Baburnama (Modern Library) by: Wheeler M. Thackston (translator), Salman Rushdie (introduction)
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Publisher: Modern Library Inc
Release date: 1st October, 2002
Media: Paperback
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Rating: - This is the Best Edition of the Baburnama
As Salman Rushdie points out in his review of Thackston's edition, this is by far the most definitive edition of the Babarnama.
Thackston is an accomplished linguist, master of Arabic, Syriac, Persian and Chaghtai, the original language of the Babarnama.
A student of the great Orientalist, AnneMarie Schimmel and now a retired lecturer from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard, I dont think he needs any further endorsements.
Rating: - Masterpiece
Babur, a descendant of both Timur and Genghis Khan, was a truly remarkable man: a soldier and a poet, an inspirational leader with a deep appreciation for the beauties of nature - and a sensitivity that seems striking to us in a warrior of his undoubted stature.
His memoirs are a detailed, entertaining, and highly personal view of a changing world. In leading his followers into northern India, he laid the groundwork for the Mughal Empire, one of the great Islamic powers of the early modern period - and it is this achievement that history primarily remembers him for. Yet the _Baburnama_ shows that there is considerably more to the story than its conclusion.
With unstinting and engaging honesty, Babur talks of his early struggles, his constant setbacks, and his lifelong desire to hold Samarkand, glorious seat of his ancestor Timur (Tamerlane). For Babur, India is only the consolation prize after his failure to reconquer the lands of his birthright; India is rich, yes, astoundingly so, but it is far removed from his fond reminiscences of home. Along the way, reports of skirmishes with his enemies, and the constant betrayals of his allies, share the page with descriptions of local flora and fauna, and fascinating observations on everyday life in the cities and towns that he spends time at - and it is here that the work's true enjoyment lies.
Bear with the initially confusing internecine squabbles of the Central Asian nomads, and you'll be richly rewarded. A comprehensive and compelling insight into both Central Asia at the turn of the sixteenth century, and the day-to-day pressures inherent in the leadership of an empire based on conquest.
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