Raiders from the North: Empire of the Moghul

by Alex Rutherford

  ‘Majesty, the battle is yours.’

  The words of his qorchi roused Babur from contemplation of the scene before him. Looking around, he realised that the battlefield was falling silent, that the fighting was over . . . He had triumphed. ‘Praise God.’ He felt an enormous sense of relief. Then at the thought of what his victory meant, he punched the air in joy. He – like Timur – would enter Delhi in triumph . . .

  Dragging his mind back to the present, Babur addressed the riders around him. ‘We have done well. Let us hope that Humayun and Baburi succeed in capturing or thoroughly dispersing Ibrahim’s retreating forces. At least with him dead they will have no leader to rally round. Bury Ibrahim – and indeed this brave officer – with due ceremony. I will return to our camp to await news of the pursuit.’

  His victory had been so swift that it was not yet midday when Babur turned his horse and rode back towards his camp, past the bodies of elephants lying like great boulders amid the dust, mostly surrounded by the wreckage of their howdahs and the crumpled bodies of the soldiers fallen from them. In the heat, his own men had already begun to gather up their wounded, placing them on rough stretchers, binding their wounds and offering them water and what other comfort they could.

  In his red tent once more, Babur paced back and forth. Where were Humayun and Baburi? He was less worried about his friend than his inexperienced son. Although Humayun had fought in skirmishes before, and performed well, this was his first command at a big battle and the leadership of the right wing in the pursuit was a major and novel responsibility for him.

  Babur distracted himself by making short visits to the wounded and to reward soldiers reported to have fought particularly bravely, as well as in hearing reports of the plunder captured from Ibrahim’s camp. Already it seemed he had a vast haul of jewels and gold at his disposal.

  Six hours had passed before a guard entered Babur’s tent to announce, ‘The pennants and flags of Prince Humayun’s column have been seen approaching.’

  He had barely finished speaking before a breathless Humayun entered, rushed to his father and embraced him. ‘Our victory is complete. We are masters of Hindustan. We followed a large group of Ibrahim’s men more than ten miles to the south-west until they made a stand in a mud fortress by a river. After an hour’s fight we forced them to surrender. A little further to the west we found a group of nobles’ tents that were being defended by a few guards or servants against what looked more like bandits or looters than soldiers from any army.

  ‘When we had killed the attackers, a beautiful woman of about my mother’s age emerged from a white tent with cream and gold awnings. She was wrapped in one of those garments the Hindustanis call saris. It was a fine silk and had many pearls and jewels sewn on to it. She asked who was in command, and on being told it was I, and that I was your son, requested to be brought before me. She told me she was the mother of the ruler of Gwalior, a wealthy kingdom to the south of Delhi. She had heard her son had been killed fighting courageously for Ibrahim.

  ‘Instead of fleeing when she learned the news she had determined to wait to receive his body and perform the proper funeral ceremonies. They’re infidels who cremate the bodies of their dead on pyres. Then a fleeing soldier galloping past their camp had yelled that our forces were killing the prisoners, so many of her men, except a brave few, had abandoned her. And the brigands – dacoits, she called them – whom we defeated had seen their chance of plunder and had attacked the camp. She had feared for her life and her honour but, most of all, she had feared for her six-month-old grandson who, with his young mother, the dead ruler’s favourite wife, was still in the tent.

  ‘I told her to fear no more, that we were a cultured, civilised people, not savages like the dacoits. Tears of gratitude wetted her face and she gave me this, which I now give you as a token of our great victory.’ As he spoke Humayun handed Babur a soft red leather pouch secured by a gold leather thong. Babur undid the tie and pulled out a large stone that glistened and sparkled in the gloom of the tent. ‘It’s a diamond, Father, from the mine at Golconda a thousand miles to the south – the biggest I’ve ever seen. The jeweller of the royal family of Gwalior once valued it as worth half of the daily expenditure of the whole world. It is called the Koh-i-Nur, the Mountain of Light . . .’

