1500 AD.).
[1073] Niẕāmu'd-dīn Aḥmad bin Tawakkal _Barlās_ (Ḥ.S. iii,
229).
[1074] This may be that uncle of Tīmūr who made the Ḥaj (T. R.
p. 48, quoting the _Z̤afar-nāma_).
[1075] Some MSS. omit the word "father" here but to read it
obviates the difficulty of calling Walī a great beg of Sl.
Ḥusain Mīrzā although he died when that mīrzā took the throne
(973 AH.) and although no leading place is allotted to him in
Bābur's list of Herī begs. Here as in other parts of Bābur's
account of Herī, the texts vary much whether Turkī or Persian,
_e.g._ the Elph. MS. appears to call Walī a blockhead (_dūnkūz
dūr_), the Ḥai. MS. writing _n:kūz dūr_(?).
[1076] He had been Bābur _Shāhrukhī's yasāwal_
(Court-attendant), had fought against Ḥusain for
Yādgār-i-muḥammad and had given a daughter to Ḥusain (Ḥ.S.
iii, 206, 228, 230-32; D.S. in _Not. et Ex._ de Saçy p. 265).
[1077] f. 29b.
[1078] _Sic_, Elph. MS. and both Pers. trss. but the Ḥai. MS.
omits "father". To read it, however, suits the circumstance
that Ḥasan of Ya`qūb was not with Ḥusain and in Harāt but was
connected with Maḥmūd _Mīrānshāhī_ and Tīrmīẕ (f. 24). Nuyān
is not a personal name but is a title; it implies good-birth;
all uses of it I have seen are for members of the religious
family of Tīrmīẕ.
[1079] He was the son of Ibrāhīm _Barlās_ and a Badakhshī
begīm (T.R. p. 108).
[1080] He will have been therefore a collateral of Daulat-shāh
whose relation to Fīrūz-shāh is thus expressed by Nawā'i:—_Mīr
Daulat-shāh Fīrūz-shāh Beg-nīng `amm-zāda-sī Amīr
`Alā'u'd-daula Isfārayīnī-nīng aūghūlī dur_, _i.e._ Mīr
Daulat-shāh was the son of Fīrūz-shāh Beg's paternal uncle's
son, Amir `Alā'u'd-daula _Isfārayīnī_. Thus, Fīrūz-shāh and
Isfārayīnī were first cousins; Daulat-shāh and
`Abdu'l-khalīq's father were second cousins; while Daulat-shāh
and Fīrūz-shāh were first cousins, once removed (Rieu's Pers.
Cat. p. 534; Browne's D.S. English preface p. 14 and its
reference to the Pers. preface).
[1081] _Tarkhān-nāma_, E. & D.'s _History of India_ i, 303;
Ḥ.S. iii, 227.
[1082] f. 41 and note.
[1083] Both places are in the valley of the Herī-rūd.
[1084] Badī`u'z-zamān married a daughter of Ẕū'n-nūn; she died
in 911 AH. (E. & D. i, 305; Ḥ.S. iii, 324).
[1085] This indicates, both amongst Musalmāns and Hindūs,
obedience and submission. Several instances occur in
Macculloch's _Bengali Household Stories_.
[1086] T.R. p. 205.
[1087] This is an idiom expressive of great keenness
(Erskine).
[1088] Ḥ.S. iii, 250, _kitābdār_, librarian; so too Ḥai. MS.
f. 174b.
[1089] _mutaiyam_ (f. 7b and note). Mīr Mughūl Beg was put to
death for treachery in `Irāq (Ḥ.S. iii, 227, 248).
[1090] Bābur speaks as an eye-witness (f. 187b). For a single
combat of Sayyid Badr, Ḥ. S. iii, 233.
[1091] f. 157 and note to _bātmān_.
[1092] A level field in which a gourd (_qabaq_) is set on a
pole for an archer's mark to be hit in passing at the gallop
(f. 18b and note).
[1093] Or possibly during the gallop the archer turned in the
saddle and shot backwards.
[1094] Junaid was the father of Niẕāmu'd-dīn `Alī, Bābur's
Khalīfa (Vice-gerent). That Khalīfa was of a religious house
on his mother's side may be inferred from his being styled
both Sayyid and Khwāja neither of which titles could have come
from his Turkī father. His mother may have been a sayyida of
one of the religious families of Marghīnān (f. 18 and note),
since Khalīfa's son Muḥibb-i-`alī writes his father's name
"Niẕāmu'd-din `Alī _Marghīlānī_" (_Marghīnānī_) in the Preface
of his _Book on Sport_ (Rieu's Pers. Cat. p. 485).
