Tuzuk-i-Babari [ Memoirs of Babur or Baburnama]
The Emperor Babar laid out and improved many of the gardens round Kabul, some of which he describes at length in his Memoirs-the Bagh-i-Vafa (the Garden of Fidelity) being mentioned by him more than once. 'Opposite to the fort of Adinahpur, to the south, on rising ground, I formed a char-bagh in the year 1508. It is called Bagh-i-Vafa. It overlooks the river, which flows between the fort and the palace. In the year in which I defeated Behar Khan and conquered Lahore and Dibalpur, I brought plantains and planted them here. They grew and thrived. The year before I had also planted sugar-cane in it, which throve remarkably well. I sent some of them to Badakhshan and Bokhara. It is on an elevated site, and enjoys running water, and the climate in the winter season is temperate. In the garden there is a small hillock, from which a stream of water, sufficient to drive a mill, incessantly flows into the garden below. The four-fold field-plot of the garden is situated on this eminence. On the south-west part of this garden is a reservoir of water twenty feet square, which is wholly planted round with orange trees; there are likewise pomegranates. All around the piece of water the ground is quite covered with clover. This spot is the very eye of the beauty of the garden. At the time the orange becomes yellow, the prospect is delightful. Indeed the garden is charmingly laid out. To the south of this garden lies the Koh-i-Sefid (the White Mountain of Nangenhar), which separates Bangash from Nangenhar. There is no road by which one can pass it on horse-back.'
These Memoirs were written by Babar in his terse native Turki; it is interesting to find his grandson, the great Akbar, requesting the scholar Mirza Abdal-Rahun to translate them into Persian while the Court was on a progress to Kashmir and Kabul, the latter country the scene of so many of the adventures and fair gardens described in the Tuzuk of Babar.
All the best caligraphists and artists, whom the catholic taste of the art-loving Akbar had drawn around him, were employed to illuminate copies of this work. The double illustration, Plates II. and III., portrays two of these pages, on which the first visit of the Emperor Babar to the Bagh-i-Vafa is described. The painting is signed Bishandas, the Persian form of Vishandas, showing the artist to have been Hindu. In this miniature Babar is seen to be personally directing the laying-out of 'the four-fold field-plot.' Two gardeners hold the measuring line, the architect with his plan stands in attendance, while the tank, somewhat reduced in size, is fitted into the bottom corner of the picture. Pomegranates and orange trees border the square plot, and above the walls tower the snowy heights of the White Mountain, on which, to show its altitude, the artist introduces an ibex, with chikor (mountain partridge) on the lower slopes. An embassy of the Begs knocks at the garden gate, hastening, no doubt, with news of some fresh revolt or trouble in the camp: but the Emperor, completely absorbed in his favourite pastime, is not to be diverted from his new garden schemes.
