Baburnama

During the reign of his grandson, the emperor Akbar, the work was translated into Classical Persian, the literary language of the Mughal court, by a courtier, Abdul Rahim Khan-i-Khanan, in 1589–90 CE (AH 998).

[2] Babur was an educated Timurid prince, and his observations and comments in his memoirs reflect an interest in nature, society, politics and economics.

The book covers topics as diverse as astronomy, geography, statecraft, military matters, weapons and battles, plants and animals, biographies and family chronicles, courtiers and artists, poetry, music and paintings, wine parties, historical monument tours, as well as contemplations on human nature.

[3] Though Babur himself does not seem to have commissioned any illustrated versions, his grandson ordered their production as soon as he was presented with the finished Persian translation in November 1589.

As far as is known, no contemporary images of him survive, but from whatever sources they had Akbar's artists devised a fairly consistent representation of him, "with a roundish face and droopy moustache", wearing a Central Asian style of turban and a short-sleeved coat over a robe with long sleeves.

The final section of the Bāburnāma covers the years 1525 to 1529 and the establishment of the Mughal Empire over what was by his death still a relatively small part of north-western India, which Babur's descendants would expand and rule for three centuries.

[14][15][16]It was first translated into English from Persian Version[17] by John Leyden and William Erskine as Memoirs of Zehir-Ed-Din Muhammed Baber: Emperor of Hindustan,[18] later by the British orientalist scholar Annette Beveridge,[a][20][21] and most recently by Wheeler Thackston, who was a professor at Harvard University.

Quoting Henry Beveridge, Stanley Lane-Poole writes: His autobiography is one of those priceless records which are for all time, and is fit to rank with the confessions of St. Augustine and Rousseau, and the memoirs of Gibbon and Newton.

[24]Lane-Poole goes on to write: His Memoirs are no rough soldier's chronicle of marches and countermarches... they contain the personal impressions and acute reflections of a cultivated man of the world, well read in Eastern literature, a close and curious observer, quick in perception, a discerning judge of persons, and a devoted lover of nature; one, moreover, who was well able to express his thoughts and observations in clear and vigorous language.

The man's own character is so fresh and buoyant, so free from convention and cant, so rich in hope, courage, resolve, and at the same time so warm and friendly, so very human, that it conquers one's admiring sympathy.The utter frankness of self-revelation, the unconscious portraiture of all his virtues and follies, his obvious truthfulness and a fine sense of honour, give the Memoirs an authority which is equal to their charm.

In it he explains the social structure and the caste system, the geographical outlines and the recent history; he marvels at such details as the Indian method of counting and time-keeping, the inadequacy of the lighting arrangements, the profusion of Indian craftsmen, or the want of good manners, decent trousers and cool streams; but his main emphasis is on the flora and fauna of the country, which he notes with the care of a born naturalist and describes with the eye of a painter...He separates and describes, for example, five types of parrots; he explains how plantain produces banana; and with astonishing scientific observation he announces that the rhinoceros 'resembles the horse more than any other animal' (according to modern zoologists, the order Perissodactyla has only two surviving sub-orders; one includes the rhinoceros, the other the horse).

In other parts of the book too he goes into raptures over such images as the changing colors of a flock of geese on the horizon, or of some beautiful leaves on an apple tree.

His progression with all its ups and downs from tiny Ferghana to Hindustan would in itself ensure him a minor place in the league of his great ancestors, Timur and Jenghiz Khan; but the sensitivity and integrity with which he recorded this personal odyssey, from buccaneer with royal blood in his veins reveling in each adventure to emperor eyeing in fascinated amazement every detail of his prize, gives him an added distinction which very few men of action achieve.