[1095] This northward migration would take the family into
touch with Bābur's in Samarkand and Farghāna.
[1096] He was left in charge of Jaunpūr in Rabī` I, 933 AH.
(Jan. 1527 AD.) but exchanged for Chunār in Ramẓān 935 AH.
(June 1529 AD.); so that for the writing of this part of the
_Bābur-nāma_ we have the major and minor limits of Jan. 1527
and June 1529.
[1097] Ḥ.S. iii, 227.
[1098] _See_ Appendix H, _On the counter-mark Bih-būd on
coins_.
[1099] Niẕāmu'd-dīn Amīr Shaikh Aḥmadu's-suhailī was surnamed
Suhailī through a _fāl_ (augury) taken by his spiritual guide,
Kamālu'd-dīn Ḥusain _Gāzur-gāhī_; it was he induced Ḥusain
_Kashīfī_ to produce his _Anwār-i-suhailī_ (Lights of Canopus)
(f. 125 and note; Rieu's Pers. Cat. p. 756; and for a couplet
of his, Ḥ.S. iii, 242 l. 10).
[1100] Index _s.n._
[1101] Did the change complete an analogy between `Alī
_Jalāīr_ and his (perhaps) elder son with `Alī Khalīfa and his
elder son Ḥasan?
[1102] The Qūsh-begī is, in Central Asia, a high official who
acts for an absent ruler (Shaw); he does not appear to be the
Falconer, for whom Bābur's name is Qūshchī (f. 15 n.).
[1103] He received this sobriquet because when he returned
from an embassy to the Persian Gulf, he brought, from Bahrein,
to his Tīmūrid master a gift of royal pearls (Sām Mīrzā). For
an account of Marwārīd _see_ Rieu's Pers. Cat. p. 1094 and
(_re_ portrait) p. 787.
[1104] Sām Mīrzā specifies this affliction as _ābla-i-farang_,
thus making what may be one of the earliest Oriental
references to _morbus gallicus_ [as de Saçy here translates
the name], the foreign or European pox, the "French disease of
Shakespeare" (H.B.).
[1105] Index _s.n._ Yūsuf.
[1106] Ramẓān 3rd 918 AH.-Nov. 12th 1512.
[1107] _i.e._ of the White-sheep Turkmāns.
[1108] His paternal line was, `Abdu'l-bāqī, son of `Us̤mān,
son of Sayyidī Aḥmad, son of Mīrān-shāh. His mother's people
were begs of the White-sheep (Ḥ.S. iii, 290).
[1109] Sulṯānīm had married Wais (f. 157) not later than 895
or 896 AH. (Ḥ. S. iii, 253); she married `Abdu'l-bāqī in 908
AH. (1502-3 AD.).
[1110] Sayyid Shamsu'd-dīn Muḥammad, Mīr Sayyid
_Sar-i-barahna_ owed his sobriquet of Bare-head to love-sick
wanderings of his youth (Ḥ.S. iii, 328). The Ḥ.S. it is clear,
recognizes him as a sayyid.
[1111] Rieu's Pers. Cat. p. 760; it is immensely long and
"filled with tales that shock all probability" (Erskine).
[1112] f. 94 and note. Sl. Ḥusain M. made him curator of
Anṣārī's shrine, an officer represented, presumably, by Col.
Yate's "Mīr of Gāzur-gāh", and he became Chief Justice in 904
AH. (1498-99 AD.). _See_ Ḥ.S. iii, 330 and 340; JASB 1887,
art. _On the city of Harāt_ (C. E. Yate) p. 85.
[1113] _mutasauwif_, perhaps meaning not a professed Ṣūfī.
[1114] He was of high birth on both sides, of religious houses
of T̤abas and Nishāpūr (D.S. pp. 161, 163).
[1115] In agreement with its preface, Dr. Rieu entered the
book as written by Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā; in his Addenda, however,
he quotes Bābur as the authority for its being by Gāzur-gāhī;
Khwānd-amīr's authority can be added to Bābur's (Ḥ.S. 340;
Pers. Cat. pp. 351, 1085).
