BABUR

( (Arabic: Tiger), ) born Feb. 15, 1483, principality of Fergana [now in Uzbekistan] died Dec. 26, 1530, Agra, India also spelled Babar, or Baber, original name Zahir-ud-din Muhammad emperor (152630) and founder of the Mughal dynasty of India, a descendant of the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan and also of Timur (Tamerlane). He was a military adventurer and soldier of distinction and a poet and diarist of genius, as well as a statesman. Additional reading Fernand Grenard, Baber, First of the Moguls (1930, reprinted 1971), is a good interpretive study. The standard work in English is William Erskine, A History of India Under the Two First Sovereigns of the House of Taimur, Bber and Humyun, 2 vol. (1854, reissued 1974). Harold Lamb, Babur, the Tiger (1961, reprinted 1989), is a more recent treatment. A condensed but valuable study is by E. Denison Ross in The Cambridge History of India, vol. 4, ch. 1 (1963).