limits, of Bābur's dating, [not with the object of adversely criticizing
a rigid and convenient rule for common use, but as supplementary to that
rule from a somewhat special source], because he was careful and
observant, his dating was contemporary, his record, as being _de die in
diem_, provides a check of consecutive narrative on his dates, which,
moreover, are all held together by the external fixtures of Feasts and
by the marked recurrence of Fridays observed. Few such writings as the
Bābur-nāma diaries appear to be available for showing variation within a
year's limit.
In 935 AH. Bābur enters few full dates, _i.e._ days of the week and
month. Often he gives only the day of the week, the safest, however, in
a diary. He is precise in saying at what time of the night or the day an
action was done; this is useful not only as helping to get over
difficulties caused by minor losses of text, but in the more general
matter of the transference of a Ḥijra night-and-day which begins after
sunset, to its Julian equivalent, of a day-and-night which begins at 12
a.m. This sometimes difficult transference affords a probable
explanation of a good number of the discrepant dates found in
Oriental-Occidental books.
Two matters of difference between the Bābur-nāma dating and that of some
European calendars are as follows:—
_a. Discrepancy as to the day of the week on which Muḥ 935_ AH. _began._
This discrepancy is not a trivial matter when a year's diary is
concerned. The record of Muḥ. 1st and 2nd is missing from the
_Bābur-nāma_; Friday the 3rd day of Muḥarram is the first day specified;
the 1st was a Wednesday therefore. Erskine accepted this day; Cunningham
and Wüstenfeld give Tuesday. On three grounds Wednesday seems right—at
any rate at that period and place:—(1) The second Friday in Muḥarram was
`Āshūr, the 10th (f. 240); (2) Wednesday is in serial order if reckoning
be made from the last surviving date of 934 AH. with due allowance of an
intercalary day to Ẕū'l-ḥijja (Gladwin), _i.e._ from Thursday Rajab 12th
(April 2nd 1528 AD. f. 339, p. 602); (3) Wednesday is supported by the
daily record of far into the year.
_b. Variation in the length of the months of 935_ AH.
There is singular variation between the _Bābur-nāma_ and Wüstenfeld's
_Tables_, both as to the day of the week on which months began, and as
to the length of some months. This variation is shown in the following
table, where asterisks mark agreement as to the days of the week, and
the capital letters, quoted from W.'s _Tables_, denote A, Sunday;
B, Tuesday, _etc._ (the bracketed names being of my entry).
_Bābur-nāma._ _Wüstenfeld_
Days. Days.
Muḥarram 29 Wednesday 30 C (Tuesday)
Ṣafar 30 Thursday* 29 E (Thursday)*
Rabī` I. 30 Saturday 30 F (Friday)
" II. 29 Monday 29 A (Sunday)
Jumadā I. 30 Tuesday 30 B (Monday)
" II. 29 Thursday 29 D (Wednesday)
Rajab 29 Friday 30 E (Thursday)
Sha`bān 30 Saturday* 29 G (Saturday)*
Ramẓān 29 Monday 30 A (Sunday)
Shawwal 30 Tuesday* 29 C (Tuesday)*
Ẕū'l-qa`da 29 Thursday 30 D (Wednesday)
Ẕū'l-ḥijja 30 Friday* 29 T (Friday)*
The table shows that notwithstanding the discrepancy discussed in
section _a_, of Bābur's making 935 AH. begin on a Wednesday, and
Wüstenfeld on a Tuesday, the two authorities agree as to the initial
week-day of four months out of twelve, _viz._ Ṣafar, Sha`bān, Shawwal
and Ẕū'l-ḥijja.
Again:—In eight of the months the _Bābur-nāma_ reverses the "book-rule"
of alternative Muḥarram 30 days, Ṣafar 29 days _et seq._ by giving
Muḥarram 29, Ṣafar 30. (This is seen readily by following the initial
days of the week.) Again:—these eight months are in pairs having
respectively 29 and 30 days, and the year's total is 364.—Four months
follow the fixed rule, _i.e._ as though the year had begun Muḥ. 30 days,
Ṣafar 29 days—namely, the two months of Rabī` and the two of
Jumāda.—Ramẓān to which under "book-rule" 30 days are due, had 29 days,
because, as Bābur records, the Moon was seen on the 29th.—In the other
three instances of the reversed 30 and 29, one thing is common, _viz._
Muḥarram, Rajab, Ẕū'l-qa`da (as also Ẕū'l-ḥijja) are "honoured"
months.—It would be interesting if some expert in this Musalmān matter
would give the reasons dictating the changes from rule noted above as
occurring in 935 AH.
_c. Varia._
(1) On f. 367 Saturday is entered as the 1st day of Sha`bān and
Wednesday as the 4th, but on f. 368_b_ stands Wednesday 5th, as suits
the serial dating. If the mistake be not a mere slip, it may be due to
confusion of hours, the ceremony chronicled being accomplished on the
eve of the 5th, Anglicé, after sunset on the 4th.
(2) A fragment only survives of the record of Ẕū'l-ḥijja 935 AH. It
contains a date, Thursday 7th, and mentions a Feast which will be that
of the _`Īdu'l-kabīr_ on the 10th (Sunday). Working on from this to the
first-mentioned day of 936 AH. _viz._ Tuesday, Muḥarram 3rd, the month
(which is the second of a pair having 29 and 30 days) is seen to have 30
days and so to fit on to 936 AH. The series is Sunday 10th, 17th, 24th
(Sat. 30th) Sunday 1st, Tuesday 3rd.
Two clerical errors of mine in dates connecting with this Appendix are
corrected here:—(1) On p. 614 n. 5, for Oct. 2nd read Oct. 3rd; (2) on
p. 619 penultimate line of the text, for Nov. 28th read Nov. 8th.
T.—ON L:KNŪ (LAKHNAU) AND L:KNŪR (LAKHNŪR, NOW SHĀHĀBĀD IN RĀMPŪR).
One or other of the above-mentioned names occurs eight times in the
_Bābur-nāma_ (_s.a._ 932, 934, 935 AH.), some instances being shown by
their context to represent Lakhnau in Oudh, others inferentially and by
the verbal agreement of the Ḥaidarābād Codex and Kehr's Codex to stand
for Lakhnūr (now Shāhābād in Rāmpūr). It is necessary to reconsider the
identification of those not decided by their context, both because there
is so much variation in the copies of the `Abdu'r-raḥīm Persian
translation that they give no verbal help, and because Mr. Erskine and
M. de Courteille are in agreement about them and took the whole eight to
represent Lakhnau. This they did on different grounds, but in each case
their agreement has behind it a defective textual basis.—Mr. Erskine, as
is well known, translated the `Abdu'r-raḥīm Persian text without access
to the original Turkī but, if he had had the Elphinstone Codex when
translating, it would have given him no help because all the eight
instances occur on folios not preserved by that codex. His only sources
were not-first-rate Persian MSS. in which he found casual variation from
terminal _nū_ to _nūr_, which latter form may have been read by him as
_nūū_ (whence perhaps the old Anglo-Indian transliteration he uses,
Luknow).[2843]—M. de Courteille's position is different; his uniform
_Lakhnau_ obeyed the same uniformity in his source the Kāsān Imprint,
and would appear to him the more assured for the concurrence of the
_Memoirs_. His textual basis, however, for these words is Dr. Ilminsky's
and not Kehr's. No doubt the uniform _Lakhnū_ of the Kāsān Imprint is
the result of Dr. Ilminsky's uncertainty as to the accuracy of his
single Turkī archetype [Kehr's MS.], and also of his acceptance of Mr.
Erskine's uniform _Luknow_.[2844]—Since the Ḥaidarābād Codex became
available and its collation with Kehr's Codex has been made, a better
basis for distinguishing between the L:knū and L:knūr of the Persian
MSS. has been obtained.[2845] The results of the collation are entered
in the following table, together with what is found in the Kāsān Imprint
and the _Memoirs_. [N.B. The two sets of bracketed instances refer each
to one place; the asterisks show where Ilminsky varies from Kehr.]
_Ḥai. MS._ _Kehr's MS._ _Kāsān Imprint._ _Memoirs._
1. {f. 278_b_ L:knūr L:knū L:knū, p. 361 Luknow.
2. {f. 338 L:knū " " p. 437 "
3. f. 292_b_ L:knūr L:knūr " p. 379* not entered.
4. f. 329 L:knūr L:knūr " p. 362* Luknow.
5. f. 334 L:knū L:knū " p. 432* "
6. {f. 376 L:knū L:knūr " p. 486* "
7. {f. 376_b_ L:knūr " " p. 487* "
8. {f. 377_b_ L:knū " " p. 488* "
The following notes give some grounds for accepting the names as the two
Turkī codices agree in giving them:—
The first and second instances of the above table, those of the Ḥai.
Codex f. 278_b_ and f. 338, are shown by their context to represent
Lakhnau.
The third (f. 292_b_) is an item of Bābur's Revenue List. The Turkī
codices are supported by B.M. Or. 1999, which is a direct copy of Shaikh
Zain's autograph _T̤ābaqāt-i-bāburī_, all three having L:knūr. Kehr's
MS. and Or. 1999 are descendants of the second degree from the original
List; that the Ḥai. Codex is a direct copy is suggested by its
pseudo-tabular arrangement of the various items.—An important
consideration supporting _L:knūr_, is that the List is in Persian and
may reasonably be accepted as the one furnished officially for the
Pādshāh's information when he was writing his account of Hindūstān (cf.
Appendix P, p. liv). This official character disassociates it from any
such doubtful spelling by the foreign Pādshāh as cannot but suggest
itself when the variants of _e.g._ Dalmau and Bangarmau are considered.
L:knūr is what three persons copying independently read in the official
List, and so set down that careful scribes _i.e._ Kehr and `Abdu'l-lāh
(App. P) again wrote L:knūr.[2846]—Another circumstance favouring L:knūr
(Lakhnūr) is that the place assigned to it in the List is its
geographical one between Saṃbhal and Khairābād.—Something for [or
perhaps against] accepting Lakhnūr as the _sarkār_ of the List may be
known in local records or traditions. It had been an important place,
and later on it paid a large revenue to Akbar [as part of Saṃbhal].—It
appears to have been worth the attention of Bīban _Jalwānī_ (f.
329).—Another place is associated with L:knūr in the Revenue List, the
forms of which are open to a considerable number of interpretations
besides that of Baksar shown _in loco_ on p. 521. Only those well
acquainted with the United Provinces or their bye-gone history can offer
useful suggestion about it. Maps show a "Madkar" 6 m. south of old
Lakhnūr; there are in the United Provinces two Baksars and as many other
Lakhnūrs (none however being so suitable as what is now Shāhābād).
Perhaps in the archives of some old families there may be help found to
interpret the entry _L:knūr u B:ks:r_ (var.), a conjecture the less
improbable that the _Gazetteer of the Province of Oude_ (ii, 58)
mentions a _farmān_ of Bābur Pādshāh's dated 1527 AD. and upholding a
grant to Shaikh Qāẓī of Bīlgrām.
The fourth instance (f. 329) is fairly confirmed as Lakhnūr by its
context, _viz._ an officer received the district of Badāyūn from the
Pādshāh and was sent against Bīban who had laid siege to L:knūr on which
Badāyūn bordered.—At the time Lakhnau may have been held from Bābur by
Shaikh Bāyazīd _Farmūlī_ in conjunction with Aūd. Its estates are
recorded as still in Farmūlī possession, that of the widow of "Kala
Pahār" _Farmūlī_.—(_See infra._)
The fifth instance (f. 334) connects with Aūd (Oudh) because royal
troops abandoning the place L:knū were those who had been sent against
Shaikh Bāyazīd in Aūd.
The remaining three instances (f. 376, f. 376_b_, f. 377_b_) appear to
concern one place, to which Bīban and Bāyazīd were rumoured to intend
going, which they captured and abandoned. As the table of variants
shows, Kehr's MS. reads Lakhnūr in all three places, the Ḥai. MS. once
only, varying from itself as it does in Nos. 1 and 2.—A circumstance
supporting _Lakhnūr_ is that one of the messengers sent to Bābur with
details of the capture was the son of Shāh Muḥ. _Dīwāna_ whose record
associates him rather with Badakhshān, and with Humāyūn and Saṃbhal
[perhaps with Lakhnūr itself] than with Bābur's own army.—Supplementing
my notes on these three instances, much could be said in favour of
reading Lakhnūr, about time and distance done by the messengers and by
`Abdu'l-lah _kitābdār_, on his way to Saṃbhal and passing near Lakhnūr;
much too about the various rumours and Bābur's immediate counter-action.
But to go into it fully would need lengthy treatment which the
historical unimportance of the little problem appears not to
demand.—Against taking the place to be Lakhnau there are the
considerations (_a_) that Lakhnūr was the safer harbourage for the Rains
and less near the westward march of the royal troops returning from the
battle of the Goghrā; (_b_) that the fort of Lakhnau was the renowned
old Machchi-bawan (cf. _Gazetteer of the Province of Oude_, 3 vols.,
1877, ii, 366).—So far as I have been able to fit dates and transactions
together, there seems no reason why the two Afghāns should not have gone
to Lakhnūr, have crossed the Ganges near it, dropped down south [perhaps
even intending to recross at Dalmau] with the intention of getting back
to the Farmūlīs and Jalwānīs perhaps in Sārwār, perhaps elsewhere to
Bāyazīd's brother Ma`rūf.
U.—THE INSCRIPTIONS ON BĀBUR'S MOSQUE IN AJODHYA (OUDH).
Thanks to the kind response made by the Deputy-Commissioner of Fyzābād
to my husband's enquiry about two inscriptions mentioned by several
Gazetteers as still existing on "Bābur's Mosque" in Oudh, I am able to
quote copies of both.[2847]
_a._ The inscription inside the Mosque is as follows:—
[Illustration: 3 lines of Arabic script]
1. _Ba farmūda-i-Shāh Bābur ki `ādilash
Banā'īst tā kākh-i-gardūn mulāqī_,
2. _Banā kard īn muhbiṯ-i-qudsiyān
Amīr-i-sa`ādat-nishān Mīr Bāqī_
3. _Bavad khair bāqī! chū sāl-i-banā'īsh
`Iyān shud ki guftam_,—_Buvad khair bāqī_ (935).
The translation and explanation of the above, manifestly made by a
Musalmān and as such having special value, are as follows:—[2848]
1. By the command of the Emperor Bābur whose justice is an edifice
reaching up to the very height of the heavens,
2. The good-hearted Mīr Bāqī built this alighting-place of angels;[2849]
3. _Bavad khāir bāqī!_ (May this goodness last for ever!)[2850]
The year of building it was made clear likewise when I said, _Buvad
khair bāqī_ ( = 935).[2851]
The explanation of this is:—
1st couplet:—The poet begins by praising the Emperor Bābur under whose
orders the mosque was erected. As justice is the (chief) virtue of
kings, he naturally compares his (Bābur's) justice to a palace reaching
up to the very heavens, signifying thereby that the fame of that justice
had not only spread in the wide world but had gone up to the heavens.
2nd couplet:—In the second couplet, the poet tells who was entrusted
with the work of construction. Mīr Bāqī was evidently some nobleman of
distinction at Bābur's Court.—The noble height, the pure religious
atmosphere, and the scrupulous cleanliness and neatness of the mosque
are beautifully suggested by saying that it was to be the abode of
angels.
3rd couplet:—The third couplet begins and ends with the expression
_Buvad khair bāqī_. The letters forming it by their numerical values
represent the number 935, thus:—
_B_ = 2, _v_ = 6, _d_ = 4 total 12
_Kh_ = 600, _ai_ = 10, _r_ = 200 " 810
_B_ = 2, _ā_ = 1, _q_ = 100, _r_ = 10 " 113
___
Total 935
The poet indirectly refers to a religious commandment (_dictum_?) of the
Qorān that a man's good deeds live after his death, and signifies that
this noble mosque is verily such a one.
_b._ The inscription outside the Mosque is as follows:—
[Illustration: 3 lines of Arabic script]
1. _Ba nām-i-anki dānā hast akbar
Ki khāliq-i-jamla `ālam lā-makānī_
2. _Durūd Muṣṯafá ba`d az sitāyish
Ki sarwar-i-aṃbiyā' dū jahānī_
3. _Fasāna dar jahān Bābur qalandar
Ki shud dar daur gītī kāmrānī._[2852]
The explanation of the above is as follows:—
In the first couplet the poet praises God, in the second Muḥammad, in
the third Bābur.—There is a peculiar literary beauty in the use of the
word _lā-makānī_ in the 1st couplet. The author hints that the mosque is
meant to be the abode of God, although He has no fixed abiding-place.—In
the first hemistich of the 3rd couplet the poet gives Bābur the
appellation of _qalandar_, which means a perfect devotee, indifferent to
all worldly pleasures. In the second hemistich he gives as the reason
for his being so, that Bābur became and was known all the world over as
a _qalandar_, because having become Emperor of India and having thus
reached the summit of worldly success, he had nothing to wish for on
this earth.[2853]
The inscription is incomplete and the above is the plain interpretation
which can be given to the couplets that are to hand. Attempts may be
made to read further meaning into them but the language would not
warrant it.
