SOCIO-CULTURAL LEGACIES OF CENTRAL ASIA IN TUZUK -I- BABURI /BOBUR TUZUKLARIDA MARKAZIY OSIYO IJTIMOIY- MADANIY MEROSLARI
Prof. Dr. Rukhsana Iftikhar[1]
Annotation:
Zaheer-ud-din Muhammad Babur
(1493-1530 A.D) the first Mughal who invaded India in 1526 A.D and laid down
the foundation of the Mughal empire in India. Babur was pushed down toward
India by his enemies in his hometown in Central Asia. Babur had no future in
his land, so he searched for another land as his Kingdom. Babur remained
nostalgic about Central Asia in all the years in spent in India. He was Central
Asian by heart and followed all the norms, and traditions of Central Asia
either in his political life or in his personal life. This paper attempts to
highlight first his autobiography as a main source of Babur’s history and then
the Central Asian legacy of Babur which was particularly mentioned in his
diary.
Key Words:
Tuzuk,
Farghana, Chingaz, Bahzad, Tawachi, Yaswal, autobiographical tradition.
Annotasiya:
Zahiriddin Muhammad Bobur (1493-1530 y.) 1526-yilda Hindistonni ishg’ol etgan hamda Hindistonda Mugʻullar imperiyasiga asos solgan ilk moʻgʻul hisoblanadi. Bobur Oʻrta Osiyoda, oʻzining tugʻilib oʻsgan shahrida dushmanlari tomonidan Hindiston tomon siqib chiqarildi. Boburning o'z yurtida kelajagi yo'q edi, shuning uchun u o'z saltanati sifatida boshqa yurtni istadi. Bobur Hindistonda o‘tkazgan yillar davomida O‘rta Osiyoga sog‘inch bilan o’rtandi. U oʻrta osiyolik boʻlib, siyosiy hayotida ham, shaxsiy hayotida ham Markaziy Osiyoning barcha meʼyor va anʼanalariga amal qilib yashagan. Mazkur maqolada avvalo uning tarjimai holi Bobur tarixining asosiy manbasi sifatida, so‘ngra uning kundaligida alohida tilga olingan Boburning Markaziy Osiyo merosini yoritishga harakat qilinadi.
Kalit so'zlar:
Tuzuk, Farg‘ona, Chingiz, Bahzod, Tovachi, Yasval, avtobiografik an’ana.
Zaheer -ud -din Muhammad Babur is regarded by many the founder of the Mughal Empire in Indian sub-continent and a lot of academic works devoted to him than to just to pay homage to Mughal ruler. “In Ramadan 899 (June1494) at the age of 12 I became the ruler of the province Farghana,” Babur wrote in his auto biography, one of the remarkable works in Chaghtay-Turkish language. He was born on 14th Feb 1482, but his date of birth is missing in historical record. His father Umer sheikh Mirza was the descendant of great Amir Timur. All Mughal rulers maintained strong connection with their ancestors and home central Asia. Babur’s mother was the daughter of tribal head Yunus Khan, a decadent of Chingaz Khan. Babur life is the true deception of failures. He fought for his kingdom and defeated thrice. Babur wandering in central Asia ultimately provoked him to search for a new land in or across Kabul. Babur deceives victory of India opened new doors for Babur and his Mughal linage. But the man who was behind this victory could not defeated his own destiny Babur died on 26 December 1530 at the age of forty-six. It was the end of Babur’s life, but it was the beginning of the glorious chapter of Mughal rule in Sub-continent. (Hookham 1962)
The Babur Nama, the
autobiography of Babur keeps the memory of his conquests alive. In its pages
Babur opens his soul with a frankness and lack of inhibition. The Babur
Nama is a history, a family chronicle, a diary, a collection of nature
notes, a gazetteer and book of advice of a concerned father to a slightly
hopeless son. Babur gave us the detailed geography, principalities, climate,
and districts of Fraghana in his days.
