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[[211]] When the victorious troops, who had girded up their loins for the
conquest of Malwa, approached that country and ascertained the infatuation
and arrogance of Baz Bahadur, who had exercised his power with high-handedness
and tyranny, they drew up their ranks in proper array....
From innate insouciance Baz Bahadur did not concern himself with public affairs. Wine, which experts have prescribed in small quantities and at fixed times, in consideration of the arrangement and composition of their bodily elements, for certain temperaments and constitutions, was made by this man, who was immersed in bestial pleasures, a cause of increased folly, and he was continually indulging in it, without distinguishing night from day or day from night, and was continually using it. Music and melody, which the wise and farsighted have employed at times of lassitude and depression, such as arise from the press of business and the burdens of humanity, as a means of lightening the mind and of cheerfulness, were regarded by this scoundrel as a serious business, and he spent upon them all his precious hours-- for which no exchange is possible. In the arrogance of infatuation he wrought works of inauspiciousness, and regarded not what has been said, Verse:When the army of fortune came near to Sarangpur, which was the fool's paradise of this drunkard, he awoke in some measure from his insensate slumbers and came out from Sarangpur, crapulous and wine-stained, and took post three kos [=c. 6 miles] beyond it. He put his army in [[212]] order and prepared for battle. He gilded the centre with the base copper of his personality, [and other officers] who had the vapours of audacity in their brains commanded the vanguard. The armies faced one another at the distance of two or three kos, and the braves on both sides were continually coming out and encountering. They put the observance of the rules of wariness into the charge of men of skill, while they themselves displayed intrepidity in combat. Every day a troop of gallant and capable men, headed by an experienced loyalist who possessed both abundant sense and abundant courage, proceeded to the flanks of the enemy and stopped the egress and ingress of the rebels, and especially of the convoyers of grain who in the language of India are called Banjara. They made the position of the enemy difficult. [One night there was a more sustained encounter.] A watch and somewhat more of the day had passed when the breeze of victory blew from the vent of fortune, and the bud of [[213]] conquest bloomed on the rosebush of hope. Owing to the Shahinshah's fortune and the excellent qualities of the Khedive of the age [=Akbar], a glorious victory was gained, such as might be the embroidery of great successes. Baz Bahadur, wine-stained and disgraced, hastened off towards Khandesh and Burhanpur. All his goods and chattels, his seraglio, and his singing and dancing women, who were the material of his pleasures and the decoration of his life, fell into the hands of the victors. The wretch, when he was about to face the victorious troops, had in accordance with the Indian custom placed confidential men in charge of his wives and concubines and had arranged that if they got sure tidings of his defeat they were to put all of them to the sword, that they might not fall into strangers' hands. When the form of Baz Bahadur's defeat appeared in the mirror of results, those devil-born ones acted according to the arrangement, and with the water of the sword wiped out some of those fairy-framed images from the page of life. With the knife of injustice they erased from the world's folio the life-records of those innocents. Some were wounded and yet retained a breath of life, and for many the turn of slaughter had not come, when the victorious troops hastily marched into the city. The villains had not time to lay hands on these innocent women. The chief of them was Rupmati, renowned throughout the world for her beauty and charm. Baz Bahadur was deeply attached to her, and used to pour out his heart in Hindi poems descriptive of his love. A monster who had been left in charge of her uplifted the sword of wrong and inflicted several severe wounds on her. Just then the army of fortune arrived and brought out that half-slaughtered lovely one. When Baz Bahadur had fled, Adham Khan came in all haste and excitement to Sarangpur to seize the buried and other treasures, and the seraglio with its singers and dancers whose beauty and melody were celebrated throughout the world, and whose heart-ravishing charms were sung of in the streets and markets. He took possession of all Baz Bahadur's property, including his concubines and dancing girls, and sent people to search for Rupmati. When this tune reached her ear, her faithful blood [[214]] became aglow, and from love to Baz Bahadur she bravely quaffed the cup of deadly poison and carried her honour to the hidden chambers of annihilation. When Adham Khan had become victorious by the good fortune of the Shahinshah, his innate infatuation increased, and the cap of his pride was set awry by the wind of arrogance; that is, by his folly and ignorance his brain deteriorated, and whatever Pir Muhammad Khan, his disinterested preacher, said to him by way of advice was unheeded. He personally returned thanks to God for so great a victory, and performed the rites of thanksgiving (i.e., the distribution of alms, etc.) to the extent of his ability. In order to gratify the imperial officers he inaugurated a great feast and made presents according to his own pleasure to all the servants of fortune's threshhold who were in his company. Thereafter the whole of the conquered territories was parcelled out.... Adham Khan reserved for himself all the rare and exquisite articles, as well as the stores and buried treasures of their country which were the collections of ages, and many of the famous dancing maids and beauties whose loveliness and grace were bruited about in all the nine heavens, as well as many singers and musicians, and occupied himself with delights and pleasures. He set apart some elephants out of the spoils of fortune and sent them to the world-protecting Court along with the reports of this victory. ===========
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== Akbar-nama
vol. 2 == Abu'l-Fazl == Glossary
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