  Babur was held by the gem’s perfect purity and brilliance. Light radiated from it as if from a star – the Canopus, he thought, smiling at his fancy . . . Still, the jewel’s intense brightness seemed to belong to the heavens rather than the earth whence it had been dug . . .

  ‘Indeed, my son, you have merited your name, Fortunate. Long may it continue until—’ Babur broke off in mid-sentence. Through the open entrance of the tent he had glimpsed two attendants carrying a stretcher covered with a sheet towards him. From all the shouting and bustle, it was clear that Baburi’s column had now also returned. Where was he? Why hadn’t he come to report and share in the joy of conquest? Then Babur saw that a hand wearing a richly chased golden ruby ring was trailing in the dust from beneath the sheet. He had given that ring to Baburi many years ago to mark the success of one of their campaigns. As the two handsome young men carrying the bier lowered it gently to the ground before Babur, he recognised them as Baburi’s attendants.

  Slowly Babur bent and, with a trembling hand, pulled back the bloodstained cloth and gazed at the monstrously mangled body of his brother-in-arms.

  ‘We came upon a large body of Ibrahim’s men retreating towards Delhi in good order with forty elephants in their vanguard and the same number in their rear. Our master Baburi ordered an immediate charge and we routed your enemies, who fled in all directions. But during the last moments of the fight, our master was knocked down, trampled and crushed by one of the elephants, wounded and enraged by a spear thrust deep into its mouth,’ said one of the attendants.

  Only Baburi’s face – even paler than in life – was untouched. His intense indigo eyes still stared up at Babur and there was a half-smile on his face. Babur could not prevent himself weeping as, leaning over the bier once more, he closed Baburi’s eyes and kissed him on his forehead. ‘Goodbye, my brother . . .’

  Chapter 23

  The First Moghul

  The sun’s metallic glare hurt Babur’s eyes. Advancing over the arid landscape where even the scrubby bushes were coated with dust, he was glad of the shade of the green and yellow brocade canopy supported on golden poles by the four riders around him. A strong wind was whipping up the dust – he had already learned that his new subjects called it andhi and that it meant the rains were not far off.

  Immediately after Panipat, he had ordered Humayun and four of his commanders with their men to leave behind their heavy baggage and ride hard and fast to Ibrahim’s capital at Agra – a hundred and twenty miles south-east of Delhi along the Jumna river – to seize the fort and the imperial treasuries there before the garrison had time to organise their defences. Now, three days later, Babur was taking the bulk of his victorious army south to Delhi. At the rear, almost obscured beneath a billowing cloud of dust, were ranks of plodding war elephants – still streaked in red paint – that his men had rounded up after the battle.

  Babur should have been jubilant but grief for Baburi was blunting his triumph. In the first hours after he had learned of Baburi’s death, he had shut himself away in his tent, unwilling to see anyone or to address the many tasks and decisions that awaited him as the new ruler of Hindustan. Baburi’s death wasn’t just the loss of a

  best friend – it felt like the passing of his previous life. He would never – could never – have a friend like that again – a friend who had shared his youth and his fluctuating fortunes.

  When he’d first met Baburi he’d been not yet twenty, the ruler of a small part of Ferghana, more a footloose warlord than a king. Now he was a father and emperor of a large realm who must always be conscious of his dignity and keep his distance in his dealings with others of whatever rank. From now on, his closest companions would inevitab
ly be his sons. Much as he loved them it would not be the same as with Baburi. The difference in age and experience between them, the respect, the filial obedience they owed him would always lie between them, as would his overwhelming desire to protect them, and to teach them how to live and rule. They could not challenge him, laugh at him – as well as with him – as Baburi had done . . .

  So many memories, so many thoughts and feelings, kept running through Babur’s mind – the first time he’d seen Baburi’s sharp-featured, streetwise face and intensely indigo eyes as he’d rushed to save a child from beneath the hoofs of Babur’s horse; Baburi’s first tentative efforts to ride; the freedom of their youth; their wild, drunken nights together in the whorehouses of Ferghana; all those years of companionship and humour, of huddling together for warmth as cold winds buffeted their tent, of raids and battles, some victorious, some otherwise . . .

