L.—On Māhīm’s Adoption of Hind-Āl.
The passage quoted below about Māhīm’s adoption of the unborn Hind-āl we have found so far only in Kehr’s transcript of the Bābur-nāma (i.e. the St. Petersburg Foreign Office Codex). Ilminsky reproduced it (Kāsān imprint p. 281) and de Courteille translated it (ii, 45), both with endeavour at emendation. It is interpolated in Kehr’s MS. at the wrong place, thus indicating that it was once marginal or apart from the text.
I incline to suppose the whole a note made by Humāyūn, although part of it might be an explanation made by Bābur, at a later date, of an over-brief passage in his diary. Of such passages there are several instances. What is strongly against its being Bābur’s where otherwise it might be his, is that Māhīm, as he always calls her simply, is there written of as Ḥaẓrat Wālida, Royal Mother and with the honorific plural. That plural Bābur uses for his own mother (dead 14 years before 925 AH.) and never for Māhīm. The note is as follows:—
“The explanation is this:—As up to that time those of one birth (tūqqān, womb) with him (Humāyūn), that is to say a son Bār-būl, who was younger than he but older than the rest, and three daughters, Mihr-jān and two others, died in childhood, he had a great wish for one of the same birth with him.2800 I had said ‘What it would have been if there had been one of the same birth with him!’ (Humāyūn). Said the Royal Mother, ‘If Dil-dār Āghācha bear a son, how is it if I take him and rear him?’ ‘It is very good’ said I.”
So far doubtfully might be Bābur’s but it may be Humāyūn’s written as a note for Bābur. What follows appears to be by some-one who knew the details of Māhīm’s household talk and was in Kābul when Dil-dār’s child was taken from her.
“Seemingly women have the custom of taking omens in the following way:—When they have said, ‘Is it to be a boy? is it to be a girl?’ they write ‘Alī or Ḥasan on one of two pieces of paper and Fāt̤ima on the other, put each paper into a ball of clay and throw both into a bowl of water. Whichever opens first is taken as an omen; if the man’s, they say a man-child will be born; if the woman’s, a girl will be born. They took the omen; it came out a man.”
“On this glad tidings we at once sent letters off.2801 A few days later God’s mercy bestowed a son. Three days before the news2802 and three days after the birth, they2803 took the child from its mother, (she) willy-nilly, brought it to our house2804 and took it in their charge. When we sent the news of the birth, Bhīra was being taken. They named him Hind-āl for a good omen and benediction.”2805
The whole may be Humāyūn’s, and prompted by a wish to remove an obscurity his father had left and by sentiment stirred through reminiscence of a cherished childhood.
Whether Humāyūn wrote the whole or not, how is it that the passage appears only in the Russian group of Bāburiana?
An apparent answer to this lies in the following little mosaic of circumstances:—The St. Petersburg group of Bāburiana2806 is linked to Kāmrān’s own copy of the Bābur-nāma by having with it a letter of Bābur to Kāmrān and also what may be a note indicating its passage into Humāyūn’s hands (JRAS 1908 p. 830). If it did so pass, a note by Humāyūn may have become associated with it, in one of several obvious ways. This would be at a date earlier than that of the Elphinstone MS. and would explain why it is found in Russia and not in Indian MSS.2807