Babur nama is divided into three sections. The first tells of his
childhood and the adolescent failures of Babur that led to the loss of his
patrimony. The second tells of his early 20, s and the time he spent homeless
and wandering beyond the Oxus. This is followed by the lucky capture of Kabul,
which he thus uses as a base to rally his exiled and scattered Timurid
relatives. The third tells the story of his final years and the conquest of
India, a triumph tainted in its author’s eyes by the ever-present pain of exile
and loss. History may remember him as a first Mughal Emperor, but in his own
eyes he was always a loser and refugee.
Throughout his
memoir, we are admitted to Babur’s innermost confidence as he observes
and questions the world around him. He compares the flora and funa of
India and Afghanistan with and central Asia. He records his impressions of
falling for men or marrying women or enjoying the differing pleasures of
alcohol and opium.
Babur Nama is the
climax and culmination of that Islamic autobiographical tradition as
much as the Taj Mahal is the climax of architectural legacy in India. It is not
just that the autobiography is so very long and fabulously written in detailed:
it extends to 600 pages in Turki critical edition, although 15 Afghan years of
the Babur’s life were missing and lost forever. This means that Babur’s life is
fully documented than any other figure in the entire pre- colonial Islamic
world. It makes this book stand out and remain relevant in history and moving today
is its universal humanism. Its unusual honesty, sensitivity and
self-understanding are every lasting. (Grewal 2015)
As his latest scholarly biographer, Stephen Dale puts it:
Babur transcended the narrative and historical genres of his culture to
produce a retrospective self-portrait of the kind that is usually associated
with the most stylishly effective European and American autobiographies. No
other author in the Islamic world—or in pre-colonial India or China—offers a
comparable autobiographical memoir, a seemingly ingenuous first-person
narrative with self-criticism as well as self-dramatization and the evocation
of universally recognizable human emotions. (Dale 2018)
As generations of readers from different cultures have found, Babur-nama
is an unusually charming text: a warm-hearted, romantic, and deeply engaging
record of a highly cultured and honestly self-critical man: “His literary work
delivers to us everything,” writes Jean-Paul Roux, the French historian of the
Mughals. (Roux 2017)
Babur’s love of nature is visible
throughout the text of this autobiography and the fineness of his descriptive
eye are immediately apparent as he tries to evoke his lost homeland, the Farghana
Valley. Pages are devoted to the different varieties of multicolored tulips
growing wild in the Hindu Kush or to the smell of holm oak when used as winter
firewood, “blazing less than mastic but like it, making a hot fire with plenty
of hot ashes, and nice smell, the aroma of this was a bliss for his soul.
Above all, Babur loved books. His first act after a conquest was
to approach the library of his opponent and raid its shelves. Whenever he
invades a new city, he would prefer to go to poetry meetings and listen to the
verses being recited by its poets, joining in where appropriate, and
criticizing whenever he disliked a particular verse. In-appropriate poets were
a constant source of irritation for Babur. (Collier 2016)
The sensibilities of Babur were sharpened by wide reading, Babur had a
great gift for producing these witty and often piquant word-portraits of
his friends and foes. His own father he described as short and stout,
round-bearded and fleshy-faced . . . He used to wear his tunic so very tight
that to fasten the strings he had to draw his belly in and, if he let himself
out after tying them, they often tore away. He was not choice in dress or food
. . . In his early days he was a great drinker, later used to have a party once
or twice a week. He was good company, on occasions reciting verses admirably ..
