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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
The opinion that a Bābar-nāma exists in Bukhārā rests upon inference and rumour only. It is on record that a copy of the book was made in Bukhārā in 1709 (p. 81), and that in 1824 this copy belonged to a Bukhāriot merchant, named Naẓar Bāy Turkistānī.
page 79 note 1 What was written by Mr. Elphinstone in 1813 about the Bukhārā MS. may be quoted for the sake of exact information :—
“ November 10, 1813.—I did not delay writing to Mīr ‘Iẓẓatu’l-lāh at Bukhārā for the Turkish of Bābar.”
“ Poona, February 14, 1814.—In hunting for the Persian translation of Bābar to compare with yours, I stumbled on the original Turkish, which I have been writing to Bukhārā for and which all the time has been among my books. The Turkish copy derives great consequence from its being the one used by Leyden.”
1 Journal des Savants, 1873.
page 91 note 1 Two books have been based upon the Memoirs and may be mentioned here. First, Denkwürdigkeiten des Zehir-eddin Muh. Bābar, Kaiser, A. (Leipzig, 1828)Google Scholar. This is a reproduction of the Memoirs. Secondly, an abridgment of the Memoirs, by R. M. Caldecott (London, 1844).
Other items of Bābariānu are:—
“ Life of Bābar.” Erskine, William. 2 vols. (Longmans, London, 1854.)Google Scholar
“ Bābar.” Rulers of India Series ; Lane-Poole, Stanley. (Oxford, 1899.)Google Scholar
“ Bābar Pādshāh Ghāzī.” Beveridge, Henry. (Calcutta Review, 07 1897.)Google Scholar
“ Bābar's Diamond: Was it the Koh-i-nūr?” Beveridge, H.. (Asiatic Quarterly Review, 04 1899.)Google Scholar
“ Was ‘Abdu’r-raḥīm the translator of Bābar's Memoirs?” Beveridge, H.. (Asiatic Quarterly Review, 07 1900, and October 1900.)Google Scholar
“ Notes on the Turkī Text of the Bābar-nāma.” Beveridge, A. S.. (07 1900, July 1902, October 1905, January 1906.)Google Scholar
A notice of Bābar, with translation of extracts, in Elliott & Dowson's “ History of India,” vol. iv.
The Wāqi‘āt-i-bābarī (Bābar-nāma) has been written of and quoted from in Turkī, in Davids’ Turkī Grammar and in the Journal Asiatique of 1842.
page 91 note 2 The impression has been made upon me, which is set down merely as a result of work, that the Bābar-nāma offers its own difficulty in the way of creating a new Turkī text. It appears to me to demand for this a more than usually broad basis of old and authentic manuscripts ; for a Turkī scholar working for the purification of his text from all extraneous to Turkī might make his text other than Bābar left it. Bābar's own manuscript only or a careful and faithful copy could make it sure whether a lapse from Turkī form or wording was his or a scribe's. As his, variations have interest; they may sometimes be a collateral outcome (on which the Turkī scholar would enjoy speculation) of the genius of his mother-tongue. Care would be needed not to destroy his own work.