V.—BĀBUR'S GARDENS IN AND NEAR KĀBUL.
The following particulars about gardens made by Bābur in or near Kābul,
are given in Muḥammad Amīr of Kazwīn's _Pādshāh-nāma_ (Bib. Ind. ed. p.
585, p. 588).
Ten gardens are mentioned as made:—the Shahr-ārā (Town-adorning) which
when Shāh-i-jahān first visited Kābul in the 12th year of his reign
(1048 AH.-1638 AD.) contained very fine plane-trees Bābur had planted,
beautiful trees having magnificent trunks,[2854]—the Chār-bāgh,—the
Bāgh-i-jalau-khāna,[2855]—the Aūrta-bāgh (Middle-garden),—the
Ṣaurat-bāgh,—the Bāgh-i-mahtāb (Moonlight-garden),—the Bāgh-i-āhū-khāna
(Garden-of-the-deer-house),—and three smaller ones. Round these gardens
rough-cast walls were made (renewed?) by Jahāngīr (1016 AH.).
The above list does not specify the garden Bābur made and selected for
his burial; this is described apart (_l.c._ p. 588) with details of its
restoration and embellishment by Shāh-i-jahān the master-builder of his
time, as follows:—
The burial-garden was 500 yards (_gaz_) long; its ground was in 15
terraces, 30 yards apart(?). On the 15th terrace is the tomb of Ruqaiya
Sulṯān Begam[2856]; as a small marble platform (_chabūṭra_) had been
made near it by Jahāngīr's command, Shāh-i-jahān ordered (both) to be
enclosed by a marble screen three yards high.—Bābur's tomb is on the
14th terrace. In accordance with his will, no building was erected over
it, but Shāh-i-jahān built a small marble mosque on the terrace
below.[2857] It was begun in the 17th year (of Shāh-i-jahān's reign) and
was finished in the 19th, after the conquest of Balkh and Badakhshān, at
a cost of 30,000 _rūpīs_. It is admirably constructed.—From the 12th
terrace running-water flows along the line (_rasta_) of the
avenue;[2858] but its 12 water-falls, because not constructed with
cemented stone, had crumbled away and their charm was lost; orders were
given therefore to renew them entirely and lastingly, to make a small
reservoir below each fall, and to finish with Kābul marble the edges of
the channel and the waterfalls, and the borders of the reservoirs.—And
on the 9th terrace there was to be a reservoir 11 x 11 yards, bordered
with Kābul marble, and on the 10th terrace one 15 x 15, and at the
entrance to the garden another 15 x 15, also with a marble border.—And
there was to be a gateway adorned with gilded cupolas befitting that
place, and beyond (_pesh_) the gateway a square station,[2859] one side
of which should be the garden-wall and the other three filled with
cells; that running-water should pass through the middle of it, so that
the destitute and poor people who might gather there should eat their
food in those cells, sheltered from the hardship of snow and rain.[2860]
FOOTNOTES
[1] From Atkinson's _Sketches in Afghanistan_ (I.O. Lib. &
B.M.).
[2] _See_ p. 710 (where for "Daniels" read Atkinson).
[3] _See_ Gul-badan Begim's _Humayun-nama_ Index III, _in
loco_.
[4] Cf. Cap. II, PROBLEMS OF THE MUTILATED BABUR-NAMA and
_Tarīkh-i-rashīdi_, trs. p. 174.
[5] The suggestion, implied by my use of this word, that Babur
may have definitely closed his autobiography (as Timur did
under other circumstances) is due to the existence of a
compelling cause _viz._ that he would be expectant of death as
the price of Humayun's restored life (p. 701).
[6] Cf. p. 83 and n. and Add. Note, P. 83 for further
emendation of a contradiction effected by some malign
influence in the note (p. 83) between parts of that note, and
between it and Babur's account of his not-drinking in Herat.
[7] Teufel held its title to be _waqi`_ (this I adopted in
1908), but it has no definite support and in numerous
instances of its occurrence to describe the acts or doings of
Babur, it could be read as a common noun.
[8] It stands on the reverse of the frontal page of the
Haidarabad Codex; it is Timur-pulad's name for the Codex he
purchased in Bukhara, and it is thence brought on by Kehr
(with Ilminski), and Klaproth (Cap. III); it is used by Khwafi
Khan (d. _cir._ 1732), _etc._
[9] That Babur left a complete record much indicates beyond
his own persistence and literary bias, _e.g._ cross-reference
with and needed complements from what is lost; mention by
other writers of Babur's information, notably by Haidar.
[10] App. H, xxx.
[11] p. 446, n. 6. Babur's order for the cairn would fit into
the lost record of the first month of the year (p. 445).
[12] Parts of the Babur-nama sent to Babur's sons are not
included here.
[13] The standard of comparison is the 382 fols. of the
Haidarabad Codex.
[14] This MS. is not to be confused with one Erskine
misunderstood Humayun to have copied (_Memoirs_, p. 303 and
JRAS. 1900, p. 443).
[15] For precise limits of the original annotation _see_ p.
446 n.—For details about the E. Codex _see_ JRAS. 1907, art.
_The Elph. Codex_, and for the colophon AQR. 1900, July, Oct.
and JRAS. 1905, pp. 752, 761.
[16] _See_ Index _s.n._ and III _ante_ and JRAS. 1900-3-5-6-7.
[17] Here speaks the man reared in touch with European
classics; (pure) Turki though it uses no relatives (Radloff)
is lucid. Cf. Cap. IV The Memoirs of Babur.
[18] For analysis of a retranslated passage _see_ JRAS. 1908,
p. 85.
[19] _Tuzuk-i-jahangiri_, Rogers & Beveridge's trs. i, 110;
JRAS. 1900, p. 756, for the Persian passage, 1908, p. 76 for
the "Fragments", 1900, p. 476 for Ilminski's Preface (a second
translation is accessible at the B.M. and I.O. Library and
R.A.S.), _Memoirs_ Preface, p. ix, Index _s.nn._ de
Courteille, Teufel, Bukhara MSS. and Part iii _eo cap._
[20] For Shah-i-jahan's interest in Timur _see_ sign given in
a copy of his note published in my translation volume of
Gul-badan Begim's _Humayun-nama_, p. xiii.
[21] JRAS. 1900 p. 466, 1902 p. 655, 1905 art. _s.n._, 1908
pp. 78, 98; Index _in loco s.n._
[22] Cf. JRAS. 1900, Nos. VI, VII, VIII.
[23] Ilminski's difficulties are foreshadowed here by the same
confusion of identity between the _Babur-nama_ proper and the
Bukhara compilation (Preface, Part iii, p. li).
[24] Cf. Erskine's Preface _passim_, and _in loco_ item XI,
cap. iv. _The Memoirs of Baber_, and Index _s.n._
[25] The last blow was given to the phantasmal reputation of
the book by the authoritative Haidarabad Codex which now can
be seen in facsimile in many Libraries.
[26] But for present difficulties of intercourse with
Petrograd, I would have re-examined with Kehr's the collateral
Codex of 1742 (copied in 1839 and now owned by the Petrograd
University). It might be useful; as Kehr's volume has lost
pages and may be disarranged here and there.
The list of Kehr's items is as follows:—
1 (_not in the Imprint_). A letter from Babur to Kamran the
date of which is fixed as 1527 by its committing Ibrahim
_Ludi's_ son to Kamran's charge (p. 544). It is heard of again
in the Bukhara Compilation, is lost from Kehr's Codex, and
preserved from his archetype by Klaproth who translated it.
Being thus found in Bukhara in the first decade of the
eighteenth century (our earliest knowledge of the Compilation
is 1709), the inference is allowed that it went to Bukhara as
loot from the defeated Kamran's camp and that an endorsement
its companion Babur-nama (proper) bears was made by the Auzbeg
of two victors over Kamran, both of 1550, both in
Tramontana.(1)
2 (_not in Imp._). Timur-pulad's memo. about the purchase of
his Codex in cir. 1521 (_eo cap. post_).
3 (_Imp. 1_). Compiler's Preface of Praise (JRAS. 1900, p.
474).
4 (_Imp. 2_). Babur's Acts in Farghana, in diction such as to
seem a re-translation of the Persian translation of 1589. How
much of Kamran's MS. was serviceable is not easy to decide,
because the Turki fettering of `Abdu'r-rahim's Persian lends
itself admirably to re-translation.(2)
5 (_Imp. 3_). The "Rescue-passage" (App. D) attributable to
Jahangir.
6 (_Imp. 4_). Babur's Acts in Kabul, seeming (like No. 4) a
re-translation or patching of tattered pages. There are also
passages taken verbatim from the Persian.
7 (_Imp. omits_). A short length of Babur's Hindustan Section,
carefully shewn damaged by dots and dashes.
8 (_Imp. 5_). Within 7, the spurious passage of App. L and
also scattered passages about a feast, perhaps part of 7.
9 (_Imp. separates off at end of vol._). Translated passage
from the _Akbar-nāma_, attributable to Jahangir, briefly
telling of Kanwa (1527), Babur's latter years (both changed to
first person), death and court.(3)
[Babur's history has been thus brought to an end, incomplete
in the balance needed of 7. In Kehr's volume a few pages are
left blank except for what shews a Russian librarian's opinion
of the plan of the book, "Here end the writings of Shah
Babur."]
10 (_Imp. omits_). Preface to the history of Humayun,
beginning at the Creation and descending by giant strides
through notices of Khans and Sultans to "Babur Mirza who was
the father of Humayun Padshah". Of Babur what further is said
connects with the battle of Ghaj-davan (918-1512 _q.v._). It
is ill-informed, laying blame on him as if he and not Najm
Sani had commanded—speaks of his preference for the counsel of
young men and of the numbers of combatants. It is noticeable
for more than its inadequacy however; its selection of the
Ghaj-davan episode from all others in Babur's career supports
circumstantially what is dealt with later, the Ghaj-davani
authorship of the Compilation.
11 (_Imp. omits_). Under a heading "Humayun Padshah" is a
fragment about (his? Accession) Feast, whether broken off by
loss of his pages or of those of his archetype examination of
the P. Univ. Codex may show.
12 (_Imp. 6_). An excellent copy of Babur's Hindustan Section,
perhaps obtained from the Ahrari house. [This Ilminski places
(I think) where Kehr has No. 7.] From its position and from
its bearing a scribe's date of completion (which Kehr brings
over), _viz._ _Tamt shud 1126_ (Finished 1714), the compiler
may have taken it for Humayun's, perhaps for the account of
his reconquest of Hind in 1555.
[The remaining entries in Kehr's volume are a quatrain which
may make jesting reference to his finished task, a librarian's
Russian entry of the number of pages (831), and the words
_Etablissement Orientale, Fr. v. Adelung_, 1825 (the Director
of the School from 1793).(4)]
[27] That Babur-nama of the "Kamran-docket" is the mutilated
and tattered basis, allowed by circumstance, of the compiled
history of Babur, filled out and mended by the help of the
Persian translation of 1589. Cf. Kehr's Latin Trs. fly-leaf
entry; Klaproth _s.n._; A.N. trs. H.B., p. 260; JRAS. 1908,
1909, on the "Kamran-docket" where are defects needing
Klaproth's second article (1824).
[28] For an analysis of an illustrative passage _see_ JRAS.
1906; for facilities of re-translation _see_ _eo cap._ p.
xviii, where Erskine is quoted.
[29] _See_ A.N. trans., p. 260; Prefaces of Ilminski and de
Courteille; ZDMG. xxxvii, Teufel's art.; JRAS. 1906.
[30] For particulars about Kehr's Codex see Smirnov's
Catalogue of the School Library and JRAS. 1900, 1906. Like
others who have made statements resting on the mistaken
identity of the Bukhara Compilation, many of mine are now
given to the winds.
[31] _See_ Gregorief's "Russian policy regarding Central
Asia", quoted in Schuyler's Turkistan, App. IV.
[32] The Mission was well received, started to return to
Petrograd, was attacked by Turkmans, went back to Bukhara, and
there stayed until it could attempt the devious route which
brought it to the capital in 1725.
[33] One might say jestingly that the spirit in the book had
rebelled since 1725 against enforced and changing masquerade
as a phantasm of two other books!
[34] Neither Ilminski nor Smirnov mentions another
"Babur-nama" Codex than Kehr's.
[35] A Correspondent combatting my objection to publishing a
second edition of the _Memoirs_, backed his favouring opinion
by reference to `Umar Khayyam and Fitzgerald. Obviously no
analogy exists; Erskine's redundance is not the flower of a
deft alchemy, but is the prosaic consequence of a secondary
source.
[36] The manuscripts relied on for revising the first section
of the Memoirs, (_i.e._ 899 to 908 AH.-1494 to 1502 AD.) are
the Elphinstone and the Ḥaidarābād Codices. To variants from
them occurring in Dr. Kehr's own transcript no authority can
be allowed because throughout this section, his text appears
to be a compilation and in parts a retranslation from one or
other of the two Persian translations (_Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_) of
the _Bābur-nāma_. Moreover Dr. Ilminsky's imprint of Kehr's
text has the further defect in authority that it was helped
out from the Memoirs, itself not a direct issue from the Turkī
original.
Information about the manuscripts of the _Bābur-nāma_ can be
found in the JRAS for 1900, 1902, 1905, 1906, 1907 and 1908.
The foliation marked in the margin of this book is that of the
Ḥaidarābād Codex and of its facsimile, published in 1905 by
the Gibb Memorial Trust.
[37] Bābur, born on Friday, Feb. 14th. 1483 (Muḥarram 6, 888
AH.), succeeded his father, `Umar Shaikh who died on June 8th.
1494 (Ramẓān 4, 899 AH.).
[38] _pād-shāh_, protecting lord, supreme. It would be an
anachronism to translate _pādshāh_ by King or Emperor,
previous to 913 AH. (1507 AD.) because until that date it was
not part of the style of any Tīmūrid, even ruling members of
the house being styled Mīrzā. Up to 1507 therefore Bābur's
correct style is Bābur Mīrzā. (_Cf._ f. 215 and note.)
[39] See _Āyīn-i-akbarī_, Jarrett, p. 44.
[40] The Ḥai. MS. and a good many of the W.-i-B. MSS. here
write Aūtrār. [Aūtrār like Tarāz was at some time of its
existence known as Yāngī (New).] Tarāz seems to have stood
near the modern Auliya-ātā; Ālmālīgh,—a Metropolitan see of
the Nestorian Church in the 14th. century,—to have been the
old capital of Kuldja, and Ālmātū (var. Ālmātī) to have been
where Vernoe (Vierny) now is. Ālmālīgh and Ālmātū owed their
names to the apple (_ālmā_). _Cf._ Bretschneider's Mediæval
Geography p. 140 and T.R. (Elias and Ross) _s.nn._
[41] _Mughūl u Aūzbeg jihatdīn._ I take this, the first
offered opportunity of mentioning (1) that in transliterating
Turkī words I follow Turkī lettering because I am not
competent to choose amongst systems which _e.g._ here,
reproduce Aūzbeg as Ūzbeg, Özbeg and Euzbeg; and (2) that
style being part of an autobiography, I am compelled, in
pressing back the Memoirs on Bābur's Turkī mould, to retract
from the wording of the western scholars, Erskine and de
Courteille. Of this compulsion Bābur's bald phrase _Mughūl u
Aūzbeg jihatdīn_ provides an illustration. Each earlier
translator has expressed his meaning with more finish than he
himself; `Abdu'r-raḥīm, by _az jihat `ubūr-i_ (_Mughūl u_)
_Aūzbeg_, improves on Bābur, since the three towns lay in the
tideway of nomad passage (_`ubūr_) east and west; Erskine
writes "in consequence of the incursions" etc. and de C.
"_grace aux ravages commis_" etc.
[42] Schuyler (ii, 54) gives the extreme length of the valley
as about 160 miles and its width, at its widest, as 65 miles.
[43] Following a manifestly clerical error in the Second
W.-i-B. the _Akbar-nāma_ and the Mems. are without the
seasonal limitation, "in winter." Bābur here excludes from
winter routes one he knew well, the Kīndīrlīk Pass; on the
other hand Kostenko says that this is open all the year round.
Does this contradiction indicate climatic change? (_Cf._ f.
54b and note; A.N. Bib. Ind. ed. i, 85 (H. Beveridge i, 221)
and, for an account of the passes round Farghāna, Kostenko's
_Turkistān Region_, Tables of Contents.)