(Askri 1982)
Much of the text is a record of Babur’s restless energy and ambition
towards literature, his struggles in a world that is inevitably
profoundly unexhausted, military, and feudal: fighting, riding horses, playing
polo, drinking wine, swimming in opposite to river Ganga, fishing and
hawking occupies many pages than more peaceful pursuits such as playing chess,
painting, calligraphy, romance, versifying his family life. He gives as much
space for battles lost as he does to battles won. He takes full responsibility
for his youthful failures: “These blunders,” he writes, “were the fruits of
inexperience.” (A. Beveridge, Babur nama, Memoris of Babur 1921)
He is also frank about his capacity for depression and grief. He
opens about the great tragedies of his life; in this way he brought about the
darkest moments of his life into the light. He writes with the feeling of great
pain about his mother’s death from fever, and the death of his
comrades-in-arms: “His death made me strangely sad,” he writes at one point,
“for few men have I felt such grief; I wept unceasingly for a week or ten
days.” (A. Beveridge, Humayun nama 1978)
It is overall a remarkable for the picture this autobiography provides
of an extraordinary man, the athlete Babur boasted of having swum across Ganga
with only thirty-three strokes in each direction indeed of having swum across
every river he had ever encountered. Very few in history who combined dexterity
with both sword and pen. It remains, no doubt, one of the greatest memoirs, in
any language and of any age and it presents one of the most complex, complete,
and satisfying self-portraits in the world of literature. Babur narration about
flora and fauna of Hindustan, fruits and vegetables, speciation of time,
revenue details gave the idea of 16th century India.
Return a hundred thanks, O Babur, for
the bounty of Merciful God
Has given you Sind, Hind and numerous Kingdoms.
(A. Beveridge 1975). Babur was very proud of his ancestors, and he
follow all traditions of Central Asia. It can be described under these
categories.
Literary Pursuits of Babur
Babur was multi-lingual. He knew Persian but patronized Turkish (his
mother tongue). He praised the poet Ali Sher Nawai very much in his Tuzuk
to whom he was inn correspondence. He was very good in ghazel, masnavi
and rubai. Babur memoirs are in Turkish language. Mirza Haider, his closet companion wrote
about Babur, in composition of Turki poetry he was second to Amir Ali Sher, a
known poet and Bina,i. Babur, s love for painting is visible in his
dairy. He took painting of Bahzad when he ran away from Central Asian
and established Bahzad school of painting in India. Bahzad
associated with Babur for a short time, and he considered him one of the beat
painters of Sultan Husayn court. (Schimmel 2004) Babur also achieved
great distinction in prose writing. According to Mirza Haidar, his reputation
as prose writer rest in Baburnama. Babur was a calligrapher. One of the
styles of calligraphy is associated with his name Khat-a Baburi. (Yaqeen
2005)
Spirituality:
Babur spiritual attachment with Abid ul Aharai Naqshbandi saint
remained with him throughout his life. The saint died when Babur was only
seven. Babur claimed that saint helped him in the time of his crisis. Babur translated his work named as Risala
Walidya, a work on Sufi ethics in Chagatai Turki verse in 1528-1529.
Mughal emperors considered themselves the devotees of Central Asian Naqshbabdi
Shaikhs, followed the steps of Babur whose Muslim name Zaheer- ud-din
had given him at the time of the birth by this Sufi saint Ubaid ullah Aharar.
Babur visited the tombs of Hazrat Nizam-ud-din Ayliua and Hazrat
Bakhtiyar Kaki after his success in the battle of Panipat like a conqueror was
from Ush of Central Asia. Babur mentioned a meeting the mystic Muhammad Ghaus Gwaliari,
whose brother became the advisor of Humayun. Babur said in his autobiography;
Though I be not related to
dervishes
Yet am I their follower in
heart and soul
Say no to King is far from
Darvish
I am a king yet the slaves of Dervishes (A. Beveridge, Babur nama, Memoris of Babur 1921)
Architecture:
Babur had a great vision for architecture and builder. He hired the services of 680 people and 1491 cutters to build in Agra, Biana, Dholpur, Gwalior and Koil. As his great grandfather hired the services of 200 stone cutter to build a mosque. He ordered to develop gardens in India. He drawn this inspiration of Timur garden in Samarkand. He still had the memory of his ancestorial home. He ordered to build Char bagh that included fountains and Hammam, a typical Islamic bath which was unknown to India. In Bagh-a- Wafa he introduced the cultivation of vines and melons around Agra, they were as good as thy grown in Turan. To pupils of Mimar Sinan Isa and Yousaf came to India to serve Babur. Babur ordered to constructure a large tank, with an enclosure and large audience hall and private apartment for himself with hot baths. Babur was very much oppressed by three things in India; its heat, wind, and dust and to protect himself, he ordered to construct bath where the dust storm had no effect and in the cold weather like Farghana. Babur ordered to construct a chamber well like central Asia in Hindustan. Mosque architecture of Babur still alive in form of most controversial of Baburi mosque.
