India Through the Ages Part 19

But in addition to Mewar we have to reckon with Marwar, or Jodhpur and Jeysulmeer. The former, however, was at this time a comparatively modern princ.i.p.ality. After the defeat of Jaichand, the Rajah of Kanauj--who had so unavailingly performed the Sai-nair rite at which Prithvi-Raj had carried off the Princess Sunjogata--his grandsons Shiv-ji and Sayat-Ram, set out towards the great Indian Desert, hoping to carve fresh fortune from its barren stretches. They succeeded; but it was not until A.D. 1511 that Prince Jodha laid the foundation of a new capital, and brought Marwar into line with the other great Rajput powers.

Jeysulmeer had a longer record. Headquarters of the Bhatti clan, its legendary history goes back to the eighth century; but from A.D. 1156 the chronicle is fairly continuous, and is full of romance and interest. Proud, pa.s.sionate, clean-lived princes, these descendants of the Moon--for they were of the Yadu race--seem to have been. One of them, still quite a lad, giving way to Berserk rage, struck his foster-brother. The blow was returned; whereupon, stung with shame, both at the insult and the lack of self-control which brought it about, the offender stabbed himself with his dagger. Another still more typical story is told of the pa.s.sing of Rawul (an honorific t.i.tle equalling Rajah) Chachik, who, finding disease his master, sent an emba.s.sy to the Mahomedan ruler of Multan, begging from him the last favour of _jud-dan_, or the gift of battle, "that his soul might escape by the steel of his foeman, and not fall sacrifice to slow disease."

The challenge was accepted, after the Mahomedan had been a.s.sured that honourable death was the sole end and aim.

So on the appointed day Rawul Chachik, followed by seven hundred n.o.bles, who, having shared all his victories, were prepared to follow him to death, marched out "to part with life."

"His soul was rejoiced, he performed his ablutions, worshipped the sword, bestowed charity, and withdrew his thoughts from this world.

The battle lasted four hours, and the Yadu prince fell with all his kin, after performing prodigees of valour. Two thousand Mahomedans fell beneath their swords, and rivers of blood flowed in the field; but the Bhatti gained the abode of Indra, who shared His throne with the hero."

Such, then, were the people who were gradually recovering some of the possessions and the prestige which they had lost when Prithvi-Raj fell victim to Mahomed Shahab-ud-din Ghori.

Meanwhile, at Delhi the thirty-six years of kinglessness pa.s.sed into seventy-three, during which the government was in the hands of three comparatively strong men, Belol Lodi, Secunder Lodi, Ibrahim Lodi.

The first was a warrior, the second a bigot, the third a tyrant. Of the three, Belol did most for his country, since at his death his empire extended eastwards as far as Benares.

Secunder seems to have subordinated policy to religion. He destroyed every image and temple which he could see, or of which he could hear, and promptly put to death a Brahman who preached that "all religions, if sincerely practised, were equally acceptable to G.o.d."

Tolerance was not a virtue in those days.

It was during the reign of Ibrahim Lodi that Babar, the first of the great Moghuls, entered India in A.D. 1514; but this was an event of such vast importance that it will be necessary to hark back some thirty years to the little kingdom of Ferghana, where Babar was born on the 14th of February, A.D. 1483.

[Map: India to A.D. 1483]

THE GREAT MOGHULS

BABAR THE ADVENTURER

A.D. 1483 TO A.D. 1514

Born on St Valentine's Day, A.D. 1483, the boy-baby, who was hereafter to be called Zahir-ud-din Mahomed, and nicknamed Babar, must have been plentifully supplied with fairy G.o.dmothers, for he was gifted with almost every possible gift.

To begin with, he had good looks, even judging by the curious portraits of those days. Then, there can be no question of his ability as a soldier, while intellectually he would have been remarkable in any age. Besides this, he was possessed of the true artistic temperament to a quite unusual degree; he was painter, poet, author, and in the smallest thing that he wrote showed unerring literary skill and taste.

Beyond, and above all, however, he had that nameless charm which makes him, surely, the most delightful personality known to history.

Given such a man, it would be sheer perversity to treat of him solely in reference to the part he played in India, as this would be to deprive ourselves of no less than thirty-six years of the very best of company.

So let us begin at the very beginning. It is possible to do this with an accuracy un.o.btainable with any other Indian king--or, indeed, with any king of any clime--because Babar left to the ages an autobiography of himself, his thoughts, his acts, his failures, his successes, which is, truly, a quite extraordinary record. Between the covers lies a whole, real, live, human being.

It opens, however, with these words, "In the year 1494, and in the twelfth year of my age, I became King of Ferghana." We have therefore to go back eleven years for the birth of Babar. Before doing this, a glance round the world will give us the _milieu_ in which our hero was to play his part.

Briefly, then, Vasco da Gama had but just discovered India, Henry VII.

was King of England. Michelangelo was revolutionising the world of art, Copernicus creating that of science. For the rest, a hundred years had pa.s.sed since Timur the "Earth Trembler" had shaken literally the whole world; for his grip on it had reached West to Moscow and East to China. Yet a hundred years further back again Chengiz Khan had swept over the same ground like a devastating flame.

Babar had both these unamiable ruffians as ancestors, but, apparently, was by no means proud of his Mongal or Moghul descent. He called himself a Turk, and wrote hardly of the race whose name, by the irony of fate, was to be attached to the dynasty he founded.

"If the Moghul race had an angel's birth, It still would be made of the basest earth; Were the Moghul name writ in thrice-fired gold, It would ring as false as it did of old; From a Moghul's harvest sow never a seed For the seed of a Moghul is false indeed!"