[44] Var. Banākat, Banākas̤, Fīākat, Fanākand. Of this place
Dr. Rieu writes (Pers. cat. i, 79) that it was also called
Shāsh and, in modern times, Tāshkīnt. Bābur does not identify
Fanākat with the Tāshkīnt of his day but he identifies it with
Shāhrukhiya (_cf._ Index _s.nn._) and distinguishes between
Tāshkīnt-Shāsh and Fanākat-Shāhrukhiya. It may be therefore
that Dr. Rieu's Tāshkīnt-Fanākat was Old Tāshkīnt,—(Does
Fanā-kīnt mean Old Village?) some 14 miles nearer to the
Saiḥūn than the Tāshkīnt of Bābur's day or our own.
[45] _ hech daryā qātīlmās._ A gloss of _dīgar_ (other) in the
Second W.-i-B. has led Mr. Erskine to understand "meeting with
no other river in its course." I understand Bābur to contrast
the destination of the Saiḥūn which he [erroneously] says
sinks into the sands, with the outfall of _e.g._ the Amū into
the Sea of Aral.
_Cf._ First W.-i-B. I.O. MS. 215 f. 2; Second W.-i-B. I.O. MS.
217 f. 1b and Ouseley's Ibn Haukal p. 232-244; also Schuyler
and Kostenko _l.c._
[46] Bābur's geographical unit in Central Asia is the township
or, with more verbal accuracy, the village _i.e._ the
fortified, inhabited and cultivated oasis. Of frontiers he
says nothing.
[47] _i.e._ they are given away or taken. Bābur's interest in
fruits was not a matter of taste or amusement but of food.
Melons, for instance, fresh or stored, form during some months
the staple food of Turkistānīs. _Cf._ T.R. p. 303 and (in
Kāshmīr) 425; Timkowski's _Travels of the Russian Mission_ i,
419 and Th. Radloff's _Réceuils d'Itinéraires_ p. 343.
N.B. At this point two folios of the Elphinstone Codex are
missing.
[48] Either a kind of melon or the pear. For local abundance
of pears _see_ _Āyīn-i-akbarī_, Blochmann p. 6; Kostenko and
Von Schwarz.
[49] _qūrghān_, _i.e._ the walled town within which was the
citadel (_ark_).
[50] _Tūqūz tarnau sū kīrār, bū `ajab tūr kīm bīr yīrdīn ham
chīqmās._ Second W.-i-B. I.O. 217 f. 2, _nuh jū'ī āb dar qila`
dar mī āyid u īn `ajab ast kah hama az yak jā ham na mī bar
āyid_. (_Cf._ Mems. p. 2 and _Méms._ i, 2.) I understand Bābur
to mean that all the water entering was consumed in the town.
The supply of Andijān, in the present day, is taken both from
the Āq Būrā (_i.e._ the Aūsh Water) and, by canal, from the
Qarā Daryā.
[51] _khandaqnīng tāsh yānī._ Second W.-i-B. I.O. 217 f. 2
_dar kīnār sang bast khandaq_. Here as in several other
places, this Persian translation has rendered Turkī _tāsh_,
outside, as if it were Turkī _tāsh_, stone. Bābur's adjective
_stone_ is _sangīn_ (f. 45b l. 8). His point here is the
unusual circumstance of a high-road running round the outer
edge of the ditch. Moreover Andijān is built on and of loess.
Here, obeying his Persian source, Mr. Erskine writes
"stone-faced ditch"; M. de C. obeying his Turkī one, "_bord
extérieur_."
[52] _qīrghāwal āsh-kīnasī bīla. Āsh-kīna_, a diminutive of
_āsh_, food, is the rice and vegetables commonly served with
the bird. Kostenko i, 287 gives a recipe for what seems
_āsh-kīna_.
[53] b. 1440; d. 1500 AD.
[54] Yūsuf was in the service of Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā _Shāhrukhī_
(d. 837 AH.-1434 AD.). _Cf._ Daulat Shāh's _Memoirs of the
Poets_ (Browne) pp. 340 and 350-1. (H.B.)
[55] _gūzlār aīl bīzkāk kūb būlūr._ Second W.-i-B. (I.O. 217
f. 2) here and on f. 4 has read Turkī _gūz_, eye, for Turkī
_gūz_ or _goz_, autumn. It has here a gloss not in the
Ḥaidarābād or Kehr's MSS. (_Cf_. Mems. p. 4 note.) This gloss
may be one of Humāyūn's numerous notes and may have been
preserved in the Elphinstone Codex, but the fact cannot now be
known because of the loss of the two folios already noted.
(_See_ Von Schwarz and Kostenko concerning the autumn fever of
Transoxiana.)
[56] The Pers. trss. render _yīghāch_ by _farsang_; Ujfalvy
also takes the _yīghāch_ and the _farsang_ as having a common
equivalent of about 6 _kilomètres_. Bābur's statements in
_yīghāch_ however, when tested by ascertained distances, do
not work out into the _farsang_ of four miles or the
_kilomètre_ of 8 _kil._ to 5 miles. The _yīghāch_ appears to
be a variable estimate of distance, sometimes indicating the
time occupied on a given journey, at others the distance to
which a man's voice will carry. (_Cf._ Ujfalvy _Expédition
scientifique_ ii, 179; Von Schwarz p. 124 and de C.'s Dict.
_s.n._ _yīghāch_. In the present instance, if Bābur's 4 y.
equalled 4 f. the distance from Aūsh to Andijān should be
about 16 m.; but it is 33 m. 1-3/4 fur. _i.e._ 50 _versts_.
Kostenko ii, 33.) I find Bābur's _yīghāch_ to vary from about
4 m. to nearly 8 m.
[57] _āqār sū_, the irrigation channels on which in Turkistān
all cultivation depends. Major-General Gérard writes, (Report
of the Pamir Boundary Commission, p. 6,) "Osh is a charming
little town, resembling Islāmābād in Kāshmīr,—everywhere the
same mass of running water, in small canals, bordered with
willow, poplar and mulberry." He saw the Āq Būrā, the _White
wolf_, mother of all these running waters, as a "bright,
stony, trout-stream;" Dr. Stein saw it as a "broad, tossing
river." (Buried Cities of Khotan, p. 45.) _Cf_. Réclus vi,
cap. Farghāna; Kostenko i, 104; Von Schwarz _s.nn._
[58] _Aūshnīng faẓīlatīdā khailī aḥādis̤ wārid dūr._ Second
W.-i-B. (I.O. 217 f. 2) _Faẓīlat-i-Aūsh aḥadis̤ wārid ast._
Mems. (p. 3) "The excellencies of Ush are celebrated even in
the sacred traditions." _Méms._ (i, 2) "_On cite beaucoup de
traditions qui célèbrent l'excellence de ce climat._" Aūsh may
be mentioned in the traditions on account of places of
pilgrimage near it; Bābur's meaning may be merely that its
excellencies are traditional. _Cf._ Ujfalvy ii, 172.
[59] Most travellers into Farghāna comment on Bābur's account
of it. One much discussed point is the position of the Barā
Koh. The personal observations of Ujfalvy and Schuyler led
them to accept its identification with the rocky ridge known
as the Takht-i-sulaimān. I venture to supplement this by the
suggestion that Bābur, by Barā Koh, did not mean the whole of
the rocky ridge, the name of which, Takht-i-sulaimān, an
ancient name, must have been known to him, but one only of its
four marked summits. Writing of the ridge Madame Ujfalvy says,
"_Il y a quatre sommets dont le plus élevé est le troisième
comptant par le nord_." Which summit in her sketch (p. 327) is
the third and highest is not certain, but one is so shewn that
it may be the third, may be the highest and, as being a peak,
can be described as symmetrical _i.e._ Bābur's _mauzūn_. For
this peak an appropriate name would be Barā Koh.
If the name Barā Koh could be restricted to a single peak of
the Takht-i-sulaimān ridge, a good deal of earlier confusion
would be cleared away, concerning which have written, amongst
others, Ritter (v, 432 and 732); Réclus (vi. 54); Schuyler
(ii, 43) and those to whom these three refer. For an excellent
account, graphic with pen and pencil, of Farghāna and of Aūsh
_see_ Madame Ujfalvy's _De Paris à Samarcande_ cap. v.
[60] _rūd._ This is a precise word since the Āq Būrā (the
White Wolf), in a relatively short distance, falls from the
Kūrdūn Pass, 13,400 ft. to Aūsh, 3040 ft. and thence to
Andijān, 1380 ft. _Cf._ Kostenko i, 104; Huntingdon in
Pumpelly's _Explorations in Turkistān_ p. 179 and the French
military map of 1904.
[61] Whether Bābur's words, _bāghāt_, _bāghlār_ and _bāghcha_
had separate significations, such as orchard, vineyard and
ordinary garden _i.e._ garden-plots of small size, I am not
able to say but what appears fairly clear is that when he
writes _bāghāt u bāghlār_ he means _all sorts of gardens_,
just as when he writes _begāt u beglār_, he means _begs of all
ranks_.
[62] Madame Ujfalvy has sketched a possible successor.
Schuyler found two mosques at the foot of Takht-i-sulaimān,
perhaps Bābur's Jauza Masjid.
[63] _aūl shāh-jū'īdīn sū qūyārlār._
[64] Ribbon Jasper, presumably.
[65] Kostenko (ii, 30), 71-3/4 versts _i.e._ 47 m. 4-1/2 fur.
by the Postal Road.
[66] Instead of their own kernels, the Second W.-i-B. stuffs
the apricots, in a fashion well known in India by _khūbānī_,
with almonds (_maghz-i badām_). The Turkī wording however
allows the return to the apricots of their own kernels and Mr.
Rickmers tells me that apricots so stuffed were often seen by
him in the Zar-afshān Valley. My husband has shewn me that
Niẕāmī in his Haft Paikar appears to refer to the other
fashion, that of inserting almonds:—
"I gave thee fruits from the garden of my heart,
Plump and sweet as honey in milk;
Their substance gave the lusciousness of figs,
In their hearts were the kernels of almonds."
[67] What this name represents is one of a considerable number
of points in the _Bābur-nāma_ I am unable to decide. _Kīyīk_
is a comprehensive name (_cf._ Shaw's Vocabulary); _āq kīyīk_
might mean _white sheep_ or _white deer_. It is rendered in
the Second W.-i-B., here, by _ahū-i-wāriq_ and on f. 4, by
_ahū-i-safed_. Both these names Mr. Erskine has translated by
"white deer," but he mentions that the first is said to mean
_argālī_ _i.e._ _ovis poli_, and refers to _Voyages de Pallas_
iv, 325.
[68] Concerning this much discussed word, Bābur's testimony is
of service. It seems to me that he uses it merely of those
settled in towns (villages) and without any reference to tribe
or nationality. I am not sure that he uses it always as a
noun; he writes of a _Sārt kīshī_, a Sārt person. His Asfara
Sārts may have been Turkī-speaking settled Turks and his
Marghīnānī ones Persian-speaking Tājiks. _Cf._ Shaw's
Vocabulary; _s.n._ Sārt; Schuyler i, 104 and note; Nalivkine's
_Histoire du Khanat de Khokand_ p. 45 n. Von Schwarz _s.n._;
Kostenko i, 287; Petzbold's _Turkistan_ p. 32.
[69] Shaikh Burhānu'd-dīn `Alī _Qīlīch_: b. _circa_ 530 AH.
(1135 AD.) d. 593 AH. (1197 AD.). _See_ Hamilton's _Hidāyat_.
[70] The direct distance, measured on the map, appears to be
about 65 m. but the road makes _détour_ round mountain spurs.
Mr. Erskine appended here, to the "_farsang_" of his Persian
source, a note concerning the reduction of Tatar and Indian
measures to English ones. It is rendered the less applicable
by the variability of the _yīghāch_, the equivalent for a
_farsang_ presumed by the Persian translator.
[71] Ḥai. MS. _Farsī-gū'ī_. The Elph. MS. and all those
examined of the W.-i-B. omit the word _Farsī_; some writing
_kohī_ (mountaineer) for _gū'ī_. I judge that Bābur at first
omitted the word _Farsī_, since it is entered in the Ḥai. MS.
above the word _gū'ī_. It would have been useful to Ritter
(vii, 733) and to Ujfalvy (ii, 176). _Cf._ Kostenko i, 287 on
the variety of languages spoken by Sārts.
[72] Of the Mirror Stone neither Fedtschenko nor Ujfalvy could
get news.
[73] Bābur distinguishes here between Tāshkīnt and
Shāhrukhiya. _Cf._ f. 2 and note to Fanākat.
[74] He left the hill-country above Sūkh in Muḥarram 910 AH.
(mid-June 1504 AD.).
[75] For a good account of Khujand _see_ Kostenko i, 346.
[76] Khujand to Andijān 187 m. 2 fur. (Kostenko ii, 29-31)
and, helped out by the time-table of the Transcaspian Railway,
from Khujand to Samarkand appears to be some 154 m. 5-1/4 fur.
[77] Both men are still honoured in Khujand (Kostenko i, 348).
For Khwāja Kamāl's Life and _Dīwān_, _see_ Rieu ii, 632 and
Ouseley's Persian Poets p. 192. _Cf._ f. 83b and note.
[78] _kūb artūq dūr_, perhaps brought to Hindūstān where Bābur
wrote the statement.
[79] Turkish arrow-flight, London, 1791, 482 yards.
[80] I have found the following forms of this name,—Ḥai. MS.,
M:nūgh:l; Pers. trans. and Mems., Myoghil; Ilminsky, M:tugh:l;
_Méms._ Mtoughuil; Réclus, Schuyler and Kostenko, Mogul Tau;
Nalivkine, "d'apres Fedtschenko," Mont Mogol; Fr. Map of 1904,
M. Muzbek. It is the western end of the Kurāma Range (Kīndīr
Tau), which comes out to the bed of the Sīr, is 26-2/3 miles
long and rises to 4000 ft. (Kostenko, i, 101). Von Schwarz
describes it as being quite bare; various writers ascribe
climatic evil to it.
[81] Pers. trans. _ahū-i-safed_. _Cf._ f. 3b note.
[82] These words translate into _Cervus marāl_, the Asiatic
Wapiti, and to this Bābur may apply them. Dictionaries explain
_marāl_ as meaning _hind_ or _doe_ but numerous books of
travel and Natural History show that it has wider application
as a generic name, _i.e._ deer. The two words _būghū_ and
_marāl_ appear to me to be used as _e.g._ drake and duck are
used. _Marāl_ and duck can both imply the female sex, but also
both are generic, perhaps primarily so. _Cf._ for further
mention of _būghū-marāl_ f. 219 and f. 276. For uses of the
word _marāl_, _see_ the writings _e.g._ of Atkinson, Kostenko
(iii, 69), Lyddeker, Littledale, Selous, Ronaldshay, Church
(Chinese Turkistan), Biddulph (Forsyth's Mission).
[83] _Cf._ f. 2 and note.
[84] Schuyler (ii, 3), 18 m.
[85] Ḥai. MS. _Hamesha bū deshttā yīl bār dūr. Marghīnānghā
kīm sharqī dūr, hamesha mūndīn yīl bārūr; Khujandghā kīm
gharībī dūr, dā'im mūndīn yīl kīlūr._
This is a puzzling passage. It seems to say that wind always
goes east and west from the steppe as from a generating
centre. E. and de C. have given it alternative directions,
east or west, but there is little point in saying this of wind
in a valley hemmed in on the north and the south. Bābur limits
his statement to the steppe lying in the contracted mouth of
the Farghāna valley (_pace_ Schuyler ii, 51) where special
climatic conditions exist such as (_a_) difference in
temperature on the two sides of the Khujand narrows and
currents resulting from this difference,—(_b_) the heating of
the narrows by sun-heat reflected from the Mogol-tau,—and
(_c_) the inrush of westerly wind over Mīrzā Rabāṯ. Local
knowledge only can guide a translator safely but Bābur's
directness of speech compels belief in the significance of his
words and this particularly when what he says is unexpected.
He calls the Hā Darwesh a whirling wind and this it still is.
Thinkable at least it is that a strong westerly current (the
prevailing wind of Farghāna) entering over Mīrzā Rabāṯ and
becoming, as it does become, the whirlwind of Hā Darwesh on
the hemmed-in steppe,—becoming so perhaps by conflict with the
hotter indraught through the Gates of Khujand—might force that
indraught back into the Khujand Narrows (in the way _e.g._
that one Nile in flood forces back the other), and at Khujand
create an easterly current. All the manuscripts agree in
writing to (_ghā_) Marghīnān and to (_ghā_) Khujand. It may be
observed that, looking at the map, it appears somewhat strange
that Bābur should take, for his wind objective, a place so
distant from his (defined) Hā Darwesh and seemingly so
screened by its near hills as is Marghīnān. But that westerly
winds are prevalent in Marghīnān is seen _e.g._ in
Middendorff's _Einblikke in den Farghāna Thal_ (p. 112). _Cf._
Réclus vi, 547; Schuyler ii, 51; Cahun's _Histoire du Khanat
de Khokand_ p. 28 and Sven Hedin's _Durch Asien's Wüsten s.n.
būrān_.
