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Machine transcription
viii
Sur, on whom I have bestowed marks of favour,
to whom I have given several parganas (pieces of
land), and whom I left in that quarter, has also
turned against me and has joined the ranks of
insurgents."
When Babur's son, Humayun came to power,
he found that numerous Afghan chiefs had estab-
lished independent principalities all over Northern
India. Sultan Mahmud Lodi appeared in Bihar
and had the support of all the old heads of the
Afghan nobility, such as Biban and Bayazeed.
But the most formidable rival of Humayun was
Sher Khan, who looked upon the Mughals with
great contempt, as appears from one of his
statements : "If fortune favours me, I can drive
these Mughals, the usurpers, back out of India.
They are not our superiors in war or even in
the art of administration, but we Afghans let
slip the power that we had, simply by reason
of our dissensions. Since I have been among
the Mughals, I have observed their conduct,
and found them lacking in order and dis-
cipline."
A third opponent of Humayun was Alaud Din
Lodi, uncle of Ibrahim Lodi. He was one of
Roughly two thirds of characters agree with a modern printed edition of the same text. Much of the disagreement is editorial, not misreading. Treat the transcription as a finding aid and read the page image before quoting. How this was measured.