Note 10 — CHAPTER 8
Reading edition
"On Monday, the 23rd of the first Jemadi, I had mounted to survey my posts, and in the course of my ride was seriously struck with the reflection, that I had always resolved, one time or another, to make an effectual repentance, and that some traces of a hankering after the renunciation of forbidden works had ever remained in my heart: I said to myself, ‘O, my soul.’
(Persian Verse.)
"‘How long wilt thou continue to take pleasure in sin?
Repentance is not unpalatable—taste it.
(Turki Verse.)
"‘How great has been thy defilement from sin!
How much pleasure thou didst take in despair!
How long hast thou been the slave of thy passions!
How much of thy life hast thou thrown away!
Since thou hast set out on a holy war,
Thou hast seen death before thine eyes for thy salvation.
He who resolves to sacrifice his life to save himself
Shall attain that exalted state which thou knowest.
Keep thyself far away from all forbidden enjoyments;
Cleanse thyself from all thy sins.’
"Having withdrawn myself from such temptation, I vowed never more to drink wine. Having sent for the gold and silver goblets and cups, with all the other utensils used for drinking parties, I directed them to be broken, and renounced the use of wine, purifying my mind. The fragments of the goblets and other utensils of gold and silver I directed to be divided among derwishes and the poor. The first person who followed me in my repentance was Asas, who also accompanied me in my resolution of ceasing to cut the beard, and of allowing it to grow. That night and the following, numbers of Amirs and courtiers, soldiers, and persons not in the service, to the number of nearly three hundred men, made vows of reformation. The wine which we had with us we poured on the ground. I ordered that the wine brought by Baba Dost should have salt thrown into it, that it might be made into vinegar. On the spot where the wine had been poured out I directed a wāīn to be sunk and built of stone, and close by the wāīn an almshouse to be erected. In the month of Moharrem in the year 935, when I went to visit Gualiar, in my way from Dholpur to Sikri, I found this wāīn completed. I had previously made a vow, that if I gained the victory over Rana Sanka the Pagan, I would remit the Temgha (or stamp-tax) levied from Musulmans. At the time when I made my vow of penitence, Derwish Muhammed Sarban and Sheikh Zin put me in mind of my promise. I said, ‘You did right to remind me of this: I renounce the temgha in all my dominions, so far as concerns Musulmans’; and I sent for my secretaries, and desired them to write and send to all my dominions firmans conveying intelligence of the two important incidents that had occurred" (Memoirs of Baber, p. 354). [Elliot-Dowson iv. 269.]