Flora and Fauna:
Babur was very particular throughout his diary to describe the Flora and
Fauna. He was not a scientist but his love for zoology and botany was very
visible in his memoirs. Babur has given a detail description of fruits,
flowers, birds, and animals. It was very common in early Mughals to observe the
nature His great grandson emperor Jahangir inherited the legacies of Babur in
horticulture. (Haig 1928)
Women:
Babur was very respectful towards the ladies of his family. He followed
the guidance of her grandmother Ahsan Daulat Begum in the deserted days of his
family. Qutluq Nigar
Khanum, Babur shared in his Tuzuk that she was the only wife of Umer
Shiekh or whom he had good relations. In central Asian tradition the
regency of women was very respectful. Babur gave same respect to his mother and
grandmother. Mahim Begum enjoyed an
extra ordinary position not only in Babur’s life but also his harem. He came
out Agra to receive the ladies of his family even after becoming the King of
India. Babur paid respect to all ladies of harem and his wives in a very gentle
he praised in his memoirs.
When I bend down to earth to kiss her
foot
I feel my head
is in heaven (Lal 2005)
Army:
Babur also followed the same rules, the etiquettes to be observed at the
time of setting out a campaign, he adopted the title of “Khaqan” in imitation
of Mongol Khan. He adopted the same customs while invading India. Tatkh
-a-Baburi in Pakistan was the place where Babur stood to provoke his
soldiers to attack. Babur regarded himself a sovereign in his own right and did
not require any authority above him to legalize his authority as Amir Timur. It
was a matter of pride for Babur to follow his ancestors. Even he followed the
idea of warfare inherited from his Central Asian region. The management of his
battles and equipment of army were central Asian. The use of gun powder in the
battle of Panipat was not local technology in 16th century which he
used in battle of Panipat. (Kahan 1981)
He divided his army, under the
Mongol fashion into Tuman, each tuman had 10,000 men. Babur soldiers were
equipped with a helmet, a jaushan (a coat of mail), cuirass, a jiba(a
coat which covers from four plated from front), a mace, a lance, sword, axe, a
dagger and with arrows and bows. In addition to this, army was armed with
firemen, arquebuses and guns which were introduced by Ustad Ali Quli
khan, an ottoman Turk who entered in the services of Babur in 1514 and Mustafa,
another Ottoman who employed by Babur in 1520 to 1525. The firemen who he
brought from central Asia were the major factors in winning his wars in
Hindustan. The deceive role of cavalry in Babur’s army was his central Asian
training.
Babur arranged his army in the traditional formation of Mongols and Timurid Style-Right-Right, Left, Left and center. Battle gave details of all ceremonies in his diary which Mongols performed before marching to battlefield. To train his troops and maintained discipline he paid great attention for the chase he believed with Chingaz khan by hunting wild beasts, the commander and their men trained and discipline. His war in central Asia had taught him the use of Tulguma in which the Uzbeks were experts. Babur wrote in his Tuzuk, another of their practice is to advance and charge in front and rear, discharging their arrows at full gallop”. Babur used these two tactics in his battles in Hindustan. (Lamb 2003)
Babur’s Administration:
Babur admired the structure of government of Amir Timur. His executive,
Judiciary and military had prominent, Mongols and Indian nobles whose advice he
took for decision making of his own government in India. Even the name of his
diwans originally had central Asian origin like PARVANCI, TAWAACHI, YASAWAL,
this came from the Mongolian word means law and order. Like other Timuri
ruler he appointed Sheikh-ul-Islam as the head of Judicial department. The
orders of Babur bore the seal of emperor inside and outside this order the name
of his ancestors was written. Babur adopted the title Padshah. After the
death of Sultan Hussain Baiqara, he was the most senior person in the
hose of Timurid, but this title created no difference in his political life. As
his ancestors claim that Timurid were sovereigns by claim by their own rights.