Babar was the son of Omar-Shaikh, King of Ferghana, or as it is now called, Khokand. At his birth a courier was sent post-haste to inform his maternal grandfather, the Khan of the Mongols, who, despite his seventy years, came back post-haste to join in the festivities, and--his uncouth, Mongolian tongue trippling over the polished Persian name Zahir-ud-din (the Evidence of Faith)--to dub the child Babar, or "the tiger," a nickname which stuck to him for life. A fine old man this grandfather of Babar's, and a fine old woman his grandmother must have been. A woman not to be trifled with, to judge by her action when one Jaimul-Khan, having for a time defeated her husband, seized her and made her over to one of his officers.

Isa-Begum raised no puerile objections. She received her new master quite affably, but once he was within her chamber door she locked it, bade her maids stab him to death, fling the body to the street, and send this message to Shaikh-Jaimul: "I am the wife of Yunas. Contrary to law, you gave me to another man, so I slew him. Come and slay me if you choose."

The erring Jaimul must have had good in him, for, struck by her courage, he restored her honourably to her husband.

At the age of five Babar was betrothed to his cousin Ayesha, and the next six years must have been spent at the millstone of education, since this was all the schooling Fate granted him, and he emerged from it with two languages at his fingers' end, and an amount of literary skill and general knowledge which was fairly surprising. His father, still in the prime of life, was killed by an accident while away from his capital, and the incident is thus described by the boy-king, who, 36 miles away, "immediately mounted in the greatest haste, and, taking such followers as were at hand, set out to secure my throne."

"The river flows under the walls of the castle, which is situated on the very edge of a high precipice, so that it serves as a moat. And some of the ravines down to it being scarped to support the castle, in all Ferghana stands no stronger fortress. Thus one of the walls giving way, my father, feeding his pigeons, was, with the pigeons and the pigeon-house, precipitated from the top of the steep, and so himself took flight to another world."

A quaint description, giving a picture which lingers in the mind's eye. The fortress hanging over the abyss, the king, in Eastern fashion, making his pigeons tumble for their corn. Then the sudden slip, and a startled soul among the startled white wings on its way to another world. Even the body which the soul had left remains alive for ever in Babar's words:--

"My father was of lowish stature, had a short, bushy beard, and was fat. He used to wear his tunic very tight, and as he drew himself in when he put it on, when he let himself out the strings often burst. He plaited his turban without folds, and let the end hang down. He was but a middling shot with the bow, but had such uncommon force with his fists that he never hit a man but he knocked him down. His generosity was large, and so was his whole nature. He was a humane king, and played a great deal at backgammon."

Peace be to thine ashes, oh, Omar-Shaikh! Even after all the centuries we seem to know the man himself, as we read the words in which his son has pictured him.

So, let us hark back to Ferghana, the little kingdom watered by the river Jaxartes, and give one more extract from Babar's journal to show what manner of place it seemed to the eleven-year-old king.

"Ferghana is situate on the extreme boundary of the habitable world.

It is a valley clipped by snowy mountains on all sides but the west, whither the river flows, and on which side alone it can be entered by foreign enemies. It is of small extent, but abounds in grain and fruits. Its melons are excellent and plentiful. There are no better pears in the world. Its pheasants are so fat that four persons may dine on the stew of one and not finish it. Its violets are particularly elegant, and it abounds in streams of running water. In the spring its tulips and roses blow in great profusion, and there are mines of turquoise in the mountains, while in the valley the people make velvet of a crimson colour."

Surely this description is sufficient, not only to show us Ferghana, but also to give us a clear idea of the boy who saw it thus. Truly the temptation to quote from this delightful record is well nigh irresistible, but s.p.a.ce forbids, for there is much to say of Babar as poet, painter, musician, astronomer, knight-errant, soldier-lover, king, and _bon vivant_. He was all of these in turn; and in addition, kindly, valorous, courteous. A real paladin if ever there was one.

From the very first he gripped the reins of kingship with a firm hand.

And it was no easy task to guide the little kingdom through the dangers which beset it; but he succeeded "through the distinguished valour of my young soldiers" (he himself being but twelve!) in besting his uncles the Kings of Samarkhund and Tashkund, so holding his own.

Shortly after this the young king nearly fell a victim to conspiracy, owing to his confidence in one Ha.s.san-Yukub, "the best player of leap-frog I have known." From this infatuation he was rescued by his shrewd old grandmother, of whom Babar speaks with sneaking awe: "She was uncommonly far-sighted; few of her s.e.x equalled her in sagacity."

This incident evidently sobered him, for he "began to abstain from forbidden meats, and seldom omitted midnight prayers."

For there is always something absolutely translucent in Babar's accounts of himself, and of everything which he heard and saw.

It is impossible even for a moment to doubt their accuracy. His self-revelation is frankness itself, and his views of men and manners bring conviction with them.

Ambition seems to have seized on him early, for ere he was fifteen, his uncle the king having died, he marched on Samarkhund to make a bid for the throne. And he succeeded. He was Emperor of Samarkhund, as his ancestor Timur had been, for exactly one hundred days, during which he appears to have enjoyed himself hugely. One is apt to think of these Eastern cities beyond the verge, as they are now--half-ruined, dreary, dead-alive. But in those days they were centres of commerce, learning, and art. To Samarkhund Timur had brought the untold riches of India, her clever craftsmen, her skilled artisans. It was a beautiful, a cultured city, and Babar came to the conclusion "that in the whole habitable world there are few places so pleasantly situated."

His dream of success lasted but those hundred days; then evil news of rebellion at Ferghana and an appeal for help came from his mother. "I was ill," he writes, "but had not the heart to delay an instant, so being unable to nurse myself, I had a relapse."