[86] _bādiy__a_; a word perhaps selected as punning on _bād_,
wind.
[87] _i.e._ Akhsī Village. This word is sometimes spelled
Akhsīkīs̤ but as the old name of the place was Akhsī-kīnt, it
may be conjectured at least that the _s̤ā'ī mas̤allas̤a_ of
Akhsīkīs̤ represents the three points due for the _nūn_ and
_tā_ of _kīnt_. Of those writing Akhsīkīt may be mentioned the
Ḥai. and Kehr's MSS. (the Elph. MS. here has a lacuna) the
_Z̤afar-nāma_ (Bib. Ind. i, 44) and Ibn Haukal (Ouseley p.
270); and of those writing the word with the _s̤ā'ī
muṣallas̤a_ (_i.e._ as Akhsīkīs̤), Yāqūt's Dict, i, 162,
Reinaud's Abū'l-feda I. ii, 225-6, Ilminsky (p. 5) departing
from his source, and I.O. Cat. (Ethé) No. 1029. It may be
observed that Ibn Haukal (Ouseley p. 280) writes Banākaṣ for
Banākat. For As̤īru'd-dīn _Akhsīkītī_, _see_ Rieu ii, 563;
Daulat Shāh (Browne) p. 121 and Ethé I.O. Cat. No. 1029.
[88] Measured on the French military map of 1904, this may be
80 kil. _i.e._ 50 miles.
[89] Concerning several difficult passages in the rest of
Bābur's account of Akhsī, _see_ Appendix A.
[90] The W.-i-B. here translates _būghū-marāl_ by _gazawn_ and
the same word is entered, under-line, in the Ḥai. MS. _Cf._ f.
3b and note and f. 4 and note.
[91] _postīn pesh b:r:h._ This obscure Persian phrase has been
taken in the following ways:—
(_a_) W.-i-B. I.O. 215 and 217 (_i.e._ both versions) reproduce
the phrase.
(_b_) W.-i-B. MS., quoted by Erskine, p. 6 note,
(_postīn-i mīsh burra_).
(_c_) Leyden's MS. Trs., a sheepskin mantle of five lambskins.
(_d_) Mems., Erskine, p. 6, a mantle of five lambskins.
(_e_) The Persian annotator of the Elph. MS., underlining _pesh_,
writes, _panj_, five.
(_f_) Klaproth (Archives, p. 109), _pustini pisch breh, d.h. gieb
den vorderen Pelz_.
(_g_) Kehr, p. 12 (Ilminsky p. 6) _postin bīsh b:r:h_.
(_h_) De. C, i, 9, _fourrure d'agneau de la première qualité_.
The "lambskins" of L. and E. carry on a notion of comfort
started by their having read _sayāh_, shelter, for Turkī
_sā'ī_, torrent-bed; de C. also lays stress on fur and warmth,
but would not the flowery border of a mountain stream prompt
rather a phrase bespeaking ornament and beauty than one
expressing warmth and textile softness? If the phrase might be
read as _postīn pesh perā_, what adorns the front of a coat,
or as _postīn pesh bar rah_, the fine front of the coat, the
phrase would recall the gay embroidered front of some leathern
postins.
[92] Var. _tabarkhūn_. The explanation best suiting its uses,
enumerated here, is Redhouse's second, the Red Willow. My
husband thinks it may be the Hyrcanian Willow.
[93] Steingass describes this as "an arrow without wing or
point" (barb?) and tapering at both ends; it may be the
practising arrow, _t`alīm aūqī_, often headless.
[94] _tabarraklūq._ Cf. f. 48b foot, for the same use of the
word.
[95] _yabrūju'ṣ-ṣannam._ The books referred to by Bābur may
well be the _Rauzatu'ṣ-ṣafā_ and the _Ḥabību's-siyār_, as
both mention the plant.
[96] The Turkī word _āyīq_ is explained by Redhouse as _awake_
and _alert_; and by Meninski and de Meynard as _sobered_ and
as _a return to right senses_. It may be used here as a
equivalent of _mihr_ in _mihr-giyāh_, the plant of love.
[97] Mr. Ney Elias has discussed the position of this group of
seven villages. (_Cf._ T. R. p. 180 n.) Arrowsmith's map
places it (as Iti-kint) approximately where Mr. Th. Radloff
describes seeing it _i.e._ on the Farghāna slope of the Kurāma
range. (_Cf. Réceuil d'Itinéraires_ p. 188.) Mr. Th. Radloff
came into Yītī-kīnt after crossing the Kīndīrlīk Pass from
Tāshkīnt and he enumerates the seven villages as traversed by
him before reaching the Sīr. It is hardly necessary to say
that the actual villages he names may not be those of Bābur's
Yītī-kint. Wherever the word is used in the _Bābur-nāma_ and
the _Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_, it appears from the context allowable
to accept Mr. Radloff's location but it should be borne in
mind that the name Yītī-kīnt (Seven villages or towns) might
be found as an occasional name of Altī-shahr (Six towns).
_See_ T.R. _s.n._ Altī-shahr.
[98] _kīshī_, person, here manifestly fighting men.
[99] Elph. MS. f. 2b; First W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 4b; Second
W.-i-B. I.O. 217 f. 4; Mems. p. 6; Ilminsky p. 7; _Méms._ i.
10.
The rulers whose affairs are chronicled at length in the
Farghāna Section of the B.N. are, (I) of Timūrid Turks,
(always styled Mīrzā), (_a_) the three Mīrān-shāhī brothers,
Aḥmad, Maḥmūd and `Umar Shaikh with their successors,
Bāī-sunghar, `Alī and Bābur; (_b_) the Bāī-qarā, Ḥusain of
Harāt: (II) of Chīngīz Khānīds, (always styled Khān,) (_a_)
the two Chaghatāī Mughūl brothers, Maḥmūd and Aḥmad; (_b_) the
Shaibānid Aūzbeg, Muḥammad Shaibānī (Shāh-i-bakht or Shaibāq
or Shāhī Beg).
In electing to use the name _Shaibānī_, I follow not only the
Ḥai. Codex but also Shaibānī's Boswell, Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Mīrzā.
The Elph. MS. frequently uses _Shaibāq_ but its authority down
to f. 198 (Ḥai. MS. f. 243b) is not so great as it is after
that folio, because not till f. 198 is it a direct copy of
Bābur's own. It may be more correct to write "the Shaibānī
Khān" and perhaps even "the Shaibānī."
[100] _bī murād_, so translated because retirement was caused
once by the overruling of Khwāja `Ubaidu'l-lāh _Aḥrārī_. (T.R.
p. 113.)
[101] Once the Mīrzā did not wish Yūnas to winter in Akhsī;
once did not expect him to yield to the demand of his Mughūls
to be led out of the cultivated country (_wilāyat_). His own
misconduct included his attack in Yūnas on account of Akhsī
and much falling-out with kinsmen. (T.R. _s.nn._)
[102] _i.e._ one made of non-warping wood (Steingass), perhaps
that of the White Poplar. The _Shāh-nāma_ (Turner, Maçon ed.
i, 71) writes of a Chāchī bow and arrows of _khadang_, _i.e._
white poplar. (H.B.)
[103] _i.e._ Rābī`a-sulṯān, married _circa_ 893 AH.-1488 AD.
For particulars about her and all women mentioned in the B.N.
and the T.R. see Gulbadan Begīm's _Humāyūn-nāma_, Or. Trs.
Series.
[104] _jar_, either that of the Kāsān Water or of a
deeply-excavated canal. The palace buildings are mentioned
again on f. 110b. _Cf._ Appendix A.
[105] _i.e._ soared from earth, died. For some details of the
accident _see_ A.N. (H. Beveridge, i, 220.)
[106] Ḥ.S. ii,-192, Firishta, lith. ed. p. 191 and D'Herbélot,
sixth.
It would have accorded with Bābur's custom if here he had
mentioned the parentage of his father's mother. Three times
(fs. 17b, 70b, 96b) he writes of "Shāh Sulṯan Begīm" in a way
allowing her to be taken as `Umar Shaikh's own mother.
Nowhere, however, does he mention her parentage. One even
cognate statement only have we discovered, _viz._
Khwānd-amīr's (Ḥ.S. ii, 192) that `Umar Shaikh was the own
younger brother (_barādar khurdtar khūd_) of Aḥmad and Maḥmūd.
If his words mean that the three were full-brothers, `Umar
Shaikh's own mother was Ābū-sa`īd's Tarkhān wife. Bābur's
omission (f. 21b) to mention his father with A. and M. as a
nephew of Darwesh Muḥammad Tarkhān would be negative testimony
against taking Khwānd-amīr's statement to mean "full-brother,"
if clerical slips were not easy and if Khwānd-amir's means of
information were less good. He however both was the son of
Maḥmūd's wāzir (Ḥ.S. ii, 194) and supplemented his book in
Bābur's presence.
To a statement made by the writer of the biographies included
in Kehr's B.N. volume, that `U.S.'s family (_aūmāgh_) is not
known, no weight can be attached, spite of the co-incidence
that the Mongol form of _aūmāgh_, _i.e._ _aūmāk_ means
_Mutter-leib_. The biographies contain too many known mistakes
for their compiler to outweigh Khwānd-amīr in authority.
[107] _Cf._ _Rauzatu'ṣ-ṣafā_ vi, 266. (H.B.)
[108] Dara-i-gaz, south of Balkh. This historic feast took
place at Merv in 870 AH. (1465 AD.). As `Umar Shaikh was then
under ten, he may have been one of the Mīrzās concerned.
[109] Khudāī-bīrdī is a Pers.-Turkī hybrid equivalent of
Theodore; _tūghchī_ implies the right to use or (as hereditary
standard-bearer,) to guard the _tūgh_; Timūr-tāsh may mean
_i.a._ Friend of Tīmūr (a title not excluded here as borne by
inheritance. _Cf._ f. 12b and note), Sword-friend (_i.e._
Companion-in-arms), and Iron-friend (_i.e._ stanch). _Cf._
Dict. _s.n._ Tīmūr-bāsh, a sobriquet of Charles XII.
[110] Elph. and Ḥai. MSS. _qūbā yūzlūq_; this is under-lined
in the Elph. MS. by _ya`nī pur ghosht_. _Cf._ f. 68b for the
same phrase. The four earlier trss. _viz._ the two W.-i-B.,
the English and the French, have variants in this passage.
[111] The apposition may be between placing the turban-sash
round the turban-cap in a single flat fold and winding it four
times round after twisting it on itself. _Cf._ f. 18 and
Hughes _Dict. of Islām s.n._ turban.
[112] _qaẓālār_, the prayers and fasts omitted when due,
through war, travel sickness, etc.
[113] _rawān sawādī bār īdī_; perhaps, wrote a running hand.
De C. i, 13, _ses lectures courantes étaient...._
[114] The dates of `Umar Shaikh's limits of perusal allow the
Quintets (_Khamsatīn_) here referred to to be those of Niẕāmī
and Amīr Khusrau of Dihlī. The _Maṣnawī_ must be that of
Jalālu'd-dīn _Rūmī_. (H.B.)
[115] Probably below the Tīrāk (Poplar) Pass, the caravan
route much exposed to avalanches.
Mr. Erskine notes that this anecdote is erroneously told as of
Bābur by Firishta and others. Perhaps it has been confused
with the episode on f. 207b. Firishta makes another mistaken
attribution to Bābur, that of Ḥasan of Yaq`ūb's couplet.
(H.B.) _Cf._ f. 13b and Dow's _Hindustan_ ii, 218.
[116] _yīgītlār_, young men, the modern _jighit_. Bābur uses
the word for men on the effective fighting strength. It
answers to the "brave" of North. American Indian story; here
de C. translates it by _braves_.
[117] _ma`jūn._ _Cf._ Von Schwarz p. 286 for a recipe.
[118] _mutaiyam._ This word, not clearly written in all MSS.,
has been mistaken for _yītīm_. _Cf._ JRAS 1910 p. 882 for a
note upon it by my husband to whom I owe the emendation.
[119] _na'l u dāghī bisyār īdī_, that is, he had inflicted on
himself many of the brands made by lovers and enthusiasts.
_Cf._ Chardin's _Voyages_ ii, 253 and Lady M. Montague's
_Letters_ p. 200.
[120] _tīka sīkrītkū_, lit. likely to make goats leap, from
_sīkrīmāk_ to jump close-footed (Shaw).
[121] _sīkrīkān dūr._ Both _sīkrītkū_ and _sīkrīkān dūr_,
appear to dictate translation in general terms and not by
reference to a single traditional leap by one goat.
[122] _i.e._ Russian; it is the Arys tributary of the Sīr.
[123] The Fr. map of 1904 shows Kas, in the elbow of the Sīr,
which seems to represent Khwāṣ.
[124] _i.e._ the Chīr-chīk tributary of the Sīr.
[125] Concerning his name, _see_ T.R. p. 173.
[126] _i.e._ he was a head-man of a horde sub-division,
nominally numbering 10,000, and paying their dues direct to
the supreme Khān. (T.R. p. 301.)
[127] _ghūnchachī i.e._ one ranking next to the four legal
wives, in Turkī _aūdālīq_, whence odalisque. Bābur and
Gul-badan mention the promotion of several to Begīm's rank by
virtue of their motherhood.
[128] One of Bābur's quatrains, quoted in the _Abūshqa_, is
almost certainly addressed to Khān-zāda. _Cf._ A.Q. Review,
Jan. 1911, p. 4; H. Beveridge's _Some verses of Bābur_. For an
account of her marriage _see Shaibānī-nāma_ (Vambéry) cap.
xxxix.
[129] Kehr's MS. has a passage here not found elsewhere and
seeming to be an adaptation of what is at the top of Ḥai. MS.
f. 88. (Ilminsky, p. 10, _ba wujūd ... tāpīb_.)
[130] _tūshtī_, which here seems to mean that she fell to his
share on division of captives. Muḥ. Ṣaliḥ makes it a
love-match and places the marriage before Bābur's departure.
_Cf._ f. 95 and notes.
[131] _aūgāhlān._ Khurram would be about five when given Balkh
in _circa_ 911 AH. (1505 AD.). He died when about 12. _Cf._
Ḥ.S. ii, 364.
[132] This _fatrat_ (interregnum) was between Bābur's loss of
Farghāna and his gain of Kābul; the _furṣatlār_ were his days
of ease following success in Hindūstān and allowing his book
to be written.
[133] _qīlālīng_, lit. do thou be (setting down), a verbal
form recurring on f. 227b l. 2. With the same form
(_aīt_)_ālīng_, lit. do thou be saying, the compiler of the
_Abūshqa_ introduces his quotations. Shaw's paradigm, _qīlīng_
only. _Cf._ A.Q.R. Jan. 1911, p. 2.
[134] Kehr's MS. (Ilminsky p. 12) and its derivatives here
interpolate the erroneous statement that the sons of Yūnas
were Afāq and Bābā Khāns.
[135] _i.e._ broke up the horde. _Cf._ T.R. p. 74.
[136] _See_ f. 50b for his descent.
[137] Descendants of these captives were in Kāshghar when
Ḥaidar was writing the T.R. It was completed in 953 AH. (1547
AD.). _Cf._ T.R. pp. 81 and 149.
[138] An omission from his Persian source misled Mr. Erskine
here into making Abū-sa`īd celebrate the Khānīm's marriage,
not with himself but with his defeated foe, `Abdu'l-`azīz who
had married her 28 years earlier.
[139] Aīsān-būghā was at Āq Sū in Eastern Turkistān; Yūnas
Khān's head-quarters were in Yītī-kīnt. The Sāghārīchī _tūmān_
was a subdivision of the Kūnchī Mughūls.
[140] _Khān kūtārdīlār._ The primitive custom was to lift the
Khān-designate off the ground; the phrase became metaphorical
and would seem to be so here, since there were two upon the
felt. _Cf._, however, Th. Radloff's _Récueil d'Itinéraires_ p.
326.
[141] _qūyūb īdī_, probably in childhood.
[142] She was divorced by Shaibānī Khān in 907 AH. in order to
allow him to make lawful marriage with her niece, Khān-zāda.
[143] This was a prudential retreat before Shaibānī Khān.
_Cf._ f. 213.
[144] The "Khān" of his title bespeaks his Chaghatāī-Mughūl
descent through his mother, the "Mīrzā," his Tīmūrid-Turkī,
through his father. The capture of the women was facilitated
by the weakening of their travelling escort through his
departure. _Cf._ T.R. p. 203.