[1116] _Dīwān._ The Wazīr is a sort of Minister of Finance;
the Dīwān is the office of revenue receipts and issues
(Erskine).
[1117] a secretary who writes out royal orders (Ḥ.S. iii,
244).
[1118] Count von Noer's words about a cognate reform of later
date suit this man's work, it also was "a bar to the
defraudment of the Crown, a stumbling-block in the path of
avaricious chiefs" (_Emperor Akbar_ trs. i, 11). The
opposition made by `Alī-sher to reform so clearly to Ḥusain's
gain and to Ḥusain's begs' loss, stirs the question, "What was
the source of his own income?" Up to 873 AH. he was for some
years the dependant of Aḥmad Ḥājī Beg; he took nothing from
the Mīrzā, but gave to him; he must have spent much in
benefactions. The question may have presented itself to M.
Belin for he observes, "`Alī-sher qui sans doute, à son retour
de l'exil, recouvra l'héritage de ses pères, et depuis occupa
de hautes positions dans le gouvernement de son pays, avait
acquis une grande fortune" (_J. Asiatique_ xvii, 227). While
not contradicting M. Belin's view that vested property such as
can be described as "paternal inheritance", may have passed
from father to son, even in those days of fugitive prosperity
and changing appointments, one cannot but infer, from Nawā'i's
opposition to Majdu'd-dīn, that he, like the rest, took a
partial view of the "rights" of the cultivator.
[1119] This was in 903 AH. after some 20 years of service
(Ḥ.S. iii, 231; Ethé I.O. Cat. p. 252).
[1120] Amīr Jamālu'd-dīn `Atā'u'l-lāh, known also as
Jamālu'd-dīn Ḥusain, wrote a _History of Muhammad_ (Ḥ.S. iii,
345; Rieu's Pers. Cat. p. 147 & (a correction) p. 1081).
[1121] Amongst noticeable omissions from Bābur's list of Herī
celebrities are Mīr Khwānd Shāh ("Mirkhond"), his grandson
Khwānd-amīr, Ḥusain _Kashifī_ and Muinu'd-dīn al Zamjī, author
of a _History of Harāt_ which was finished in 897 AH.
[1122] Sa'du`d-dīn Mas`ūd, son of `Umar, was a native of Taft
in Yazd, whence his cognomen (Bahār-i-`ajam); he died in 792
AH.-1390 AD. (Ḥ.S. iii, 59, 343; T.R. p. 236; Rieu's Pers.
Cat. pp. 352, 453).
[1123] These are those connected with grammar and rhetoric
(Erskine).
[1124] This is one of the four principal sects of
Muḥammadanism (Erskine).
[1125] T.R. p. 235, for Shāh Ismā`īl's murders in Herī.
[1126] Superintendent of Police, who examines weights,
measures and provisions, also prevents gambling, drinking and
so on.
[1127] f. 137.
[1128] The rank of Mujtahid, which is not bestowed by any
individual or class of men but which is the result of slow and
imperceptible opinion, finally prevailing and universally
acknowledged, is one of the greatest peculiarities of the
religion of Persia. The Mujtahid is supposed to be elevated
above human fears and human enjoyments, and to have a certain
degree of infallibility and inspiration. He is consulted with
reverence and awe. There is not always a Mujtahid necessarily
existing. _See_ Kaempfer, _Amoenitates Exoticae_ (Erskine).
[1129] _muḥaddas̤_, one versed in the traditional sayings and
actions of Muḥammad.
[1130] Ḥ.S. iii, 340.
[1131] B.M. Or. 218 (Rieu's Pers. Cat. p. 350). The Commentary
was made in order to explain the _Nafaḥāt_ to Jāmī's son.
[1132] He was buried by the Mullā's side.
[1133] Amīr Burhānu'd-dīn `Atā'u'l-lāh bin Maḥmūdu'l-ḥusainī
was born in Nishāpūr but known as Mashhadī because he retired
to that holy spot after becoming blind.
[1134] f. 144_b_ and note. Qāẓī Ikhtiyāru'd-dīn Ḥasan (Ḥ.S.
iii, 347) appears to be the Khwāja Ikhtiyār of the
_Āyīn-i-akbarī_, and, if so, will have taken professional
interest in the script, since Abū'l-faẓl describes him as a
distinguished calligrapher in Sl. Ḥusain M.'s presence
(Blochmann, p. 101).