  So many of those events had played out against the backdrop of the world he and Baburi had belonged to, a place of cold, tumbling, twisting rivers, of enfolding hills, sharp-sided valleys and endless plains that were sweet with clover in the summer but in winter froze hard as iron. A place of rich cities with domes and minarets of turquoise and green, ancient madrasas and libraries where the Timurid heritage was understood and revered. Now, without his friend, Babur was in a new land that had no understanding of him and that he, in turn, did not yet fully comprehend. Except that he already knew he didn’t like the climate. Sweat was trickling down his face and the air felt almost solid, as if it had never known a breath of wind. Beneath his plumed headdress, his head throbbed.

  At least they’d not encountered any hostility as they advanced. Sometimes Babur had seen small groups watching curiously from a distance as his long line of horsemen and endless baggage carts passed by. Now, shading his eyes, he could see a jumble of low, mud-built thatched houses to one side of the wide track they were following. Golden cakes of animal dung were drying in the sun. Skinny, pale-furred dogs were lying in the meagre pools of shade and a few scrawny hens were running about. Of people there was no sign, either outside the houses or in the surrounding fields where thin-legged white egrets pecked insects off the backs of water buffalo with their yellow bills.

  All in all, it looked a mean little settlement. Babur turned away, but then he noticed something else just beyond the village, a large, curiously shaped sandstone edifice within a low, walled compound. Its scale seemed out of proportion with the village. As he drew nearer he saw that the front façade of the main building was a carved mass of what looked like intertwined figures, arms and legs protruding everywhere. Several times on the long road to Panipat he’d glimpsed similar buildings but had had neither the time nor the inclination to examine them.

  He signalled a halt. ‘Find out what this place is,’ he ordered his qorchi.

  Fifteen minutes later, the squire returned with a tiny old man, desiccated face furrowed as a walnut and eyes filmy with age, together with one of Babur’s captains, Junayd Barlas. As a youth, Junayd had learned Hindi from a Hindustani carpet dealer who had settled in Kabul. Babur had appointed him his interpreter until he could find a better one.

  ‘This man says it is a Hindu temple, Majesty,’ Junayd explained. ‘I think he is one of its priests.’

  ‘I’d like to see it.’ Babur dismounted and examined the priest more closely. The man was almost entirely naked except for a loincloth which, wound around his think flanks and passing between his legs, was secured to a string around his waist. Around his left shoulder and passing under his right arm was a long loop of cotton thread. His coarse white hair and beard were long and straggling and there was what looked like a smudge of ashes on his forehead. In his right hand he carried a wooden stick, as gnarled as himself.

  Slowly the priest led the way into the compound. The main building was indeed like nothing Babur had ever seen before. Its front was a seven-tiered structure perhaps thirty feet wide at the base, which tapered into a squared-off tower at the top. Carved figures of humans – men and women – with voluptuous bodies and staring, bulbous eyes, wearing clinging, seemingly semi-transparent garments, with jewels on their foreheads and around their necks and arms, covered the façade. Interspersed with these figures – some of whom seemed to be dancing and others about to copulate – were strange, fierce-looking, warlike characters – demons, perhaps, or gods. Some had the heads of animals – monkeys and elephants.

  Babur stared. So much elemental life and vitality, but what did it mean? A doorway led into the building. To one side a flight of narrow dark stairs ascended to the upper storeys. There was a strong smell he didn’t recognise, a scent richer, sweeter and far more pungent than sandalwood.

  The priest glanced over his shoulder. Satisfied that Babur was still close behind, he walked on, his staff tapping the dusty stone slabs on the ground. Babur followed him into the building’s square inner courtyard around which ran a covered gallery. The walls were carved with scenes from what he supposed must be some Hindu folktale or legend. Warriors, with the faces of monkeys, brandishing short swords appeared to be crossing a bridge to an island to do battle.

  Richly carved sandstone pillars depicting more well-fleshed bodies – some with four, six or even eight arms – supported the gallery. On one side of the courtyard was a large white stone statue of a kneeling bull, a string of marigolds round its muscular neck and sticks of incense burning in a brass pot before it. Nearby, with lighted candles surrounding it, was a simple column of black stone – basalt perhaps – rounded at the top and in places worn so smooth the stone shone like marble. In front of it lay small offerings of oil, food and lotus flowers.