[145] Qila`-i-ẕafar. Its ruins are still to be seen on the
left bank of the Kukcha. _Cf._ T.R. p. 220 and Kostenko i,
140. For Mubārak Shāh _Muẓaffarī_ _see_ f. 213 and T.R. _s.n._
[146] Ḥabība, a child when captured, was reared by Shaibānī
and by him given in marriage to his nephew. _Cf._ T.R. p. 207
for an account of this marriage as saving Ḥaidar's life.
[147] _i.e._ she did not take to flight with her husband's
defeated force, but, relying on the victor, her cousin Bābur,
remained in the town. _Cf._ T.R. p. 268. Her case receives
light from Shahr-bānū's (f. 169).
[148] Muḥammad Ḥaidar Mīrzā _Kūrkān Dūghlāt Chaghatāī Mūghūl_,
the author of the _Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_; b. 905 AH. d. 958 AH.
(b. 1499 d. 1551 AD.). Of his clan, the "Oghlāt" (Dūghlāt)
Muḥ. ṣāliḥ says that it was called "Oghlāt" by Mughūls but
Qūngūr-āt (Brown Horse) by Aūzbegs.
[149] _Baz garadad ba aṣl-i-khūd hama chīz,
Zar-i-ṣāfī u naqra u airzīn._
These lines are in Arabic in the introduction to the
_Anwār-i-suhailī_. (H.B.) The first is quoted by Ḥaidar (T.R.
p. 354) and in Field's _Dict. of Oriental Quotations_ (p.
160). I understand them to refer here to Ḥaidar's return to
his ancestral home and nearest kin as being a natural act.
[150] _tā'ib_ and _ṯarīqā_ suggest that Ḥaidar had become an
orthodox Musalmān in or about 933 AH. (1527 AD.).
[151] Abū'l-faẓl adds music to Ḥaidar's accomplishments and
Ḥaidar's own Prologue mentions yet others.
[152] _Cf._ T.R. _s.n._ and Gul-badan's H.N. _s.n._ Ḥaram
Begīm.
[153] _i.e._ Alexander of Macedon. For modern mention of
Central Asian claims to Greek descent _see i.a._ Kostenko, Von
Schwarz, Holdich and A. Durand. _Cf._ Burnes' _Kābul_ p. 203
for an illustration of a silver _patera_ (now in the V. and A.
Museum), once owned by ancestors of this Shāh Sulṯān Muḥammad.
[154] _Cf._ f. 6b note.
[155] _i.e._ Khān's child.
[156] The careful pointing of the Ḥai. MS. clears up earlier
confusion by showing the narrowing of the vowels from _ālāchī_
to _alacha_.
[157] The Elph. MS. (f. 7) writes _Aūng_, Khān's son, Prester
John's title, where other MSS. have Adik. Bābur's brevity has
confused his account of Sulṯān-nigār. Widowed of Maḥmūd in 900
AH. she married Adik; Adik, later, joined Shaibānī Khān but
left him in 908 AH. perhaps secretly, to join his own Qāzāq
horde. He was followed by his wife, apparently also making a
private departure. As Adik died shortly after 908 AH. his
daughters were born before that date and not after it as has
been understood. _Cf._ T.R. and G.B.'s H.N. _s.nn._; also
Mems. p. 14 and _Méms._ i, 24.
[158] Presumably by tribal custom, _yīnkālīk_, marriage with a
brother's widow. Such marriages seem to have been made
frequently for the protection of women left defenceless.
[159] Sa`īd's power to protect made him the refuge of several
kinswomen mentioned in the B.N. and the T.R. This mother and
child reached Kāshghar in 932 AH. (1526 AD.).
Here Bābur ends his [interpolated] account of his mother's
family and resumes that of his father's.
[160] Bābur uses a variety of phrases to express Lordship in
the Gate. Here he writes _aīshīknī bāshlātīb_; elsewhere,
_aīshīk ikhtiyārī qīlmāq_ and _mīnīng aīshīkīmdā ṣāḥib
ikhtiyārī qīlmāq_. Von Schwarz (p. 159) throws light on the
duties of the Lord of the Gate (_Aīshīk Āghāsī_). "Das Thür
... führt in eine grosse, vier-eckige, höhe Halle, deren Boden
etwa 2 m. über den Weg erhoben ist. In dieser Halle, welche
alle passieren muss, der durch das Thor eingeht, reitet oder
fahrt, ist die Thorwache placiert. Tagsüber sind die Thore
beständig öffen, nach Eintritt der Dunkelheit aber werden
dieselben geschlossen und die Schlüssel dem zuständigen
Polizeichef abgeliefert.... In den erwähnten Thorhallen nehmen
in den hoch unabhängigen Gebieten an Bazar-tagen haufig die
Richter Platz, um jedem der irgend ein Anliegen hat, so fort
Recht zu sprechen. Die zudiktierten Strafen werden auch gleich
in diesem selben locale vollzogen und eventuell die zum Hangen
verurteilten Verbrecher an den Deckbalken aufgehängt, so dass
die Besucher des Bazars unter den gehenkten durchpassieren
müssen."
[161] _bu khabarnī `Abdu'l-wahhāb shaghāwaldīn `arẓa-dāsht
qīlīb Mīrzāghā chāptūrdīlār._ This passage has been taken to
mean that the _shaghāwal_, _i.e._ chief scribe, was the
courier, but I think Bābur's words shew that the _shaghāwal's_
act preceded the despatch of the news. Moreover the only
accusative of the participle and of the verb is _khabarnī_.
`Abdu'l-wahhāb had been `Umar Shaikh's and was now Aḥmad's
officer in Khujand, on the main road for Aūrā-tīpā whence the
courier started on the rapid ride. The news may have gone
verbally to `Abdu'l-wahhāb and he have written it on to Aḥmad
and Abū-sa`īd.
[162] Measured from point to point even, the distance appears
to be over 500 miles. Concerning Bābā Khākī _see_ Ḥ.S. ii.
224; for rapid riding _i.a._ Kostenko iii, cap. Studs.
[163] _qūshūqlārnī yakhshī aītūrā īkān dūr._ Elph. MS. for
_qūshūq_, _tūyūk_. _Qūshūq_ is allowed, both by its root and
by usage, to describe improvisations of combined dance and
song. I understand from Bābur's tense, that his information
was hearsay only.
[164] _i.e._ of the military class. _Cf._ Vullers _s.n._ and
T.R. p. 301.
[165] The Hūma is a fabulous bird, overshadowing by whose
wings brings good-fortune. The couplet appears to be addressed
to some man, under the name Hūma, from whom Ḥasan of Yaq`ūb
hoped for benefit.
[166] _khāk-bīla_; the _Sanglākh_, (quoting this passage)
gives _khāk-p:l:k_ as the correct form of the word.
[167] _Cf._ f. 99b.
[168] One of Tīmūr's begs.
[169] _i.e._ uncle on the mother's side, of any degree, here a
grandmother's brother. The title appears to have been given
for life to men related to the ruling House. Parallel with it
are Madame Mère, Royal Uncle, Sulṯān Wālida.
[170] _kīm dīsā būlghāī_, perhaps meaning, "Nothing of service
to me."
[171] Wais the Thin.
[172] _Cf._ Chardin ed. Langlès v, 461 and ed. 1723 AD. v,
183.
[173] n.e. of Kāsān. _Cf._ f. 74. Ḥai MS., erroneously,
Samarkand.
[174] An occasional doubt arises as to whether a _ṯaurī_ of
the text is Arabic and dispraises or Turkī and laudatory.
_Cf._ Mems. p. 17 and _Méms._ i, 3.
[175] Elph. and Ḥai. MSS. _aftābachī_, water-bottle bearer on
journeys; Kehr (p. 82) _aftābchī_, ewer-bearer; Ilminsky (p.
19) _akhtachi_, squire or groom. Circumstances support
_aftābachī_. Yūnas was town-bred, his ewer-bearer would hardly
be the rough Mughūl, Qaṃbar-`alī, useful as an _aftābachī_.
[176] Bābur was Governor of Andijān and the month being June,
would be living out-of-doors. _Cf._ Ḥ.S. ii. 272 and Schuyler
ii, 37.
[177] To the word Sherīm applies Abū'l-ghāzī's explanation of
Nurūm and Ḥājīm, namely, that they are abbreviations of Nūr
and Ḥājī Muḥammad. It explains Sulṯānīm also when used (f. 72)
of Sl. Muḥammad Khānika but of Sulṯānīm as the name is common
with Bābur, Ḥaidar and Gul-badan, _i.e._ as a woman's,
Busbecq's explanation is the better, namely, that it means My
Sulṯān and is applied to a person of rank and means. This
explains other women's titles _e.g._ Khānīm, my Khān and Ākām
(Ākīm), My Lady. A third group of names formed like the last
by enclitic _'m_ (my), may be called names of affection,
_e.g._ Māhīm, My Moon, Jānīm, My Life. (_Cf._ Persian
equivalents.) Cf. Abū'l-ghāzī's _Shajarat-i-Turkī_ (Désmaisons
p. 272); and Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq's _Life and Letters_
(Forster and Daniel i, 38.)
[178] _Namāz-gāh_; generally an open terrace, with a wall
towards the Qibla and outside the town, whither on festival
days the people go out in crowds to pray. (Erskine.)
[179] _Bēglār (nīng) mīnī u wilāyatnī tāpshūrghūlārī dūr_;
a noticeably idiomatic sentence. _Cf._ f. 16b 1. 6 and 1. 7
for a repetition.
[180] Maḥmūd was in Tāshkīnt, Aḥmad in Kāshghār or on the
Āq-sū.
[181] The B.N. contains a considerable number of what are
virtually footnotes. They are sometimes, as here, entered in
the middle of a sentence and confuse the narrative; they are
introduced by _kīm_, a mere sign of parenthetical matter to
follow, and some certainly, known not to be Bābur's own, must
have stood first on the margin of his text. It seems best to
enter them as Author's notes.
[182] _i.e._ the author of the Hidāyat. _Cf._ f. 3b and note;
Blochmann _Āyīn-i-akbarī s.n. qulij_ and note; Bellew's
_Afghan Tribes_ p. 100, _Khilich_.
[183] Ar. dead, gone. The precision of Bābur's words
_khānwādalār_ and _yūsūnlūq_ is illustrated by the existence
in the days of Tīmūr, in Marghīnān, (Burhānu'd-dīn's township)
of a ruler named Aīlīk Khān, apparently a descendant of
Sātūq-būghrā Khān (b. 384 AH.-994 AD.) so that in Khwāja Qāẓī
were united two dynasties, (_khānwādalār_), one priestly,
perhaps also regal, the other of bye-gone ruling Khāns. Cf.
D'Herbélot p. 433; _Yarkand Mission_, Bellew p. 121;
_Taẕkirat-i Sulṯān Sātūq-būghrā Khān Ghāzī Pādshāh_ and
_Tārīkh-i-nāṣirī_ (Raverty _s.n._)
[184] _darzī_; Ḥ.S. _khaiyāṯ_.
[185] _bīr yīrgā_ (_qūyūb_), lit. to one place.
[186] _i.e._ reconstructed the earthern defences. _Cf._ Von
Schwarz _s.n._ loess.
[187] They had been sent, presumably, before `Umar Shaikh's
death, to observe Sl. Aḥmad M.'s advance. _Cf._ f. 6.
[188] The time-table of the Andijān Railway has a station,
Kouwa (Qabā).
[189] Bābur, always I think, calls this man Long Ḥasan;
Khwānd-amīr styles him Khwāja Ḥasan; he seems to be the
brother of one of `Umar Shaikh's fathers-in-law, Khwāja
Ḥusain.
[190] _bātqāq._ This word is underlined in the Elph. MS. by
_dil-dil_ and in the Ḥai. MS. by _jam-jama_. It is translated
in the W.-i-B. by _āb pur hīla_, water full of deceit; it is
our Slough of Despond. It may be remarked that neither Zenker
nor Steingass gives to _dil-dil_ or _jam-jama_ the meaning of
morass; the _Akbar-nāma_ does so. (H.B. ii, 112.)
[191] _ṯawīla ṯawīla ātlār yīghīlīb aūlā kīrīshtī_. I
understand the word _yīghīlīb_ to convey that the massing led
to the spread of the murrain.
[192] _jān tārātmāqlār_ _i.e._ as a gift to their over-lord.
[193] Perhaps, Bābur's maternal great-uncle. It would suit the
privileges bestowed on Tarkhāns if their title meant _Khān of
the Gifts_ (Turkī _tar_, gift). In the _Bāburnāma_, it
excludes all others. Most of Aḥmad's begs were Tarkhāns,
Arghūns and Chīngīz Khānids, some of them ancestors of later
rulers in Tatta and Sind. Concerning the Tarkhāns _see_ T.R.
p. 55 and note; A.N. (H.B. _s.n._) Elliot and Dowson's
_History of India_, 498.
[194] _Cf._ f. 6.
[195] _beg ātākā_, lit. beg for father.
[196] T.R. _s.n._ Ābā-bikr.
[197] _Cf._ f. 6b and note.
[198] _faqra u masākin_, _i.e._ those who have food for one
day and those who have none in hand. (Steingass.)
[199] For fashions of sitting, _see_ _Tawārīkh-i-guzīda
Naṣrat-nāma_ B.M. Or. 3222. Aḥmad would appear to have
maintained the deferential attitude by kneeling and sitting
back upon his heels.
[200] _bīr sūnkāk bār īkān dūr._ I understand that something
defiling must have been there, perhaps a bone.
[201] _Khwājanīng ham āyāghlārī ārādā īdī._
[202] _īlbāsūn_, a kind of mallard (_Abūshqa_), here perhaps a
popinjay. _Cf._ Ḥ.S. ii, 193 for Aḥmad's skill as an archer,
and Payne-Gallwey's _Cross-bow_ p. 225.
[203] _qabāq_, an archer's mark. Abū'l-ghāzī (Kāsān ed. p.
181. 5) mentions a hen (_tūqūq_) as a mark. _Cf._
Payne-Gallwey _l.c._ p. 231.
[204] _qīrghīcha, astar palumbarius._ (Shaw's Voc. Scully.)
[205] Perhaps, not quarrelsome.
[206] The T.R. (p. 116) attributes the rout to Shaibānī's
defection. The Ḥ.S. (ii, 192) has a varied and confused
account. An error in the T.R. trs. making Shaibānī plunder the
Mughūls, is manifestly clerical.
[207] _i.e._ condiment, _ce qu'on ajoute au pain_.
[208] _Cf._ f. 6.
[209] _qāzāqlār_; here, if Bābur's, meaning his conflicts with
Taṃbal, but as the Begīm may have been some time in Khujand,
the _qāzāqlār_ may be of Samarkand.
[210] All the (Turkī) Bābur-nāma MSS. and those examined of
the W.-i-B. by writing _aūltūrdī_ (killed) where I suggest to
read _aūlnūrdī_ (_devenir comme il faut_) state that Aḥmad
killed Qātāq. I hesitate to accept this (1) because the only
evidence of the murder is one diacritical point, the removal
of which lifts Aḥmad's reproach from him by his return to the
accepted rules of a polygamous household; (2) because no
murder of Qātāq is chronicled by Khwānd-amīr or other writers;
and (3) because it is incredible that a mild, weak man living
in a family atmosphere such as Bābur, Ḥaidar and Gul-badan
reproduce for us, should, while possessing facility for
divorce, kill the mother of four out of his five children.
Reprieve must wait however until the word _tīrīklīk_ is
considered. This Erskine and de C. have read, with
consistency, to mean _life-time_, but if _aūlnūrdī_ be read in
place of _aūltūrdī_ (killed), _tīrīklīk_ may be read,
especially in conjunction with Bābur's _`āshīqlīklār_, as
meaning _living power_ or _ascendancy_. Again, if read as from
_tīrik_, a small arrow and a consuming pain, _tīrīklīk_ may
represent Cupid's darts and wounds. Again it might be taken as
from _tīrāmāk_, to hinder, or forbid.
Under these considerations, it is legitimate to reserve
judgment on Aḥmad.
[211] It is customary amongst Turks for a bride, even amongst
her own family, to remain veiled for some time after marriage;
a child is then told to pluck off the veil and run away, this
tending, it is fancied, to the child's own success in
marriage. (Erskine.)
[212] Bābur's anecdote about Jānī Beg well illustrates his
caution as a narrator. He appears to tell it as one who
knowing the point of a story, leads up to it. He does not
affirm that Jānī Beg's habits were strange or that the envoy
was an athlete but that both things must have been (_īkān
dūr_) from what he had heard or to suit the point of the
anecdote. Nor does he affirm as of his own knowledge that
Aūzbegs calls a strong man (his _zor kīshī_) a _būkuh_ (bull)
but says it is so understood (_dīr īmīsh_).
[213] _Cf._ f. 170.
