Turks in manners and language. So much was this the case with Baber and his kindred, that he had come to look upon himself as more of a Turk than a Moghul, and in his Memoirs mentions, more than once, his aversion and contempt for the Moghul race.[1] The Dughlát had remained more distinctively Moghul, though among its members, also, much intermixture with Turki tribes appears to have taken place. Thus the Turki in which Baber wrote his Memoirs, must have been the natural language of Mirza Haidar also, who probably knew little or nothing of the Moghul tongue, and in his capacity of Musulman, would have despised it as something appertaining to infidels and barbarians. But however this may be, when he wrote in Persian, he was certainly using a foreign language, and it is for this reason, perhaps, that his style is wanting in the simplicity which (it is said) characterises that of Turki writers—a simplicity that Baber loved, and impressed upon his son, Humayun, as an accomplishment to be cultivated.[2]
That the Tarikh-i-Rashidi was not written for effect, or for the indulgence of a taste for literature, need hardly be remarked after what has been said above. The work is an earnest one, and the author, no doubt intended that it should be, before everything else, a clear and complete exposition of the times he had set himself to chronicle. On the whole he has been successful, and has produced a record that, in point of usefulness, will bear comparison (as far as can be judged from translations) with most of those of Asiatic authors who have occupied themselves in the same field, from the thirteenth century to the seventeenth.[3] His task was not an easy one, for much of the history of the times is complicated and obscure, and would require infinite care and method to present it to the reader with perfect clearness. All was change and disorder. Princes and members of
- ↑ He sums up his sentiments regarding them in some verses, which are translated, as follows:—
If the Moghul race were a race of Angels, it is a bad race;
And were the name Moghul written in gold, it would be odious.
Take care not to pluck one ear of corn from a Moghul's harvest.
The Moghul seed is such that whatever is sowed with it is execrable.
—(Memoirs, p. 93.) - ↑ "You certainly do not excel in letter writing, and fail chiefly because you have a great desire to show your acquirements, For the future you should write unaffectedly, with clearness, using plain words, which would cost less trouble both to the writer and the reader."—(Ib., p. 392.)
- ↑ Mr. Erskine has remarked that it forms a "valuable accompaniment to the Commentaries of Baber, which it illustrates in every page."—(Hist. of India, i., p. 193.)