[1135] Saifu'd-dīn (Sword of the Faith) Aḥmad, presumably.
[1136] A sister of his, Apāq Bega, the wife of `Alī-sher's
brother Darwīsh-i-`alī _kitābdār_, is included as a poet in
the _Biography of Ladies_ (Sprenger's Cat. p. 11). Amongst the
20 women named one is a wife of Shaibāq Khān, another a
daughter of Hilālī.
[1137] He was the son of Khw. Ni`amatu'l-lāh, one of Sl.
Abū-sa`īd M.'s wazīrs. When dying _aet._ 70 (923 AH.), he made
this chronogram on his own death, "With 70 steps he measured
the road to eternity." The name Āsaf, so frequent amongst
wazīrs, is that of Solomon's wazīr.
[1138] Other interpretations are open; _wādī_, taken as
_river_, might refer to the going on from one poem to another,
the stream of verse; or it might be taken as _desert_, with
disparagement of collections.
[1139] Maulānā Jamālu'd-dīn _Banā'i_ was the son of a
_sabz-banā_, an architect, a good builder.
[1140] Steingass's Dictionary allows convenient reference for
examples of metres.
[1141] Other jokes made by _Banā'i_ at the expense of Nawā'i
are recorded in the various sources.
[1142] Bābur saw Banā'i in Samarkand at the end of 901 AH.
(1496 AD. f. 38).
Here Dr. Leyden's translation ends; one other fragment which
he translated will be found under the year 925 AH. (Erskine).
This statement allows attention to be drawn to the inequality
of the shares of the work done for the Memoirs of 1826 by
Leyden and by Erskine. It is just to Mr. Erskine, but a
justice he did not claim, to point out that Dr. Leyden's share
is slight both in amount and in quality; his essential
contribution was the initial stimulus he gave to the great
labours of his collaborator.
[1143] So of Lope de Vega (b. 1562; d. 1635 AD.), "It became a
common proverb to praise a good thing by calling it _a Lope_,
so that jewels, diamonds, pictures, _etc._ were raised into
esteem by calling them his" (Montalvan in Ticknor's _Spanish
Literature_ ii, 270).
[1144] Maulānā Saifī, known as 'Arūẓī from his mastery in
prosody (Rieu's Pers. Cat. p. 525).
[1145] Here pedantry will be implied in the mullahood.
[1146] _Khamsatīn_ (_infra_ f. 180_b_ and note).
[1147] This appears to mean that not only the sparse
diacritical pointing common in writing Persian was dealt with
but also the fuller Arabic.
[1148] He is best known by his pen-name Hātifī. The B.M. and
I.O. have several of his books.
[1149] _Khamsatīn._ Hātifī regarded himself as the successor
of Niẕāmī and Khusrau; this, taken with Bābur's use of the
word _Khamsatīn_ on f. 7 and here, and Saifī's just above,
leads to the opinion that the _Khamsatīn_ of the _Bābur-nāma_
are always those of Niẕāmī and Khusrau, _the_ Two Quintets
(Rieu's Pers. Cat. p. 653).
[1150] Maulānā Mīr Kamālu'd-dīn Ḥusain of Nishāpūr (Rieu l.c.
index s.n.; Ethé's I.O. Cat. pp. 433 and 1134).
[1151] One of his couplets on good and bad fortune is
striking; "The fortune of men is like a sand-glass; one hour
up, the next down." _See_ D'Herbélot in his article (Erskine).
[1152] Ḥ.S. iii, 336; Rieu's Pers. Cat. p. 1089.
[1153] Āhī (sighing) was with Shāh-i-gharīb before
Ibn-i-ḥusain and to him dedicated his _dīwān_. The words
_sāḥib-i-dīwān_ seem likely to be used here with double
meaning _i.e._ to express authorship and finance office.
Though Bābur has made frequent mention of authorship of a
_dīwān_ and of office in the _Dīwān_, he has not used these
words hitherto in either sense; there may be a play of words
here.
[1154] Muḥammad _Ṣāliḥ_ Mīrzā _Khwārizmī_, author of the
_Shaibānī-nāma_ which manifestly is the poem (_mas̤nawī_)
mentioned below. This has been published with a German
translation by Professor Vambéry and has been edited with
Russian notes by Mr. Platon Melioransky (Rieu's Turkish Cat.
p. 74; Ḥ.S. iii, 301).