  ‘What is that?’ Babur asked.

  Junayd Barlas consulted the priest but appeared to have difficulty in understanding the answer. At last he said, ‘They call it a lingam, Majesty. It represents the male sexual organ and is a symbol of fertility.’

  But Babur’s attention had been caught by something else on the other side of the courtyard, a larger-than-life stone figure of a powerfully built man sitting cross-legged with arms raised beneath a carved canopy. Under his elaborate headdress, the face was strong, determined, forceful, the eyes staring ahead.

  ‘That is one of their gods – they call him Shiva,’ said the interpreter, after another hurried consultation with the priest. But the old man evidently had something else to say because he was continuing to mutter. Junayd Barlas bent lower to catch his words. ‘The priest wishes you to know some words from one of their holy books. “Behold, I am come. I am Shiva, the destroyer . . .”’

  The priest was watching him with a sly expression. What was he trying to say? That Babur was the destroyer who had come amongst them – or that the Hindus and their gods would destroy him . . . ?

  He turned and strode from the inner courtyard, back through the main building and swiftly out of the compound. He mounted his horse and, taking a drink of water from a cup his squire held up to him, signalled that he was ready to ride on. With his bodyguards behind him, he kicked his horse on without a backward glance at the temple and its mystifying figures.

  A few yards further on, directly in their path, a cow sprawled contentedly on the ground, apparently untroubled by the cloud of black flies buzzing round its long-lashed eyes. It was a wide-horned beast and, by the standards of Babur’s homeland, a scraggy creature, its bony hips and ribs clearly defined beneath its dull brown hide. One of Babur’s men trotted forward and prodded it with the butt of his spear. The animal emitted a groan of protest but didn’t move. The man reversed his spear, intending to give the cow something sharper to think about when, from somewhere behind Babur, came an angry cry.

  Looking around, he saw the priest rush forward with more speed than he would have thought possible for such a spindly frame. The old man’s face was contorted as he shouted, waving his arms and his stick. Two of Babur’s bodyguards jumped off their horses and seized him before he could come too close to Babur.

  Babur signalled to Junayd Barlas.
‘What does he want?’

  ‘He is cursing you, Majesty.’

  ‘I’ll have him flogged for his insolence.’

  ‘You don’t understand, Majesty, he says the Hindus consider the cow a sacred creature that must be left free to roam where it will. He feared you were about to kill it . . .’

  Babur looked down at the old man. ‘Let him go. And tell him I didn’t understand. Tell him I meant no disrespect to his faith.’

  As he listened to Junayd Barlas’s translation, the old man’s expression relaxed. By now the cow had become bored and rising clumsily to its feet ambled off to the shade of a tree. Babur’s army was free to advance once more through his new possessions.

  Four days later, Babur and his army reached Delhi, whose governor offered no resistance. It was the largest and most populous city he’d ever seen. The airy grace of Samarkand or Herat was missing but some parts were not unpleasing. He inspected the large sandstone mosques, delicately arched palaces and a curiously carved two hundred and forty foot high, tapering tower – the Qutb Minar – built centuries earlier for reasons no one seemed to know. Complexes of royal tombs – domed, pillared, colonnaded – were everywhere. These smacked to Babur of conceit – clearly the Delhi sultans had wished to be as splendid in death as they had been in life. Now all they had left were these cities of the dead . . .

  Babur didn’t linger long – just long enough to have the khutba read in his name in the Friday Mosque and to inspect the contents of the imperial treasuries, filled with enough jewels, pearls and gold to justify the expedition on their own account. However, Ibrahim’s nervous former chamberlain in Delhi – summoned before Babur – quickly volunteered that the main treasure was, just as Babur had thought, in Agra. He had done well to despatch Humayun there. After ordering an inventory to be made and appointing one of his commanders as the city’s new governor, Babur set out south-east along the river Jumna to join Humayun in Agra.