[214] The points of a _tīpūchāq_ are variously stated. If the
root notion of the name be movement (_tīp_), Erskine's
observation, that these horses are taught special paces, is to
the point. To the verb _tīprāmāq_ dictionaries assign the
meaning of _movement with agitation of mind_, an explanation
fully illustrated in the B.N. The verb describes fittingly the
dainty, nervous action of some trained horses. Other meanings
assigned to _tūpūchāq_ are roadster, round-bodied and swift.
[215] _Cf._ f. 37b.
[216] _Cf._ f. 6b and note.
[217] _mashaf kitābat qīlūr īdī._
[218] _Cf._ f. 36 and Ḥ.S. ii. 271.
[219] _sīnkīlīsī ham mūndā īdī._
[220] _khāna-wādalār_, _viz._ the Chaghatāī, the Tīmūrid in
two Mīrān-shāhī branches, `Alī's and Bābur's and the Bāī-qarā
in Harāt.
[221] _aūghlāqchī_ _i.e._ player at _kūk-būrā_. Concerning the
game, _see_ Shaw's Vocabulary; Schuyler i, 268; Kostenko iii,
82; Von Schwarz _s.n. baiga_.
[222] Ẕū'l-ḥijja 910 AH.-May 1505 AD. _Cf._ f. 154. This
statement helps to define what Bābur reckoned his expeditions
into Hindūstān.
[223] Aīkū (Ayāgū)-tīmūr _Tarkhān Arghūn_ d. _circa_ 793
AH.-1391 AD. He was a friend of Tīmūr. _See_ Z̤.N. i, 525 etc.
[224] _āndāq ikhlāq u aṯawārī yūq īdī kīm dīsā būlghāī._ The
_Shāh-nāma_ cap. xviii, describes him as a spoiled child and
man of pleasure, caring only for eating, drinking and hunting.
The _Shaibānī-nāma_ narrates his various affairs.
[225] _i.e._, _cutlass_, a parallel sobriquet to _qīlīch_,
sword. If it be correct to translate by "cutlass," the
nickname may have prompted Bābur's brief following comment,
_mardāna īkān dūr_, _i.e._ Qulī Muḥ. must have been brave
because known as the Cutlass. A common variant in MSS. from
_Būghdā_ is Bāghdād; Bāghdād was first written in the Ḥai. MS.
but is corrected by the scribe to _būghdā_.
[226] So pointed in the Ḥai. MS. I surmise it a clan-name.
[227] _i.e._ to offer him the succession. The mountain road
taken from Aūrā-tīpā would be by Āb-burdan, Sara-tāq and the
Kām Rūd defile.
[228] _īrīldī._ The departure can hardly have been open
because Aḥmad's begs favoured Maḥmūd; Malik-i-Muḥammad's party
would be likely to slip away in small companies.
[229] This well-known Green, Grey or Blue palace or
halting-place was within the citadel of Samarkand. _Cf._ f.
37. It served as a prison from which return was not expected.
[230] _Cf._ f. 27. He married a full-sister of Bāī-sunghar.
[231] _Gulistān_ Part I. Story 27. For "steaming up," _see_
Tennyson's Lotus-eaters Choric song, canto 8 (H.B.).
[232] Elph. MS. f. 16b; First W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 19; Second
W.-i-B. I.O. 217 f. 15b; Memoirs p. 27.
[233] He was a _Dūghlāt_, uncle by marriage of Ḥaidar Mīrzā
and now holding Khost for Maḥmūd. _See_ T.R. s.n. for his
claim on Aīsān-daulat's gratitude.
[234] _tāsh qūrghān dā chīqār dā._ Here (as _e.g._ f. 110b l.
9) the Second W.-i-B. translates _tāsh_ as though it meant
_stone_ instead of outer. _Cf._ f. 47 for an adjectival use of
_tāsh_, stone, with the preposition (_tāsh_) _din_. The places
contrasted here are the citadel (_ark_) and the walled-town
(_qūrghān_). The _chīqār_ (exit) is the fortified Gate-house
of the mud circumvallation. _Cf._ f. 46 for another example of
_chīqār_.
[235] Elph. Ḥai. Kehr's MSS., _ānīng bīla bār kīshi bār
beglārnī tūtūrūldī_. This idiom recurs on f. 76b l. 8. A
palimpsest entry in the Elph. MS. produces the statement that
when Ḥasan fled, his begs returned to Andijān.
[236] Ḥai. MS. _awī mūnkūzī_, underlined by _sāgh-i-gāū_,
cows' thatched house. [_T. mūnkūz_, lit. horn, means also
cattle.] Elph. MS., _awī mūnkūsh_, underlined by _dar jā'ī
khwāb alfakhta_, sleeping place. [T. _mūnkūsh_, retired.]
[237] The first _qāchār_ of this pun has been explained as
_gurez-gāh_, _sharm-gāh_, hinder parts, _fuite_ and _vertèbre
inférieur_. The Ḥ.S. (ii, 273 l. 3 fr. ft.) says the wound was
in a vital (_maqattal_) part.
[238] From Niẕāmī's _Khusrau u Shirīn_, Lahore lith. ed. p.
137 l. 8. It is quoted also in the A.N. Bib. Ind. ed. ii, 207
(H.B. ii, 321). (H.B.).
[239] _See_ Hughes _Dictionary of Islām s.nn._ Eating and
Food.
[240] _Cf._ f. 6b and note. If `Umar Shaikh were Maḥmūd's
full-brother, his name might well appear here.
[241] _i.e._ "Not a farthing, not a half-penny."
[242] Here the Mems. enters a statement, not found in the
Turkī text, that Maḥmūd's dress was elegant and fashionable.
[243] _n:h:l:m._ My husband has cleared up a mistake (Mems. p.
28 and _Méms._ i, 54) of supposing this to be the name of an
animal. It is explained in the A.N. (i, 255. H.B. i, 496) as a
Badakhshī equivalent of _tasqāwal_; _tasqāwal_ var.
_tāshqāwal_, is explained by the _Farhang-i-aẕfarī_, a
Turkī-Persian Dict. seen in the Mullā Fīroz Library of Bombay,
to mean _rāh band kunanda_, the stopping of the road. _Cf._
J.R.A.S. 1900 p. 137.
[244] _i.e._ "a collection of poems in the alphabetical order
of the various end rhymes." (Steingass.)
[245] At this battle Daulat-shāh was present. _Cf._ Browne's
D.S. for Astarābād p. 523 and for Andikhūd p. 532. For this
and all other references to D.S. and Ḥ.S. I am indebted to my
husband.
[246] The following dates will help out Bābur's brief
narrative. Maḥmūd _æt._ 7, was given Astarābād in 864 AH.
(1459-60 AD.); it was lost to Ḥusain at Jauz-wilāyat and
Maḥmūd went into Khurāsān in 865 AH.; he was restored by his
father in 866 AH.; on his father's death (873 AH.-1469 AD.) he
fled to Harāt, thence to Samarkand and from there was taken to
Ḥiṣār _æt._ 16. _Cf._ D'Herbélot _s.n._ Abū-sa`ad; Ḥ.S. i,
209; Browne's D.S. p. 522.
[247] Presumably the "Hindūstān the Less" of Clavijo (Markham
p. 3 and p. 113), approx. Qaṃbar-`alī's districts. Clavijo
includes Tīrmīẕ under the name.
[248] Perhaps a Ṣufī term,—longing for the absent friend. For
particulars about this man _see_ Ḥ.S. ii, 235 and Browne's
D.S. p. 533.
[249] Here in the Ḥai. MS. is one of several blank spaces,
waiting for information presumably not known to Bābur when
writing. The space will have been in the archetype of the Ḥai.
MS. and it makes for the opinion that the Ḥai. MS. is a direct
copy of Bābur's own. This space is not left in the Elph. MS.
but that MS. is known from its scribe's note (f. 198) down to
f. 198 (Ḥai. MS. f. 243b) to have been copied from "other
writings" and only subsequent to its f. 198 from Bābur's own.
_Cf._ JRAS 1906 p. 88 and 1907 p. 143.
[250] The T.R. (p. 330) supplies this name.
[251] _Cf._ f. 35b. This was a betrothal only, the marriage
being made in 903 AH. _Cf._ Ḥ.S. ii, 260 and Gul-badan's H.N.
f. 24b.
[252] Kehr's MS. supplies Aī (Moon) as her name but it has no
authority. The Elph. MS. has what may be _lā nām_, no name, on
its margin and over _tūrūtūnchī_ (4th.) its usual sign of what
is problematical.
[253] _See_ Ḥ.S. ii, 250. Here Pīr-i-Muḥammad _Aīlchī-būghā_
was drowned. _Cf._ f. 29.
[254] Chaghānīān is marked in Erskine's (Mems.) map as
somewhere about the head of (Fr. map 1904) the Ilyak Water, a
tributary of the Kāfir-nighān.
[255] _i.e._ when Bābur was writing in Hindūstān.
[256] For his family _see_ f. 55b note to Yār-`alī _Balāl_.
[257] _bā wujūd turklūk muhkam paidā kunanda īdī._
[258] Roebuck's _Oriental Proverbs_ (p. 232) explains the
_five_ of this phrase where _seven_ might be expected, by
saying that of this Seven days' world (qy. days of Creation)
one is for birth, another for death, and that thus five only
are left for man's brief life.
[259] The cognomen _Aīlchī-būghā_, taken with the bearer's
recorded strength of fist, may mean Strong man of Aīlchī (the
capital of Khutan). One of Tīmūr's commanders bore the name.
_Cf._ f. 21b for _būghū_ as _athlete_.
[260] Hazārāspī seems to be Mīr Pīr Darwesh Hazārāspī. With
his brother, Mīr `Alī, he had charge of Balkh. _See
Rauzatu'ṣ-ṣafā_ B.M. Add. 23506, f. 242b; Browne's D.S. p.
432. It may be right to understand a hand-to-hand fight
between Hazārāspī and Aīlchī-būghā. The affair was in 857 AH.
(1453 AD.).
[261] _yārāq sīz_, perhaps trusting to fisticuffs, perhaps
without mail. Bābur's summary has confused the facts. Muḥ.
Aīlchī-būghā was sent by Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā from Ḥiṣār with
1,000 men and did not issue out of Qūndūz. (Ḥ.S. ii, 251.) His
death occurred not before 895 AH.
[262] _See_ T.R. _s.nn._ Mīr Ayūb and Ayūb.
[263] This passage is made more clear by f. 120b and f. 125b.
[264] He is mentioned in _`Alī-sher Nawā'ī's
Majālis-i-nafā'is_; _see_ B.M. Add. 7875, f. 278 and Rieu's
Turkish Catalogue.
[265] ? full of splits or full handsome.
[266] This may have occurred after Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā's death
whose son Abā-bikr was. _Cf._ f. 28. If so, over-brevity has
obscured the statement.
[267] _mīnglīgh aīldīn dūr_, perhaps of those whose hereditary
Command was a Thousand, the head of a Mīng (Pers. Hazāra),
_i.e._ of the tenth of a _tūmān_.
[268] _qūrghān-nīng tāshīdā yāngī tām qūpārīb sālā dūr._ I
understand, that what was taken was a new circumvallation in
whole or in part. Such double walls are on record. _Cf._
Appendix A.
[269] _bahādurlūq aūlūsh_, an actual portion of food.
[270] _i.e._ either unmailed or actually naked.
[271] The old English noun _strike_ expresses the purpose of
the _sar-kob_. It is "an instrument for scraping off what
rises above the top" (Webster, whose example is grain in a
measure). The _sar-kob_ is an erection of earth or wood, as
high as the attacked walls, and it enabled besiegers to strike
off heads appearing above the ramparts.
[272] _i.e._ the dislocation due to `Umar Shaikh's death.
[273] _Cf._ f. 13. The Ḥ.S. (ii, 274) places his son, Mīr
Mughūl, in charge, but otherwise agrees with the B.N.
[274] _Cf._ Clavijo, Markham p. 132. Sir Charles Grandison
bent the knee on occasions but illustrated MSS. _e.g._ the
B.M. _Tawārīkh-i-guzīda Naṣrat-nāma_ show that Bābur would
kneel down on both knees. _Cf._ f. 123b for the fatigue of the
genuflection.
[275] I have translated _kūrūshūb_ thus because it appears to
me that here and in other places, stress is laid by Bābur upon
the mutual gaze as an episode of a ceremonious interview. The
verb _kūrūshmak_ is often rendered by the Persian translators
as _daryāftan_ and by the L. and E. Memoirs as _to embrace_. I
have not found in the B.N. warrant for translating it as _to
embrace_; _qūchūshmāq_ is Bābur's word for this (f. 103).
_Daryāftan_, taken as to grasp or see with the mind, to
understand, well expresses mutual gaze and its sequel of
mutual understanding. Sometimes of course, _kūrūsh_, the
interview does not imply _kūrūsh_, the silent looking in the
eyes with mutual understanding; it simply means _se voyer_
_e.g._ f. 17. The point is thus dwelt upon because the
frequent mention of an embrace gives a different impression of
manners from that made by "interview" or words expressing
mutual gaze.
[276] _dābān._ This word Réclus (vi, 171) quoting from
Fedschenko, explains as a difficult rocky defile; _art_,
again, as a dangerous gap at a high elevation; _bel_, as an
easy low pass; and _kūtal_, as a broad opening between low
hills. The explanation of _kūtal_ does not hold good for
Bābur's application of the word (f. 81b) to the Sara-tāq.
[277] _Cf._ f. 4b and note. From Bābur's special mention of
it, it would seem not to be the usual road.
[278] The spelling of this name is uncertain. Variants are
many. Concerning the tribe _see_ T.R. p. 165 n.
[279] Niẕāmu'd-dīn `Alī _Barlās_: _see_ Gul-badan's H.N.
_s.n._ He served Bābur till the latter's death.
[280] _i.e._ Ẕū'n-nūn or perhaps the garrison.
[281] _i.e._ down to Shaibānī's destruction of Chaghatāī rule
in Tāshkīnt in 1503 AD.
[282] Elph. MS. f. 23; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 26 and 217 f. 21;
Mems. p. 35.
Bābur's own affairs form a small part of this year's record;
the rest is drawn from the Ḥ.S. which in its turn, uses
Bābur's f. 34 and f. 37b. Each author words the shared
material in his own style; one adding magniloquence, the other
retracting to plain statement, indeed summarizing at times to
obscurity. Each passes his own judgment on events, _e.g._ here
Khwānd-amīr's is more favourable to Ḥusain Bāī-qarā's conduct
of the Ḥiṣār campaign than Bābur's. _Cf._ Ḥ.S. ii, 256-60 and
274.
[283] This feint would take him from the Oxus.
[284] Tīrmīẕ to Ḥiṣār, 96m. (Réclus vi, 255).
[285] Ḥ.S. Wazr-āb valley. The usual route is up the Kām Rūd
and over the Mūra pass to Sara-tāq. _Cf._ f. 81b.
[286] _i.e._ the Ḥiṣārī mentioned a few lines lower and on f.
99b. Nothing on f. 99b explains his cognomen.
[287] The road is difficult. _Cf._ f. 81b.
[288] Khwānd-amīr also singles out one man for praise, Sl.
Maḥmūd _Mīr-i-ākhwur_; the two names probably represent one
person. The sobriquet may refer to skill with a matchlock, to
top-spinning (_firnagī-bāz_) or to some lost joke. (Ḥ.S. ii,
257.)
[289] This pregnant phrase has been found difficult. It may
express that Bābur assigned the sulṯāns places in their due
precedence; that he seated them in a row; and that they sat
cross-legged, as men of rank, and were not made, as inferiors,
to kneel and sit back on their heels. Out of this last
meaning, I infer comes the one given by dictionaries, "to sit
at ease," since the cross-legged posture is less irksome than
the genuflection, not to speak of the ease of mind produced by
honour received. _Cf._ f. 18b and note on Aḥmad's posture;
Redhouse _s.nn. bāghīsh_ and _bāghdāsh_; and B.M.
Tawārīkh-i-guzīda naṣrat-nāma, in the illustrations of which
the chief personage, only, sits cross-legged.
[290] _siyāsat._ My translation is conjectural only.
[291] _sar-kob._ The old English noun _strike_, "an instrument
for scraping off what appears above the top," expresses the
purpose of the wall-high erections of wood or earth (_L.
agger_) raised to reach what shewed above ramparts. _Cf._
Webster.
[292] Presumably lower down the Qūndūz Water.
[293] _aūz pādshāhī u mīrzālārīdīn artīb._
[294] _sic._ Ḥai. MS.; Elph. MS. "near Tāliqān"; some W.-i-B.
MSS. "Great Garden." Gul-badan mentions a Tāliqān Garden.
Perhaps the Mīrzā went so far east because, Ẕū'n-nūn being
with him, he had Qandahār in mind. _Cf._ f. 42b.