They did not require the legal sanction of any Caliph as Sultans of Delhi
practiced earlier in India. He had been addressed as PADSHAH throughout Farghana
and Samarkand. Even when he lost his territories, he continued to call with the
time title. So, by adopting this title he followed the same Timurid tradition
as he was the sovereign in his own right as his grandfather, Abu Said Mirza
said, “ I am Padshah in my own right.” (Muh-bul-Hasan 2021)
Babur introduced coinage and established mints in Kabul, Badkshan, Jaunpur and later in Lahore. The silver coin followed the central Asian Dihram in weight and form and were called Shahrukis after the name of Shah Rukh the son of Amir Timur. Babur established the same idea of measuring the distance between Agra to Kabul as it was in his hometown. He required to construct a turret after every 18 miles for the rest of postmaster, couriers, and grooms. It was called YAM and in Hindustan a DAK CHAWKI. Babur wanted to establish it in every Khalisa to provide payments of salaries to postmaster and its administrative staff. Babur laid down the foundation of monarchy in India which was the legacy of his great grandfather Amir Timur. To what extend Babur followed YASA Chingaz Khan he himself wrote in Tuzuk,
“My forefather and family had always sacredly observed the rules of Chingaz
khan. In their parties, their courts, their festivals, their entertainments, in
sitting down, in raising up they never acted contrary to the institution of Chingaz.”
Babur also followed the rules of great Mongol chief to meet their relation and
in the ceremonies at the time of expeditions and setting campaigns. (Khan 1972)
On Provincial level, most of Babur’s Hakim and Shiqdars were either
Turks or Mongols and Uzbeks who came to India to seek refuge and fortune. Babur
knew that the loyalty of his Turks and Mongols nobles that he could depend
upon. His experience to appoint natives on different posts was not successful.
Assignments were made under the sultans of Delhi were called Iqta but
Babur used the term Tiyul which can be traced back to the Seljuq period.
For the allowances of provinces, he followed the traditions of his ancestors.
Conclusion:
Babur ranks as the national hero of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Babur followed the tradition of Amir Timur to develop the administrative structure of his government, arts, and architecture in Hindustan. Babur was a literary man of his age. Babur Persian poems became the folk songs of Central Asia. Babur was largely responsible for fostering the culture of his ancestors in India. In ancient times to Middle Ages central and south Asia have close relations. Central Asia has contributed significantly to religion (Hadiya, a source of Muslim law was written by Burhan-ud-din Farghani) philosophy, medicine, (Khawaja Khawind had learned medicine at Shiraz came to join Babur, court at Agra) astronomy (Samarkandi school of astronomy was flourish under the patronage of Mughal in India) and mathematics etc. It has produced great scientists, scholars, saints, and poets. The Sufis traditions of Pakistan are still central Asian. Sufis who migrated to India got their education from Samarkand. Babur legacy was continued in the period of other Mughal rulers even his successor tried to conquer their home in Central Asia in the period of Shah Jahan as Mughals were always nostalgic about their ancestor’s home.
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[1] Professor.Dr.
Rukhsana Iftikhar,Director of Babur Legacy Center.
Department of History & Pakistan Studies
University of the Punjab. Lahore
irukhsana7@gmail.com
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