[1155] Jāmī's _Subḥatu'l-abrār_ (Rosary of the righteous).
[1156] The reference may be to things said by Muḥ. _Ṣāliḥ_ the
untruth of which was known to Bābur through his own part in
the events. A crying instance of misrepresentation is Ṣāliḥ's
assertion, in rhetorical phrase, that Bābur took booty in
jewels from Khusrau Shāh; other instances concern the affairs
of The Khāns and of Bābur in Transoxiana (f. 124b and index
_s.nn._ Aḥmad and Maḥmūd _Chaghatāī_ _etc._; T.R. index
_s.nn._)
[1157] The name Fat-land (Taṃbal-khāna) has its parallel in
Fat-village (Sīmīz-kīnt) a name of Samarkand; in both cases
the nick-name is accounted for by the fertility of irrigated
lands. We have not been able to find the above-quoted couplet
in the _Shaibānī-nāma_ (Vambéry); needless to say, the pun is
on the nick-name (_taṃbal_, fat) of Sl. Aḥmad _Taṃbal_.
[1158] Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ does not show well in his book; he is
sometimes coarse, gloats over spoil whether in human captives
or goods, and, his good-birth not-forbidding, is a servile
flatterer. Bābur's word "heartless" is just; it must have had
sharp prompting from Ṣāliḥ's rejoicing in the downfall of The
Khāns, Bābur's uncles.
[1159] the Longer (Ḥ.S. iii, 349).
[1160] Maulānā Badru'd-dīn (Full-moon of the Faith) whose
pen-name was Hilālī, was of Astarābād. It may be noted that
two dates of his death are found, 936 and 939 AH. the first
given by de Saçy, the second by Rieu, and that the second
seems to be correct (_Not. et Extr._ p. 285; Pers. Cat. p.
656; Hammer's _Geschichte_ p. 368).
[1161] B.M. Add. 7783.
[1162] Opinions differ as to the character of this
work:—Bābur's is uncompromising; von Hammer (p. 369) describes
it as "_ein romantisches Gedicht, welches eine sentimentale
Männerliebe behandelt_"; Sprenger (p. 427), as a mystical
_mas̤nawī_ (poem); Rieu finds no spiritual symbolism in it and
condemns it (Pers. Cat. p. 656 and, quoting the above passage
of Bābur, p. 1090); Ethé, who has translated it, takes it to
be mystical and symbolic (I.O. Cat. p. 783).
[1163] Of four writers using the pen-name Ahlī
(Of-the-people), _viz._ those of Turān, Shīrāz, Tarshīz (in
Khurāsān), and 'Irāq, the one noticed here seems to be he of
Tarshīz. Ahlī of Tarshīz was the son of a locally-known pious
father and became a Superintendent of the Mint; Bābur's `_āmī_
may refer to Ahlī's first patrons, tanners and shoe-makers by
writing for whom he earned his living (Sprenger, p. 319).
Erskine read _'ummī_, meaning that Ahlī could neither read nor
write; de Courteille that he was _un homme du commun_.
[1164] He was an occasional poet (Ḥ.S. iii, 350 and iv, 118;
Rieu's Pers. Cat. p. 531; Ethé's I.O. Cat. p. 428).
[1165] Ustād Kamālu'd-dīn Bih-zād (well-born; Ḥ.S. iii, 350).
Work of his is reproduced in Dr. Martin's _Painting and
Painters of Persia_ of 1913 AD.
[1166] This sentence is not in the Elph. MS.
[1167] Perhaps he could reproduce tunes heard and say where
heard.
[1168] M. Belin quotes quatrains exchanged by `Alī-sher and
this man (_J. Asiatique_ xvii, 199).
[1169] _i.e._ from his own camp to Bābā Ilāhī.
[1170] f. 121 has a fuller quotation. On the dual succession,
_see_ T.R. p. 196.
[1171] Elph. MS. f. 144; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 148_b_ and 217 f.
125_b_; Mems. p. 199.
[1172] News of Ḥusain's death in 911 AH. (f. 163b) did not
reach Bābur till 912 AH. (f. 184_b_).
[1173] Lone-meadow (f. 195_b_). Jahāngīr will have come over
the `Irāq-pass, Bābur's baggage-convoy, by Shibr-tū. Cf. T. R.
p. 199 for Bābur and Jahāngīr at this time.