[295] _i.e._ Sayyid Muḥammad `Alī. _See_ f. 15 n. to Sherīm.
Khwāja Changāl lies 14 m. below Tāliqān on the Tāliqān Water.
(Erskine.)
[296] f. 27b, second.
[297] The first was _circa_ 895 AH.-1490 AD. _Cf._ f. 27b.
[298] Bābur's wording suggests that their common homage was
the cause of Badī`u'z-zamān's displeasure but _see_ f. 41.
[299] The Mīrzā had grown up with Ḥiṣārīs. _Cf._ Ḥ.S. ii, 270.
[300] As the husband of one of the six Badakhshī Begīms, he
was closely connected with local ruling houses. _See_ T.R. p.
107.
[301] _i.e._ Muḥammad `Ubaidu'l-lāh the elder of _Aḥrārī's_
two sons. d. 911 AH. _See Rashaḥāt-i-`ain-alḥayāt_ (I.O. 633)
f. 269-75; and _Khizīnatu'l-aṣfīya_ lith. ed. i, 597.
[302] _Bū yūq tūr_, _i.e._ This is not to be.
[303] d. 908 AH. He was not, it would seem, of the _Aḥrārī_
family. His own had provided Pontiffs (_Shaikhu'l-islām_) for
Samarkand through 400 years. _Cf._ _Shaibānī-nāma_, Vambéry,
p. 106; also, for his character, p. 96.
[304] _i.e._ he claimed sanctuary.
[305] _Cf._ f. 45b and Pétis de la Croix's _Histoire de
Chīngīz Khān_ pp. 171 and 227. What Tīmūr's work on the Gūk
Sarāī was is a question for archæologists.
[306] _i.e._ over the Aītmak Pass. _Cf._ f. 49.
[307] Ḥai. MS. _ārālighīgha_. Elph. MS. _ārāl_, island.
[308] _See_ f. 179b for _Binā'ī_. Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Mīrzā
_Khwārizmī_ is the author of the _Shaibānī-nāma_.
[309] Elph. MS. f. 27; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 30b and 217 f. 25;
Mems. p. 42.
[310] _i.e._ Circassian. Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ (Sh.N. Vambéry p. 276
l. 58) speaks of other Aūzbegs using Chirkas swords.
[311] _aīrtā yāzīghā._ My translation is conjectural. _Aīrtā_
implies _i.a._ foresight. _Yāzīghā_ allows a pun at the
expense of the sulṯāns; since it can be read both as _to the
open country_ and as _for their_ (_next_, _aīrtā_) _misdeeds_.
My impression is that they took the opportunity of being
outside Samarkand with their men, to leave Bāī-sunghar and
make for Shaibānī, then in Turkistān. Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ also
marking the tottering Gate of Sl. `Alī Mīrzā, left him now,
also for Shaibānī. (Vambéry cap. xv.)
[312] _aūmāq_, to amuse a child in order to keep it from
crying.
[313] _i.e._ with Khwāja Yahya presumably. _See_ f. 38.
[314] This man is mentioned also in the _Tawārikh-i-guzīda
Naṣratnāma_ B.M. Or. 3222 f. 124b.
[315] Ḥ.S., on the last day of Ramẓān (June 28th. 1497 AD.).
[316] Muḥammad _Sīghal_ appears to have been a marked man. I
quote from the T.G.N.N. (_see supra_), f. 123b foot, the
information that he was the grandson of Ya`qūb Beg. Zenker
explains _Sīghalī_ as the name of a Chaghatāī family. An
_Ayūb-i-Ya`qūb Begchīk Mughūl_ may be an uncle. See f. 43 for
another grandson.
[317] _baẓ'ī kīrkān-kīnt-kīsākkā bāsh-sīz-qīlghān Mughūllārnī
tūtūb._ I take the word _kīsāk_ in this highly idiomatic
sentence to be a diminutive of _kīs_, old person, on the
analogy of _mīr_, _mīrāk_, _mard_, _mardak_. [The Ḥ.S. uses
_Kīsāk_ (ii, 261) as a proper noun.] The alliteration in _kāf_
and the mighty adjective here are noticeable.
[318] Qāsim feared to go amongst the Mughūls lest he should
meet retaliatory death. _Cf._ f. 99b.
[319] This appears from the context to be Yām (Jām) -bāī and
not the Djouma (Jām) of the Fr. map of 1904, lying farther
south. The Avenue named seems likely to be Tīmūr's of f. 45b
and to be on the direct road for Khujand. _See_ Schuyler i,
232.
[320] _būghān buyīnī._ W.-i-B. 215, _yān_, thigh, and 217
_gardan_, throat. I am in doubt as to the meaning of _būghān_;
perhaps the two words stand for joint at the nape of the neck.
Khwāja-i-kalān was one of seven brothers, six died in Bābur's
service, he himself served till Bābur's death.
[321] _Cf._ f. 48.
[322] Khorochkine (Radlov's _Réceuil d'Itinéraires_ p. 241)
mentions Pul-i-mougak, a great stone bridge thrown across a
deep ravine, east of Samarkand. _For_ Kūl-i-maghāk, deep pool,
or pool of the fosse, _see_ f. 48b.
[323] From Khwānd-amīr's differing account of this affair, it
may be surmised that those sending the message were not
treacherous; but the message itself was deceiving inasmuch as
it did not lead Bābur to expect opposition. _Cf._ f. 43 and
note.
[324] Of this nick-name several interpretations are allowed by
the dictionaries.
[325] _See_ Schuyler i, 268 for an account of this beautiful
Highland village.
[326] Here Bābur takes up the thread, dropped on f. 36, of the
affairs of the Khurāsānī mīrzās. He draws on other sources
than the Ḥ.S.; perhaps on his own memory, perhaps on
information given by Khurāsānīs with him in Hindūstān _e.g._
Ḥusain's grandson. _See_ f. 167b. _Cf._ Ḥ.S. ii, 261.
[327] _bāghīshlāb tūr._ _Cf._ f. 34 note to _bāghīsh dā_.
[328] _Bū sozlār aūnūlūng._ Some W.-i-B. MSS., _Farāmosh
bakunīd_ for _nakunīd_, thus making the Mīrzā not acute but
rude, and destroying the point of the story _i.e._ that the
Mīrzā pretended so to have forgotten as to have an empty mind.
Khwānd-amīr states that `Alī-sher prevailed at first; his
tears therefore may have been of joy at the success of his
pacifying mission.
[329] _i.e._ B.Z.'s father, Ḥusain, against Mū`min's father,
B.Z. and Ḥusain's son, Muz̤affar Ḥusain against B.Z.'s son
Mū`min;—a veritable conundrum.
[330] Garzawān lies west of Balkh. Concerning Pul-i-chirāgh
Col. Grodekoff's _Ride to Harāt_ (Marvin p. 103 ff.) gives
pertinent information. It has also a map showing the
Pul-i-chirāgh meadow. The place stands at the mouth of a
triply-bridged defile, but the name appears to mean Gate of
the Lamp (_cf._ Gate of Tīmūr), and not Bridge of the Lamp,
because the Ḥ.S. and also modern maps write _bīl_ (_bel_),
pass, where the Turkī text writes _pul_, bridge, narrows,
pass.
The lamp of the name is one at the shrine of a saint, just at
the mouth of the defile. It was alight when Col. Grodekoff
passed in 1879 and to it, he says, the name is due now—as it
presumably was 400 years ago and earlier.
[331] Khwānd-amīr heard from the Mīrzā on the spot, when later
in his service, that he was let down the precipice by help of
turban-sashes tied together.
[332] _yīkīt yīlāng u yāyāq yālīng_; a jingle made by due
phonetic change of vowels; a play too on _yālāng_, which first
means stripped _i.e._ robbed and next unmailed, perhaps
sometimes bare-bodied in fight.
[333] _qūsh-khāna._ As the place was outside the walls, it may
be a good hawking ground and not a falconry.
[334] The Ḥ.S. mentions (ii, 222) a Sl. Aḥmad of Chār-shaṃba,
a town mentioned _e.g._ by Grodekoff p. 123. It also spoils
Bābur's coincidence by fixing Tuesday, Shab`ān 29th. for the
battle. Perhaps the commencement of the Muḥammadan day at
sunset, allows of both statements.
[335] Elph. MS. f. 30b; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 34 and 217 f. 26b;
Mems. p. 46.
The abruptness of this opening is due to the interposition of
Sl. Ḥusain M.'s affairs between Bābur's statement on f. 41
that he returned from Aūrgūt and this first of 903 AH. that on
return he encamped in Qulba.
[336] _See_ f. 48b.
[337] _i.e._ Chūpān-ātā; _see_ f. 45 and note.
[338] _Aūghlāqchī_, the Grey Wolfer of f. 22.
[339] A sobriquet, the _suppliant_ or perhaps something having
connection with musk. Ḥ.S. ii, 278, son of Ḥ.D.
[340] _i.e._ grandson (of Muḥammad Sīghal). _Cf._ f. 39.
[341] This seeming sobriquet may show the man's trade. _Kāl_
is a sort of biscuit; _qāshūq_ may mean a spoon.
[342] The Ḥ.S. does not ascribe treachery to those inviting
Bābur into Samarkand but attributes the murder of his men to
others who fell on them when the plan of his admission became
known. The choice here of "town-rabble" for retaliatory death
supports the account of Ḥ.S. ii.
[343] "It was the end of September or beginning of October"
(Erskine).
[344] _awī u kīpa yīrlār._ _Awī_ is likely to represent
_kibitkas_. For _kīpa yīr_, _see_ Zenker p. 782.
[345] Interesting reference may be made, amongst the many
books on Samarkand, to Sharafu'd-dīn `Alī _Yazdī's
Z̤afar-nāma_ Bib. Ind. ed. i, 300, 781, 799, 800 and ii, 6,
194, 596 etc.; to Ruy Gonzalves di Clavijo's _Embassy to
Tīmūr_ (Markham) cap. vi and vii; to Ujfalvy's _Turkistan_ ii,
79 and Madame Ujfalvy's _De Paris à Samarcande_ p. 161,—these
two containing a plan of the town; to Schuyler's _Turkistan_;
to Kostenko's _Turkistan Gazetteer_ i, 345; to Réclus, vi, 270
and plan; and to a beautiful work of the St. Petersburg
Archæological Society, _Les Mosquées de Samarcande_, of which
the B.M. has a copy.
[346] This statement is confused in the Elp. and Ḥai. MSS. The
second appears to give, by abjad, lat. 40° 6" and long. 99'.
Mr. Erskine (p. 48) gives lat. 39' 57" and long. 99' 16",
noting that this is according to Ūlūgh Beg's Tables and that
the long. is calculated from Ferro. The Ency. Br. of 1910-11
gives lat. 39' 39" and long. 66' 45".
[347] The enigmatical cognomen, Protected Town, is of early
date; it is used _i.a._ by Ibn Batūta in the 14th. century.
Bābur's tense refers it to the past. The town had frequently
changed hands in historic times before he wrote. The name may
be due to immunity from damage to the buildings in the town.
Even Chīngīz Khān's capture (1222 AD.) left the place
well-preserved and its lands cultivated, but it inflicted
great loss of men. _Cf._ Schuyler i, 236 and his authorities,
especially Bretschneider.
[348] Here is a good example of Bābur's caution in narrative.
He does not affirm that Samarkand became Musalmān, or
(_infra_) that Quṣam ibn `Abbās went, or that Alexander
founded but in each case uses the presumptive past tense,
resp. _būlghān dūr_, _bārghān dūr_, _bīnā qīlghān dūr_, thus
showing that he repeats what may be inferred or presumed and
not what he himself asserts.
[349] _i.e._ of Muḥammad. See Z̤.N. ii, 193.
[350] _i.e._ Fat Village. His text misleading him, Mr. Erskine
makes here the useful irrelevant note that Persians and Arabs
call the place Samar-qand and Turks, Samar-kand, the former
using _qaf_ (q), the latter _kaf_ (k). Both the Elph. and the
Ḥai. MSS. write Samarqand.
For use of the name Fat Village, _see_ Clavijo (Markham p.
170), Simesquinte, and Bretschneider's _Mediæval Geography_
pp. 61, 64, 66 and 163.
[351] _qadam._ Kostenko (i, 344) gives 9 m. as the
circumference of the old walls and 1-2/3m. as that of the
citadel. _See_ Mde. Ujfalvy p. 175 for a picture of the walls.
[352] _Ma`lūm aīmās kīm mūncha paidā būlmīsh būlghāī_; an
idiomatic phrase.
[353] d. 333 AH. (944 AD.). _See_ D'Herbélot art. Mātridī p.
572.
[354] _See_ D'Herbélot art. Aschair p. 124.
[355] Abū `Abdu'l-lāh bin Ismā`īlu'l-jausī b. 194 AH. d. 256
AH. (810-870 AD.). _See_ D'Herbélot art. Bokhārī p. 191, art.
Giorag p. 373, and art. Ṣāḥiḥu'l-bokhārī p. 722. He passed a
short period, only, of his life in Khartank, a suburb of
Samarkand.
[356] _Cf._ f. 3b and n. 1.
[357] This though 2475 ft. above the sea is only some 300 ft.
above Samarkand. It is the Chūpān-ātā (Father of Shepherds) of
maps and on it Tīmūr built a shrine to the local patron of
shepherds. The Zar-afshān, or rather, its Qarā-sū arm, flows
from the east of the Little Hill and turns round it to flow
west. Bābur uses the name _Kohik Water_ loosely; _e.g._ for
the whole Zar-afshān when he speaks (_infra_) of cutting off
the Dar-i-gham canal but for its southern arm only, the
Qarā-sū in several places, and once, for the Dar-i-gham canal.
_See_ f. 49b and Kostenko i. 192.
[358] _rūd._ The Zar-afshān has a very rapid current. _See_
Kostenko i, 196, and for the canal, i, 174. The name
Dar-i-gham is used also for a musical note having charm to
witch away grief; and also for a town noted for its wines.
[359] What this represents can only be guessed; perhaps 150 to
200 miles. Abū'l-fidā (Reinaud ii, 213) quotes Ibn Haukal as
saying that from Bukhārā up to "Bottam" (this seems to be
where the Zar-afshān emerges into the open land) is eight
days' journey through an unbroken tangle of verdure and
gardens.
[360] _See_ Schuyler i, 286 on the apportionment of water to
Samarkand and Bukhārā.
[361] It is still grown in the Samarkand region, and in Mr.
Erskine's time a grape of the same name was cultivated in
Aurangābād of the Deccan.
[362] _i.e._ _Shāhrukhī_, Tīmūr's grandson, through Shāhrukh.
It may be noted here that Bābur never gives Tīmūr any other
title than Beg and that he styles all Tīmūrids, Mīrzā
(Mīr-born).
[363] Mr. Erskine here points out the contradiction between
the statements (i) of Ibn Haukal, writing, in 367 AH. (977
AD.), of Samarkand as having a citadel (_ark_), an outer-fort
(_qūrghān_) and Gates in both circumvallations; and (2) of
Sharafu'd-dīn _Yazdī_ (Z̤.N.) who mentions that when, in
Tīmūr's day, the Getes besieged Samarkand, it had neither
walls nor gates. _See_ Ouseley's Ibn Haukal p. 253; Z̤.N. Bib.
Ind. ed. i, 109 and Pétis de la Croix's Z̤.N. (_Histoire de
Tīmūr Beg_) i, 91.
[364] Here still lies the Ascension Stone, the _Gūk-tāsh_, a
block of greyish white marble. Concerning the date of the
erection of the building and meaning of its name, _see_ _e.g._
Pétis de la Croix's _Histoire de Chīngīz Khān_ p. 171; Mems.
p. 40 note; and Schuyler _s.n._
[365] This seems to be the Bībī Khānīm Mosque. The author of
_Les Mosquées de Samarcande_ states that Tīmūr built Bībī
Khānīm and the Gūr-i-amīr (Amīr's tomb); decorated
Shāh-i-zinda and set up the Chūpān-ātā shrine. _Cf._ f. 46 and
note to Jahāngīr Mīrzā, as to the Gūr-i-amīr.
[366] Cap. II. Quoting from Sale's _Qur'ān_ (i, 24) the verse
is, "And Ibrāhīm and Ismā`īl raised the foundations of the
house, saying, 'Lord! accept it from us, for Thou art he who
hearest and knowest; Lord! make us also resigned to Thee, and
show us Thy holy ceremonies, and be turned to us, for Thou art
easy to be reconciled, and merciful.'"
[367] or, _buland_, Garden of the Height or High Garden. The
Turkī texts have what can be read as _buldī_ but the Z̤.N.
both when describing it (ii, 194) and elsewhere (_e.g._ ii,
596) writes _buland_. _Buldī_ may be a clerical error for
_bulandī_, the height, a name agreeing with the position of
the garden.
