete the portraits of himself painted in the Vaqa’i. One must not forget that the active and learned ruler was, as some of his relatives, not only a poet but also a good calligraphist, and had invented, about 910/1504 when he was in Kabul, the Khat-i-Baburi, a new type of calligraphy (Vag.157), the artistic ruler of which were fixed by Qadi Ikhtiyar when he came to Murgab.”19)
One manuscript copy of diwan-i-Babur bearing no.19 Turkish is available in Rampur Reza Library in Rampur. It contains only twenty folios containing 13 lines, having a size 15x9.5 cm. It is written in a fair script (naskh.) It bears Babur’s own handwriting in the occasional marginal corrections and the fragment of a rubai written transversely across the last page.20)
Although some of the verses are the composition of Babur itself, others are quoted from prominent poets or the nobles of Babur's court. But to fit the narrative of some events, his own compositions are also quoted. At least his first acknowledged verse that he quotes in the Babur-nama was one of two Persian couplets he wrote in Andijan in 1500, shortly after his first marriage.
ھیچکس چون من خراب عاشق و رسوا مباد
ھیچ محبوبی چو تو بی رحم بی پروا مباد
May no person be as ravaged, lovesick and humiliated, as I,
May no lover be as pitiless and unconcerned, as thou.
To specify his capture of the Fort of Chanderi, he embraces the same tone and tenor and composed the following verse to mark the occasion.
بود چندی مقام چندیری پر ز کفار و دار حربی خرب
فتح کردم بحرب قلعه آن گشت تاریخ فتح دارالحرب
Was for awhile the station Chanderi, pagan-full, the seat of hostile force By fighting I vanquished its fort: conquest of an enemy country, being the chronogram.21)
Babur took the title of Ghazi after his victory against the Rajput ruler Rana Sanga in the battle of Khanwa which was fought in 1527. In the following verses, he addresses it in a poetic sense.
اسلام او چون آوارہ پای بلندوم
کفار ھنوز وحرب سازی بولدوم
خبر ایلاب آمدیم و روم شھید
اولماقاقه شد که غازی بولدوم
Islam is like the refuge for infidels because the infidels are still making war; Whenever we heard the news, ready to be martyred, and I turned into Ghazi for the first time.
Interestingly, Babur was not only a poet but also a musician. We can see it from the following couplet. He engraved this verse in a water Tank (Hauz) of Marble constructed by him.
نوروز و نوبھار و می و دلبری خوش است
بابر بعیش کوش که عالم دوبارہ نیست
New Year and spring and wine and a sweetheart are good;
Babur, have a good time for the world is not to be had a second time.22)
Conclusion
As a whole, the poetry of Babur can be seen as an indicator of his literary aspiration, a reflection on his career, and often as a measure of his feelings. In many occasions, the poetic excellence of his other contemporaries was also remembered and acknowledged by Babur and quotes their couplets in his memoirs. Babur paid particular attention to his literary reputation. He wanted the readers of Babur-nama to understand that he had vigilantly worked to master the art form of poetry. He wrote Persian couplets to explain his distracted, lovesick state just after his first marriage, although he did not explain feelings for his young wife, but portrayed his emotional turmoil after becoming fascinated by a poor boy called Baburi in the bazar. In doing so he adhered to classical Persian literary works. Future generations must always remember for his inspirational works, valiant feats of arms, his charismatic personality, and his literary achievements in the forms of Babur-nama, his Diwan and other poetic compositions. But the style of writing, quoting verses in between the narrative and its different translated versions, particularly the Persian couplets, and the style adopted by the translators, also give it enormous literary and linguistic significance.
References
1. Babur, (1996), Babur Nama, trans. Wheeler M. Thackson, Oxford University Press, New York.
2. Babur(2014), Diwan-i-Babur, Intro. by Prof. S.M.Azizuddin Hussain, Rampur Raza Library, Rampur.
3. Dale, Stephen F., (1996), “The poetry and Auto-Biography of Babur-Nama.” The Journal of Asian Studies. Vol. 55, No. 3, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2646449
4. Hadi, Navi, (2001), History of Indo-Persian Literature, Iran Culture House, New Delhi. 5. Hasan, Hadi, (1972), A Golden Treasury of Persian Poetry. Indian Council for Cultural Relations, New Delhi, 2nd Edition. --- , (2008), Mughal Poetry: Its Cultural and historical Perspective, Aakar Books, New Delhi.
6. Daughlat, Mirza Hyder, (1895), Tarikh-i-Rashidi, Trans. Sir Edward Denison Ross. S. Low, Marston and Company, New York.
7. Naimuddin, S., (1959), “Some unpublished verses of Babur.” Islamic Culture, Vol.XXX, no.1. 8. Schimmel, (1975), A mystical dimension of Islam, Chapel Hill University Press, North Caroline.
Foot
Notes
1)
Hadi, Navi, (2001), History of Indo-Persian Literature, Iran Culture House, New
Delhi, p.237 2) Hasan, Hadi (2008),
Mughal Poetry: Its Cultural and historical Perspective, Aakar Books, Delhi,
p.66.
3)
Ibid, p.66.
4)
Dale, Stephen F, (1996), “The poetry and Auto-Biography of Babur-Nama,” The
Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 55, No.
3, p.644, (Electronic Source) URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2646449644
5)
Babur, (2014), Diwan-i-Babur, Intro. by Prof. S.M.Azizuddin Hussain, Rampur
Raza Library, Rampur,
6)
Panipat is a historic city in Haryana, India where The First Battle of Panipat
was fought on 21 April 1526 between the
invading forces of Babur and the Lodi dynasty.
7)
Babur, Diwan-i-Babur, p.18
8)
Babur, Diwan-i-Babur, pp.18-19
9)
ibid, pp.18-19
10)
ibid,p. 20; Naimuddin, S. (1959) “Some unpublished verses of Babur,” Islamic
Culture, Vol.XXX, no.1, p.45 11) Hadi Hasan, Mughal Poetry, p.65
12)
Babur, Diwan-i-Babur,p.35
13)
ibid,p.40
14)
Stephen F. Dale, p.643
15)
Babur, (1996), Babur Nama, trans. Wheeler M. Thackson, Oxford University Press,
New York, p.10. 16) Daughlat, Mirza Hyder, (1895) Tarikh-i-Rashidi, Trans. Sir
Edward Denison Ross, S. Low, Marston and
Company, New York, p.173-174; Babur, Diwan-i-Babur, p.42.
17)
Daughlat, Mirza Hyder, Tarikh-i-Rashidi,p.174.
18)
Babur, Diwan-i-Babur, p.45.
19)
Schimmel, (1975), A mystical dimension of Islam, Chapel Hill University Press,
North Caroline, p.506.
20)
Babur, Diwan-i-Babur, p.42
21)
Hadi Hasan, Mughal Poetry, p.68
22) Hasan, Hadi, (1972), A Golden Treasury of Persian Poetry, Indian Council for Cultural Relations, New Delhi, 2ndEdition,p.320
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