but however this may be, if the usually accurate Abul Gházi be followed, we learn that: "As there remained no longer in Kashghar, Yarkand, Alah-Tágh or Uighuristan, any prince descended from Chaghatai Khan, whose authority was acknowledged, the Moghul Amirs held a council, at which it was decided to summon Isán Bugha from Bokhara; and they proclaimed him Khan of Kashghar, Yarkand, Alah-Tágh, and of Moghulistan."[1] This would make it appear that Isán Bugha was still reigning in Mávará-un-Nahr when summoned by the Dughlát Amirs; but the point is doubtful, for we have just been told that he had fled to Moghulistan. In any case, the dates of the two events agree, for the disappearance of Isán Bugha from Mávará-un-Nahr is recorded by one author to have taken place in 721 H. (1321 A.D.), and this is just the year when he is said, by the other, to have been summoned to Kashghar and made Khan of Moghulistan, with (it may be assumed) its dependencies.
Thus, although the chronology and even some of the events of the times are uncertain, the final division of the Chaghatai Khanate appears to have taken place in or about the year 1321, and it resulted in two separate lines of Khans being established which were never afterwards united. The western branch was, a little later, superseded by Timur, whose descendants, through Baber, gave the ruling house to India, which has gone, for three centuries, by the name of "Moghul"; though, as we shall see from Mirza Haidar's narrative, it was, in its early days, known—and perhaps more correctly—as the "Chaghatai." The history of the eastern branch—that of the true "Moghuls" of Central Asia—we may now leave to be told, in detail, by our author; but as this line was several times broken, or sub-divided, and as the subject is a complicated one, it may aid the reader to give (immediately below), in the form of an epitomised statement, a general view of the succession of the Moghul Khans from the time of Isán Bugha onwards. It is extracted almost entirely from Erskine's History of India,[2] and was com-
- ↑ Desmaisons, p. 165.
- ↑ Vol. i., Appendix B.
vol. iii., p. 7), following the Khulásat-ul-Akbar, Il, or Ail, Khwája; by Sharaf-ud-Din (Pétis' transl. tom. i., p. 26), Aimal; and by Abul Gházi, "Aimal Khwája, who reigned in Mavara-un-Nabr under the title of Isán Bugha Khan." As regards the name Ais, however, there is some mistake due to a misreading of the text by Erskine. The name nowhere occurs in this form.