[368] In the Heart-expanding Garden, the Spanish Ambassadors
had their first interview with Tīmūr. _See_ Clavijo (Markham
p. 130). Also the Z̤.N. ii, 6 for an account of its
construction.
[369] Judging from the location of the gardens and of Bābur's
camps, this appears to be the Avenue mentioned on f. 39b and
f. 40.
[370] _See_ _infra_ f. 48 and note.
[371] The Plane-tree Garden. This seems to be Clavijo's
_Bayginar_, laid out shortly before he saw it (Markham p.
136).
[372] The citadel of Samarkand stands high; from it the ground
slopes west and south; on these sides therefore gardens
outside the walls would lie markedly below the outer-fort
(_tāsh-qūrghān_). Here as elsewhere the second W.-i-B. reads
_stone_ for _outer_ (_Cf._ index _s.n._ _tāsh_). For the
making of the North garden _see_ Z̤.N. i, 799.
[373] Tīmūr's eldest son, d. 805 AH. (1402 AD.), before his
father, therefore. Bābur's wording suggests that in his day,
the Gūr-i-amīr was known as the Madrāsa. _See_ as to the
buildings Z̤.N. i, 713 and ii, 492, 595, 597, 705; Clavijo
(Markham p. 164 and p. 166); and _Les Mosquées de Samarcande_.
[374] Hindūstān would make a better climax here than Samarkand
does.
[375] These appear to be pictures or ornamentations of carved
wood. Redhouse describes _islīmī_ as a special kind of
ornamentation in curved lines, similar to Chinese methods.
[376] _i.e._ the Black Stone (_ka'ba_) at Makkah to which
Musalmāns turn in prayer.
[377] As ancient observatories were themselves the instruments
of astronomical observation, Bābur's wording is correct.
Aūlūgh Beg's great quadrant was 180 ft. high; Abū-muḥammad
_Khujandī's_ sextant had a radius of 58 ft. Jā'ī Singh made
similar great instruments in Jā'īpūr, Dihlī has others. _Cf._
Greaves Misc. Works i, 50; Mems. p. 51 note; _Āiyīn-i-akbarī_
(Jarrett) ii, 5 and note; Murray's Hand-book to Bengal p. 331;
Indian Gazetteer xiii, 400.
[378] b. 597 AH. d. 672 AH. (1201-1274 AD.). _See_
D'Herbélot's art. Naṣīr-i-dīn p. 662; Abū'l-fidā (Reinaud,
Introduction i, cxxxviii) and Beale's Biographical Dict.
_s.n._
[379] a grandson of Chīngīz Khān, d. 663 AH. (1265 AD.). The
cognomen _Aīl-khānī_ (_Īl-khānī_) may mean Khān of the Tribe.
[380] Ḥarūnu'r-rashīd's second son; d. 218 AH. (833 AD.).
[381] Mr. Erskine notes that this remark would seem to fix the
date at which Bābur wrote it as 934 AH. (1527 AD.), that being
the 1584th. year of the era of Vikramāditya, and therefore at
three years before Bābur's death. (The Vikramāditya era began
57 BC.)
[382] _Cf._ index _s.n._ _tāsh_.
[383] This remark may refer to the 34 miles between the town
and the quarries of its building stone. _See_ f. 49 and note
to Aītmāk Pass.
[384] Steingass, any support for the back in sitting, a low
wall in front of a house. _See_ Vullers p. 148 and
_Burhān-i-qāṯi`_; p. 119. Perhaps a _dado_.
[385] _beg u begāt, bāgh u bāghcha._
[386] Four Gardens, a quadrilateral garden, laid out in four
plots. The use of the name has now been extended for any
well-arranged, large garden, especially one belonging to a
ruler (Erskine).
[387] As two of the trees mentioned here are large, it may be
right to translate _nārwān_, not by pomegranate, but as the
hard-wood elm, Madame Ujfalvy's '_karagatche_' (p. 168 and p.
222). The name _qarā-yīghāch_ (_karagatch_), dark tree, is
given to trees other than this elm on account of their deep
shadow.
[388] Now a common plan indeed! _See_ Schuyler i, 173.
[389] _juwāz-i-kaghazlār_ (_nīng_) _sū'ī_, _i.e._ the water of
the paper-(pulping)-mortars. Owing to the omission from some
MSS. of the word _sū_, water, _juwāz_ has been mistaken for a
kind of paper. _See_ Mems. p. 52 and _Méms_. i, 102; A.Q.R.
July 1910, p. 2, art. Paper-mills of Samarkand (H.B.); and
Madame Ujfalvy p. 188. Kostenko, it is to be noted, does not
include paper in his list (i, 346) of modern manufactures of
Samarkand.
[390] Mine of mud or clay. My husband has given me support for
reading _gil_, and not _gul_, rose;—(1) In two good MSS. of
the W.-i-B. the word is pointed with _kasra_, _i.e._ as for
_gil_, clay; and (2) when describing a feast held in the
garden by Tīmūr, the Z̤.N. says the mud-mine became a
rose-mine, _shuda Kān-i-gil Kān-i-gul_. [Mr. Erskine refers
here to Pétis de la Croix's _Histoire de Tīmūr Beg_ (_i.e._
Z̤.N.) i, 96 and ii, 133 and 421.]
[391] _qūrūgh._ Vullers, classing the word as Arabic, Zenker,
classing it as Eastern Turkī, and Erskine (p. 42 n.) explain
this as land reserved for the summer encampment of princes.
Shaw (Voc. p. 155), deriving it from _qūrūmāq_, to frighten,
explains it as a fenced field of growing grain.
[392] _Cf._ f. 40. There it is located at one _yīghāch_ and
here at 3 _kurohs_ from the town.
[393] _ṯaur._ _Cf._ Zenker _s.n._ I understand it to lie, as
Khān Yūrtī did, in a curve of the river.
[394] 162 m. by rail.
[395] _Cf._ f. 3.
[396] _tīrīsīnī sūīūb._ The verb _sūīmāk_, to despoil, seems
to exclude the common plan of stoning the fruit. _Cf._ f. 3b,
_dānasīnī alīp_, taking out the stones.
[397] _Mīn Samarkandtā aūl (or auwal) aīchkāndā Bukhārā
chāghīrlār nī aīchār aīdīm._ These words have been understood
to refer to Bābur's initial drinking of wine but this reading
is negatived by his statement (f. 189) that he first drank
wine in Harāt in 912 AH. I understand his meaning to be that
the wine he drank in Samarkand was Bukhārā wine. The time
cannot have been earlier than 917 AH. The two words _aūl
aīchkāndā_, I read as parallel to _aūl_ (_bāghrī qarā_) (f.
280) 'that drinking,' 'that bird,' _i.e._ of those other
countries, not of Hindūstān where he wrote.
It may be noted that Bābur's word for wine, _chāghīr_, may not
always represent wine of the grape but may include wine of the
apple and pear (cider and perry), and other fruits. Cider, its
name seeming to be a descendant of _chāghīr_, was introduced
into England by Crusaders, its manufacture having been learned
from Turks in Palestine.
[398] 48 m. 3 fur. by way of the Aītmāk Pass (mod. Takhta
Qarachi), and, Réclus (vi, 256) Buz-gala-khāna, Goat-house.
[399] The name Aītmāk, to build, appears to be due to the
stone quarries on the range. The pass-head is 34 m. from
Samarkand and 3000 ft. above it. _See_ Kostenko ii, 115 and
Schuyler ii, 61 for details of the route.
[400] The description of this hall is difficult to translate.
Clavijo (Markham 124) throws light on the small recesses.
_Cf._ Z̤.N. i, 781 and 300 and Schuyler ii, 68.
[401] The Tāq-i-kisrī, below Bāghdād, is 105 ft. high, 84 ft.
span and 150 ft. in depth (Erskine).
[402] _Cf._ f. 46. Bābur does not mention that Tīmūr's father
was buried at Kesh. Clavijo (Markham p. 123) says it was
Tīmūr's first intention to be buried near his father, in Kesh.
[403] Abū'l-fidā (Reinaud II, ii, 21) says that Nasaf is the
Arabic and Nakhshab the local name for Qarshī. Ibn Haukal
(Ouseley p. 260) writes Nakhshab.
[404] This word has been translated _burial-place_ and
_cimetière_ but Qarshī means castle, or royal-residence. The
Z̤.N. (i, 111) says that Qarshī is an equivalent for Ar.
_qaṣr_, palace, and was so called, from one built there by
Qublāī Khān (d. 1294 AD.). Perhaps Bābur's word is connected
with Gūrkhān, the title of sovereigns in Khutan, and means
great or royal-house, _i.e._ palace.
[405] 94 m. 6-1/2 fur. via Jām (Kostenko i, 115.)
[406] See Appendix B.
[407] some 34 m. (Kostenko i, 196). Schuyler mentions that he
heard in Qarā-kūl a tradition that the district, in bye-gone
days, was fertilized from the Sīr.
[408] _Cf._ f. 45.
[409] By _abjad_ the words _`Abbās kasht_ yield 853. The date
of the murder was Ramẓān 9, 853 AH. (Oct. 27th. 1449 AD.).
[410] This couplet is quoted in the _Rauẓatu'ṣ-ṣafā_ (lith.
ed. vi, f. 234 foot) and in the Ḥ.S. ii, 44. It is said, in
the R.Ṣ. to be by Niẕāmī and to refer to the killing by
Shīrūya of his father, Khusrau Parwīz in 7 AH. (628 AD.). The
Ḥ.S. says that `Abdu'l-laṯīf constantly repeated the couplet,
after he had murdered his father. [See also Daulat Shāh
(Browne p. 356 and p. 366.) H.B.]
[411] By _abjad_, _Bābā Ḥusain kasht_ yields 854. The death
was on Rabi` I, 26, 854 AH. (May 9th. 1450 AD.). See R.Ṣ. vi,
235 for an account of this death.
[412] This overstates the time; dates shew 1 yr. 1 mth. and a
few days.
[413] _i.e._ The Khān of the Mughūls, Bābur's uncle.
[414] Elph. MS. _aūrmaghāīlār_, might not turn; Ḥai. and
Kehr's MSS. (_sar bā bād_) _bīrmāghāīlār_, might not give.
Both metaphors seem drawn from the protective habit of man and
beast of turning the back to a storm-wind.
[415] _i.e._ betwixt two waters, the Miyān-i-dū-āb of India.
Here, it is the most fertile triangle of land in Turkistān
(Réclus, vi, 199), enclosed by the eastern mountains, the
Nārīn and the Qarā-sū; Rabāṯik-aūrchīnī, its alternative name,
means Small Station sub-district. From the uses of _aūrchīn_ I
infer that it describes a district in which there is no
considerable head-quarters fort.
[416] _i.e._ his own, Qūtlūq-nigār Khānīm and hers,
Aīsān-daulat Begīm, with perhaps other widows of his father,
probably Shāh Sulṯān Begīm.
[417] _Cf._ f. 16 for almost verbatim statements.
[418] Blacksmith's Dale. _Ahangarān_ appears corrupted in
modern maps to _Angren_. _See_ Ḥ.S. ii, 293 for Khwānd-amīr's
wording of this episode.
[419] _Cf._ f. 1b and Kostenko i, 101.
[420] _i.e._ Khān Uncle (Mother's brother).
[421] n.w. of the Sang ferry over the Sīr.
[422] perhaps, messenger of good tidings.
[423] This man's family connections are interesting. He was
`Alī-shukr Beg _Bahārlū's_ grandson, nephew therefore of Pāshā
Begīm; through his son, Saif-`alī Beg, he was the grandfather
of Bairām Khān-i-khānān and thus the g.g.f. of `Abdu'r-raḥīm
Mīrzā, the translator of the Second _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_. _See_
Firishta lith. ed. p. 250.
[424] Bābur's (step-)grandmother, co-widow with Aīsān-daulat
of Yūnas Khān and mother of Aḥmad and Maḥmud _Chaghatāī_.
[425] Here the narrative picks up the thread of Khusrau Shāh's
affairs, dropped on f. 44.
[426] _mīng tūmān fulūs_, _i.e._ a thousand
sets-of-ten-thousand small copper coins. Mr. Erskine (Mems. p.
61) here has a note on coins. As here the _tūmān_ does not
seem to be a coin but a number, I do not reproduce it,
valuable as it is _per se_.
[427] _ārīqlār_; this the annotator of the Elph. MS. has
changed to _āshlīq_, provisions, corn.
[428] _Samān-chī_ may mean Keeper of the Goods. Tīngrī-bīrdī,
Theodore, is the purely Turkī form of the Khudāī-bīrdī,
already met with several times in the B.N.
[429] Bast (Bost) is on the left bank of the Halmand.
[430] _Cf._ f. 56b.
[431] known as _Kābulī_. He was a son of Abū-sa`īd and thus an
uncle of Bābur. He ruled Kābul and Ghaznī from a date previous
to his father's death in 873 AH. (perhaps from the time `Umar
Shaikh was _not_ sent there, in 870 AH. _See_ f. 6b) to his
death in 907 AH. Bābur was his virtual successor in Kābul, in
910 AH.
[432] Elph. MS. f. 42; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 47b and 217 f. 38;
Mems. p. 63. Bābur here resumes his own story, interrupted on
f. 56.
[433] _aīsh achīlmādī_, a phrase recurring on f. 59b foot. It
appears to imply, of trust in Providence, what the English
"The way was not opened," does. _Cf._ f. 60b for another
example of trust, there clinching discussion whether to go or
not to go to Marghīnān.
[434] _i.e._ _Aḥrārī_. He had been dead some 10 years. The
despoilment of his family is mentioned on f. 23b.
[435] _fatratlār_, here those due to the deaths of Aḥmad and
Maḥmūd with their sequel of unstable government in Samarkand.
[436] _Aūghlāqchī_, the player of the kid-game, the
gray-wolfer. Yār-yīlāq will have gone with the rest of
Samarkand into `Alī's hands in Rajab 903 AH. (March 1498).
Contingent terms between him and Bābur will have been made;
Yūsuf may have recognized some show of right under them, for
allowing Bābur to occupy Yār-yīlāq.
[437] _i.e._ after 933 AH. _Cf._ f. 46b and note concerning
the Bikramāditya era. See index _s.n._ Aḥmad-i-yūsuf and Ḥ.S.
ii, 293.
[438] This plural, unless ironical, cannot be read as
honouring `Alī; Bābur uses the honorific plural most rarely
and specially, _e.g._ for saintly persons, for The Khān and
for elder women-kinsfolk.
[439] _bīr yārīm yīl._ Dates shew this to mean six months. It
appears a parallel expression to Pers. _hasht-yak_,
one-eighth.
[440] Ḥ.S. ii, 293, in place of these two quotations, has a
_misra`_,—_Na rāy ṣafar kardan u na rūy iqāmat_, (Nor resolve
to march, nor face to stay).
[441] _i.e._ in Samarkand.
[442] Point to point, some 145 m. but much further by the
road. Tang-āb seems likely to be one of the head-waters of
Khwāja Bikargān-water. Thence the route would be by
unfrequented hill-tracks, each man leading his second horse.
[443] _tūn yārīmī naqāra waqtīdā._ _Tūn yārīmī_ seems to mean
half-dark, twilight. Here it cannot mean mid-night since this
would imply a halt of twelve hours and Bābur says no halt was
made. The drum next following mid-day is the one beaten at
sunset.
[444] The voluntary prayer, offered when the sun has well
risen, fits the context.
[445] I understand that the obeisance was made in the
Gate-house, between the inner and outer doors.
[446] This seeming sobriquet may be due to eloquence or to
good looks.
[447] _qarā tīyāq._ _Cf._ f. 63 where black bludgeons are used
by a red rabble.
[448] He was head-man of his clan and again with Shaibānī in
909 AH. (Sh. N. Vambéry, p. 272). Erskine (p. 67) notes that
the Manghīts are the modern Nogais.
[449] _i.e._ in order to allow for the here very swift
current. The Ḥ.S. varying a good deal in details from the B.N.
gives the useful information that Aūzūn Ḥasan's men knew
nothing of the coming of the Tāshkīnt Mughūls.
[450] _Cf._ f. 4b and App. A. as to the position of Akhsī.
[451] _bārīnī qīrdīlār._ After this statement the five
exceptions are unexpected; Bābur's wording is somewhat
confused here.
[452] _i.e._ in Hindūstān.
[453] Taṃbal would be the competitor for the second place.
[454] 47 m. 4-1/2 fur.
[455] Bābur had been about two lunar years absent from Andijān
but his loss of rule was of under 16 months.
[456] A scribe's note entered here on the margin of the Ḥai.
MS. is to the effect that certain words are not in the noble
archetype (_nashka sharīf_); this supports other circumstances
which make for the opinion that this Codex is a direct copy of
Bābur's own MS. _See_ Index s.n. Ḥai. MS. and JRAS 1906, p.
87.