224 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [April, 1910. 



the battle which took place in 908 between himself and his 

 uncles on the one side, and ShaibanI on the other. Babar and 

 his uncles were defeated , and the latter were made prisoners, 

 while Babar had to fly, first towards Tashkend, and after- 

 wards to the hills in the south of Farghana and to Hisar. He 

 eventually also went to Terniiz on the Oxus and there got 

 advice from the governor of that place (Amir Muhammad 

 Baqi), 1 which led him to march into Afghanistan. 



It was on this occasion that he passed through Khusrau 

 Shah's country. See the Hablbu-s-Siyar, II, 318. According 

 to the Shaibanlnamah, as quoted 2 by Vambery in his history 

 of Bokhara, 258, the battle was fought five miles off from 

 Akhsi, and lasted for two days. But this latter statement as 

 well as Vambery's date of 911 must be incorrect, for the 

 Tarikh Rashidi. while also stating that the battle was fought 

 at Akhsi, says the conflict was a short one. Babar marched to 

 Kabul in 910, and was there on 911 and his younger uncle 

 died after the battle in 909. The battle must have taken 

 place either in the latter part of 908 or the beginning of 909. 

 The uncle died in the winter season of 909, Tarikh Rashidi 123, 

 and consequently at the end of 1503 or beginning of 1504. 

 At p. 160, however, it is said that the uncle died at the end of 

 909, i.e., in April or May 1504. 



If the TurkI passage is genuine, Babar has passed over the 



battle in which his two uncles were made prisoners, and the 

 events of more than a twelvemonth, for there is no question 

 here of a gap in the MS. or of a page being lost. According 

 to the TurkI, Babar winds up the chapter by saying that he 

 rejoined his uncles at Andljan, stayed with them for four 

 months, and then resolved to leave Farghana. Nor can it be 

 said that the apparent contradiction between Ba bar's own words 

 and the TurkI passage is the result of abridgment, and that 

 Babar merely means that he joined his uncles at Andljan some 

 time before the battle. For according to the T. Rashidi, p. 159 : 

 the uncles in marching into Farghana (for the second time 

 apparently) did not get as far as Andljan before the battle. 

 They went by Akhsi and were defeated and captured before 

 they could get to Andljan. The statement that Babar stayed 

 four months with his uncles at Andljan and then made 3 up his 

 mind to leave Farghana has evidently been made by the inter- 

 polator to round off the chapter and to fit it into the begin- 



I Babar incidentally mentions the defeat of the Khans in the earh 

 part of his Memoirs. See P. de Courtlille, pp. 6 and 24, and Erskine, 4 

 md 14. 



* The Baqi Cheghanlani of Babar 's Memoirs. He was Khusrau 

 Shah's younger brother. 



8 Vambery wrote his history of Bokhara before editing the Shaiba- 

 ninama, and apparently . before he had studied that poem. I can find 

 nothing in his translation of it to show that the battle lasted two days. 



