The time Babur almost died.
The time Babur almost died.
Babur,
the first Mughal Emperor, defeated Ibrahim Lodi in the 1st Battle of
Panipat and began what would later be the vast Mughal Empire. However, sometime
after his Panipat victory, there was an attempt to poison Babur by Ibrahim Lodi’s
mother.
In his memoirs, Babur talks about a letter sent to
his family in Kabul. “On Friday, the 16th of the first Rabi (21st December)” he
says, “a strange event occurred”. The event though more dangerous than strange
refers to an attempt to poison him, initiated by Ibrahim Lodi’s mother.
On Friday, after a bout of vomiting post –dinner,
Babur had some of his vomit given to a dog. When the dog died the next day, the
realization of being poisoned dawned on him. The cook – who was tortured
finally spoke the truth. According to the Baburnama,
the cook mentioned two slave girls and the taster as having been part of
the conspiracy to poison him. What was even more shocking to him was that
Ibrahim Lodi’s mother- Dilawar Begum, who was given jagirs and a comfortable
life after her son’s death was the one who initiated the conspiracy. Babur also
realized that one of the chief reasons he was not dead was because of the way
the poison was spread in his food. The taster had put the poison on thin slices
of bread and covered it with buttered fritters. It was not put on the plate nor
was it put on the pot as during that time, Babur had all ‘Hindustani cooks’
taste the food from the pot first.
The consequences for the conspirators were deadly. “The
taster” he says, “I had cut in pieces, the cook skinned alive, one of the women
I had thrown under an elephant, the other –shot with a matchlock”. However, for
Dilawar Begum, she was kept with lots of guards.
Source:
Zahir-ud-din Babur, Baburnama, translated by Annette Beveridge , 2007.
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