Vol. I, No. 5.] The Emperor Babar. 137 
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15. The Emperor Babar—By H. Beveripes, 1.C.S. (retired.) 
As everything relating to Babar is interesting, I shall here 
set down a few things about him which are not mentioned in 
Erskine and Abul Fazl. The most important is a tradition which 
is still current in Babar’s native country of Farghana, and which is 
recorded in the “History of the Khanate of Khokand (z.e., 
Farghana) by Vladimir Petrovitch Nalivkine, a translation of 
which by Aug. Dozon was published at Paris in 1889. The author, 
after stating in his preface that the Memoirs of Babar are nearly 
unknown in Farghana or by the Sarts, and that Babar himself has 
a bad reputation in that country, says, at p. 63, that when 
Babar hurriedly evacuated Samarkand in 918 A.H. (1512 A.D.), 
aiter his defeat by the Uzbegs, Saizida Afaq, one of his wives, who 
was accompanying him in his flight, was seized by the pangs of 
child-birth in the desert which extends from Khojand to Kand- 
badam (east of Khojand and north of Isfava) and gave birth to a 
son. Babar dared not tarry, and so the infant was wrapped up 
and left under some bushes. As a token of whose child he was, 
and as a reward to the finder, Babar fastened round the babe his 
girdle which contained things of price. The child was found by 
natives of the country, and in allusion to the valuables which 
were beside him they gave him the name of Altyn Bishik 
or, “The golden cradle.” Afterwards he received three other 
names vz., Qultug (the armpit?), Khan Tangriyar (the 
friend of God), and Khudayan Sultan. It was by the last of 
these names that he was generally known in after life. Altyn 
Bishik grew up and spent most of his life at Akshi, one of the 
capitals of Farghana. He was a disciple of the famous saint 
Makhdim A‘azam who wasa native of Kasan, and whose real name 
was Ahmad Khwajagi Kasani. Several saints of the name of 
‘Makhdam A‘azam are mentioned in Shaw’s histor y of the Khojas, 
A.S.B.J. Supp. for 1897, but the one referred to in the tradition 
before us is the Makhdim A‘azam who was a friend of Babar and 
who died in 949 A.H. (1542 A.D. He lived chiefly at Samarkand, 
and is buried near there, at Dakhbid. Shortly before his death 
he came to Akhsiand saw his disciple Altyn Bishik and his son who 
also had the name of Tangriyar and was then 5 or 6 years old. Altyn 
Bishik died in 952 A.H. (1545 A.D.), and his grandson Yar Muham- 
mad went off to India, to his relations, the descendants of Babar. 
The same tradition is told, with some differences, by Niyaz 
Muhammad Khokandi in his Persian work the Tarikh-t-Shahrukhi, 
Pantusov, Kazan, 1885. With regard to the above tradition, which 
is probe ably genuine, it may be noted that an Afaq Beeam, a 
grand-daughter of Sultan Aba Sa‘id and consequently a cousin 
of Babar, is mentioned in Gulbadan Begam’s Memoirs, transla- 
tion, p. 204. It is doubtful, however, if she can be the same as 
Saizida Afaq. Ina Persian MSS. in the Shaw Collection in the 
Indian Institute, Oxford, there is a reference to Babar’s friend- 
ship with Makhdtim A‘azam, for it is stated there that Babar, 
