When Babur was Poisoned, and a Dog was Stoned to Detect if His Food was Poisoned

After the decisive battle of the First Battle of Panipat that took place during the summer of 1526 between Babur and Ibrahim Lodi (the last ruler of the Lodi dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate), the foundation of the Mughal Empire in medieval India was laid. However, the battle that he won on the battleground of Panipat, despite being greatly outnumbered, did not end the hostility of the Lodis toward Babur. Ibrahim Lodi lost his life during the battle. Buwa, his devastated mother, was in search for an opportunity to exact revenge on Babur for the death of her son. She hatched a plan. Below is an excerpt from the Baburnama, Babur's autobiography which was originally written in Chagatai Turkic and later during the reign of his grandson, Akbar, it was translated into Persian. Babur narrates the incident in the following words:

The wretched Buwa, mother of Ibrahim, heard that I was eating foods prepared by Hindustani cooks. This came about because three or four months prior to this date, since I had never seen Hindustani food, I said that Ibrahim's cooks should be brought. Of fifty or sixty cooks I kept four. So, having heard of this, she sent a man to Etawah to obtain a tola of poison wrapped up in a piece of paper and then give it to an old woman servant, who would then pass it to Ahmad  Chashnigir. (In Hindustan they call the taster chashnigir, and a tola is a measure slightly more than two mithcals, as has been described.) Ahmad gave it to the Hindustani cook in our kitchen, promising him four parganas to introduce it somehow into my food. After the first old woman, who gave Ahmad Chashnigir the poison, she sent another to see whether or not he had given me the poison. It is good that he put it on the plate and not in the pot, having done so because I had given the cooks strict instructions to supervise the Hindustanis and make them taste from the pot while the food was being prepared. When the meal was being dished out, however, our wretched cooks were negligent. The cook put a piece of thin bread on the porcelain plate and then sprinkled less than half of the poison from the paper on top of the bread. On top of the poison he put some meat dressed in oil. If he had sprinkled the poison on the meat, or if he had thrown it into the pot, it would have been bad. In a fluster, he threw the rest into the stove. 

Late Friday evening they served the food. I ate a lot of rabbit stew and had quite a bit of dressed saffroned meat. I also had one or two tidbits from the top of the poisoned Hindustani food. I took the dressed meat and ate it. There was no apparent bad taste. I had one or two pieces of dried meat. I felt sick. The day before, when I was eating dried meat, there had been an off-taste, so I thought that was the reason. Once again my stomach churned. While seated at the meal I felt sick two or three times and almost threw up. Finally I said to myself, "Enough of this." I got up and on my way to the toilet I almost threw up once. When I got to the toilet I vomited a lot. I never vomited after meals, not even when drinking. A cloud of suspicion came over my mind. I ordered the cook to be held while the vomit was given to a dog that was watched. Until near the end of the first watch the next morning the dog was pretty listless and its stomach was swollen. No matter how many stones they threw at it to try to get it to move, it refused get up. It remained like that until midday, but then it got up and did not die. One or two pages had eaten the same food, and the next morning they too threw up a lot. One very ill, but in the end they all recovered completely. 

Babur further writes that upon torturing the cook, he revealed the plot and on learning about the foul play, Babur held a durbar (court), attended by umara or nobles, and officials. And in the durbar suspects were presented before the emperor who confessed everything. He gave the following imperial order, declaring their punishments:

I ordered the taster to be hacked to pieces and the cook to be skinned alive. One of the two women I had thrown under the elephants' feet, and the other I had shot. I had Buwa put under arrest. She will pay for what she has done. 

Since such a monumental crime had been committed by the wretched Buwa, I had Yunus Ali and Khwajagi Asad hold her. After her money, property, and slaves were confiscated, she was turned over to Abdul-Rahim Shiqavul. Such an assassination attempt having been made by these people, it was not considered wise to keep Buwa's grandson, Ibrahim's son who had been maintained with great honor and dignity, so on Thursday the twenty-ninth of Rabi' I [January 3, 1527] he was sent to Kamran with Mulla Sarsan, who had come from there on some business.

Babur after the battle, not only spared the lives of the royal members of the Lodi Dynasty but also tried to incorporate them in the Mughal courtly culture. However, when the conspiracy of Buwa, the mother of the deceased Ibrahim Lodi was discovered, she, as a form of punishment was deprived of her property (both movable and immovable) and passed from one man to another!