Название: The Bābur-nāma
Автор: Babur
Издательство: Public Domain
Жанр: Зарубежная классика
isbn:
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Erskine’s Preface (pp. x, xi) contains various other references to Leyden’s work which indicate its quality as tentative and unrevised. It is now in the British Museum Library.
XII
Little need be said here about the Memoirs of Baber.21 Erskine worked on a basis of considerable earlier acquaintance with his Persian original, for, as his Preface tells, he had (after Leyden’s death) begun to translate this some years before he definitely accepted the counsel of Elphinstone and Malcolm to undertake the Memoirs. He finished his translation in 1813, and by 1816 was able to dedicate his complete volume to Elphinstone, but publication was delayed till 1826. His was difficult pioneer-work, and carried through with the drawback of working on a secondary source. It has done yeoman service, of which the crowning merit is its introduction of Babur’s autobiography to the Western world.
XIII
Amongst Erskine’s literary remains are several bound volumes of letters from Elphinstone, Malcolm, Leyden, and others of that distinguished group of Scots who promoted the revival of Babur’s writings. Erskine’s grandson, the late Mr. Lestocq Erskine, placed these, with other papers, at our disposal, and they are now located where they have been welcomed as appropriate additions: – Elphinstone’s are in the Advocates’ Library, where already (1826) he, through Erskine, had deposited his own Codex – and with his letters are those of Malcolm and more occasional correspondents; Leyden’s letters (and various papers) are in the Memorial Cottage maintained in his birthplace Denholm (Hawick) by the Edinburgh Border Counties Association; something fitting went to the Bombay Asiatic Society and a volume of diary to the British Museum. Leyden’s papers will help his fuller biography; Elphinstone’s letters have special value as recording his co-operation with Erskine by much friendly criticism, remonstrance against delay, counsels and encouragement. They, moreover, shew the estimate an accomplished man of modern affairs formed of Babur Padshah’s character and conduct; some have been quoted in Colebrooke’s Life of Elphinstone, but there they suffer by detachment from the rest of his Baburiana letters; bound together as they now are, and with brief explanatory interpolations, they would make a welcome item for “Babur Padshah’s Book-pile”.
XIV
In May 1921 the contents of these volumes were completed, namely, the Babur-nama in English and its supplements, the aims of which are to make Babur known in English diction answering to his ipsissima verba, and to be serviceable to readers and students of his book and of classic Turki.
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Of writings based upon or relating to Babur’s the following have appeared: —
Denkwurdigkeiten des Zahir-uddin Muhammad Babar – A. Kaiser (Leipzig, 1828). This consists of extracts translated from the Memoirs.
An abridgement of the Memoirs – R. M. Caldecott (London, 1844).
History of India – Baber and Humayun – W. Erskine (Longmans, 1854).
Babar – Rulers of India series – Stanley Lane-Poole (Oxford, 1899).
Tuzuk-i-babari or Waqi‘at-i-babari (i. e. the Persian trs.) – Elliot and Dowson’s History of India, 1872, vol. iv.
Babur Padshah Ghazi– H. Beveridge (Calcutta Review, 1899).
Babur’s diamond, was it the Koh-i-nur? – H. Beveridge, Asiatic Quarterly Review, April, 1899.
Was ‘Abdu’r-rahim the translator of Babur’s Memoirs? (i. e. the Babur-nama) – H. Beveridge, AQR., July and October, 1900.
An Empire-builder of the 16th century, Babur – Laurence F. L. Williams (Allahabad, 1918).
Notes on the MSS. of the Turki text (Babur-nāma) – A. S. Beveridge, JRAS. 1900, 1902, 1921, 1905, and Part II 1906, 1907, 1908, p. 52 and p. 828, 1909 p. 452 (see Index, s. n. A. S. B. for topics).
[For other articles and notes by H. B. see Index s. n.]
Part III. The “Bukhara Babur-nama”
This is a singular book and has had a career as singular as its characteristics, a very comedy of (blameless) errors and mischance. For it is a compilation of items diverse in origin, diction, and age, planned to be a record of the Acts of Babur and Humayun, dependent through its Babur portion on the ‘Abdu’r-rahim Persian translation for re-translation, or verbatim quotation, or dove-tailing effected on the tattered fragments of what had once been Kamran’s Codex of the Babur-nama proper, the whole interspersed by stop-gaps attributable to Jahangir. These and other specialities notwithstanding, it ranked for nearly 200 years as a reproduction of Babur’s authentic text, as such was sent abroad, as such was reconstructed and printed in Kasan (1857), translated in Paris (1871), catalogued for the Petrograd Oriental School (1894), and for the India Office (1903).22
Manifest causes for the confusion of identity are, (1) lack of the guidance in Bukhara and Petrograd of collation with the true text, (2) want of information, in the Petrograd of 1700-25, about Babur’s career, coupled with the difficulties of communication with Bukhara, (3) the misleading feature in the compiled book of its author’s retention of the autobiographic form of his sources, without explanation as to whether he entered surviving fragments of Kamran’s Codex, patchings or extracts from ‘Abdu’r-rahim’s Persian translation, or quotations of Jahangir’s stop-gaps. Of these three causes for error the first is dominant, entailing as it does the drawbacks besetting work on an inadequate basis.
It is necessary to enumerate the items of the Compilation here as they are arranged in Kehr’s autograph Codex, because that codex (still in London) may not always be accessible,23 and because the imprint does not obey its model, but aims at closer agreement of the Bukhara Compilation with Ilminski’s gratefully acknowledged guide —The Memoirs of Baber. Distinction in commenting on the Bukhara and the Kasan versions is necessary; their discrepancy is a scene in the comedy of errors.
An impelling cause for the production of the Bukhara compilation is suggested by the date 1709 at which was finished СКАЧАТЬ
20
Ilminski’s difficulties are foreshadowed here by the same confusion of identity between the
21
Cf. Erskine’s Preface
22
The last blow was given to the phantasmal reputation of the book by the authoritative Haidarabad Codex which now can be seen in facsimile in many Libraries.
23
But for present difficulties of intercourse with Petrograd, I would have re-examined with Kehr’s the collateral Codex of 1742 (copied in 1839 and now owned by the Petrograd University). It might be useful; as Kehr’s volume has lost pages and may be disarranged here and there.
The list of Kehr’s items is as follows: —
1 (
2 (
3 (
4 (
5 (
6 (
7 (
8 (
9 (
[Babur’s history has been thus brought to an end, incomplete in the balance needed of 7. In Kehr’s volume a few pages are left blank except for what shews a Russian librarian’s opinion of the plan of the book, “Here end the writings of Shah Babur.”]
10 (
11 (
12 (
[The remaining entries in Kehr’s volume are a quatrain which may make jesting reference to his finished task, a librarian’s Russian entry of the number of pages (831), and the words