Note 2111 — SECTION III. HINDŪSTĀN (continued 3)

As the day of battle was Jumāda II. 13th (March 16th), the Fatḥ-nāma was ready and dated twelve days after that battle. It was started for Kābul on Rajab 9th (April 11th). Something may be said here appropriately about the surmise contained in Dr. Ilminsky’s Preface and M. de Courteille’s note to Mémoires ii, 443 and 450, to the effect that Bābur wrote a plain account of the battle of Kanwā and for this in his narrative substituted Shaikh Zain’s Fatḥ-nāma, and that the plain account has been preserved in Kehr’s Bābur-nāma volume [whence Ilminsky reproduced it, it was translated by M. de Courteille and became known as a “Fragment” of Bāburiana]. Almost certainly both scholars would have judged adversely of their suggestion by the light of to-day’s easier research. The following considerations making against its value, may be set down:—

(1) There is no sign that Bābur ever wrote a plain account of the battle or any account of it. There is against his doing so his statement that he inserts Shaikh Zain’s Fatḥ-nāma because it gives particulars. If he had written any account, it would be found preceding the Fatḥ-nāma, as his account of his renunciation of wine precedes Shaikh Zain’s Farmān announcing the act.

(2) Moreover, the “Fragment” cannot be described as a plain account such as would harmonize with Bābur’s style; it is in truth highly rhetorical, though less so as Shaikh Zain’s.

(3) The “Fragment” begins with a quotation from the Bābur-nāma (f.310b and n.), skips a good deal of Bābur’s matter preliminary to the battle, and passes on with what there can be no doubt is a translation in inferior Turkī of the Akbar-nāma account.

(4) The whole of the extra matter is seen to be continuous and not fragmentary, if it is collated with the chapter in which Abū’l-faẓl describes the battle, its sequel of events, the death, character, attainments, and Court of Bābur. Down to the death, it is changed to the first person so as to make Bābur seem to write it. The probable concocter of it is Jahāngīr.

(5) If the Fragment were Bābur’s composition, where was it when ‘Abdu-r-raḥīm translated the Bābur-nāma in 998 AH.-1590 AD.; where too did Abū’l-faẓl find it to reproduce in the Akbar-nāma?

(6) The source of Abū’l-faẓl’s information seems without doubt to be Bābur’s own narrative and Shaikh Zain’s Fatḥ-nāma. There are many significant resemblances between the two rhetoricians’ metaphors and details selected.

(7) A good deal might be said of the dissimilarities between Bābur’s diction and that of the “Fragment”. But this is needless in face of the larger and more circumstantial objections already mentioned.

(For a fuller account of the “Fragment” see JRAS. Jan. 1906 pp. 81, 85 and 1908 p. 75 ff.)