Note 2462 — SECTION III. HINDŪSTĀN (continued 4)

Mahdī may have come to invite Bābur to the luncheon he served shortly afterwards. The Ḥai. MS. gives him the honorific plural; either a second caller was with him or an early scribe has made a slip, since Bābur never so-honours Mahdī. This small point touches the larger one of how Bābur regarded him, and this in connection with the singular story Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Aḥmad tells in his T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī about Khalīfa’s wish to supplant Humāyūn by Mahdī Khwāja (Index s.nn.).