[1174] Servant-of-the-mace; but perhaps, Qilinj-chāq,
swords-man.
[1175] One of four, a fourth. Chār-yak may be a component of
the name of the well-known place, n. of Kābul, "Chārikār"; but
also the _Chār_ in it may be Hindūstānī and refer to the
permits-to-pass after tolls paid, given to caravans halted
there for taxation. Raverty writes it Chārlākār.
[1176] Amongst the disruptions of the time was that of the
Khānate of Qībchāq (Erskine).
[1177] The nearest approach to _kipkī_ we have found in
Dictionaries is _kupaki_, which comes close to the Russian
_copeck_. Erskine notes that the _casbeké_ is an oval copper
coin (Tavernier, p. 121); and that a _tūmān_ is a myriad
(10,000). _Cf._ Manucci (Irvine), i, 78 and iv, 417 note;
Chardin iv, 278.
[1178] Muḥarram 912 AH.-June 1506 AD. (Ḥ.S. iii, 353).
[1179] I take Murgh-āb here to be the fortified place at the
crossing of the river by the main n.e. road; Bābur when in
Dara-i-bām was on a tributary of the Murgh-āb. Khwānd-amīr
records that the information of his approach was hailed in the
Mīrzās' camp as good news (Ḥ.S. iii, 354).
[1180] Bābur gives the Mīrzās precedence by age, ignoring
Muz̤affar's position as joint-ruler.
[1181] _mubālgha qīldī_; perhaps he laid stress on their
excuse; perhaps did more than was ceremonially incumbent on
him.
[1182] _`irq_, to which estrade answers in its sense of a
carpet on which stands a raised seat.
[1183] Perhaps it was a recess, resembling a gate-way (W.-i-B.
I.O. 215 f. 151 and 217 f. 127_b_). The impression conveyed by
Bābur's words here to the artist who in B.M. Or. 3714, has
depicted the scene, is that there was a vestibule opening into
the tent by a door and that the Mīrzā sat near that door. It
must be said however that the illustration does not closely
follow the text, in some known details.
[1184] _shīra_, fruit-syrups, sherbets. Bābur's word for wine
is _chāghīr_ (_q.v._ index) and this reception being public,
wine could hardly have been offered in Sunnī Herī. Bābur's
strictures can apply to the vessels of precious metal he
mentions, these being forbidden to Musalmāns; from his
reference to the Tūra it would appear to repeat the same
injunctions. Bābur broke up such vessels before the battle of
Kanwāha (f. 315). Shāh-i-jahān did the same; when sent by his
father Jahāngīr to reconquer the Deccan (1030 AH.-1621 AD.) he
asked permission to follow the example of his ancestor Bābur,
renounced wine, poured his stock into the Chaṃbal, broke up
his cups and gave the fragments to the poor (_`Amal-i-ṣāliḥ_,
Hughes' _Dict. of Islām_ quoting the _Hidāyah_ and _Mishkāt_,
_s.nn._ Drinkables, Drinking-vessels, and Gold; Lane's _Modern
Egyptians_ p. 125 n.).
[1185] This may be the Rabāṯ-i-sanghī of some maps, on a near
road between the "Forty-daughters" and Harāt; or Bābur may
have gone out of his direct way to visit Rabāṯ-i-sang-bast, a
renowned halting place at the Carfax of the Herī-T̤ūs and
Nishāpūr-Mashhad roads, built by one Arslān _Jazāla_ who lies
buried near, and rebuilt with great magnificence by `Alī-sher
_Nawā'i_ (Daulat-shāh, Browne, p. 176).
[1186] The wording here is confusing to those lacking family
details. The paternal-aunt begīms can be Pāyanda-sulṯān
(named), Khadīja-sulṯān, Apāq-sulṯān, and Fakhr-jahān Begīms,
all daughters of Abū-sa`īd. The Apāq Begīm named above (also
on f. 168_b_ _q.v._) does not now seem to me to be Abū-sa`īd's
daughter (Gul-badan, trs. Bio. App.).
[1187] _yūkūnmāī._ Unless all copies I have seen reproduce a
primary clerical mistake of Bābur's, the change of salutation
indicated by there being no kneeling with Apāq Begīm, points
to a _nuance_ of etiquette. Of the verb _yūkūnmāk_ it may be
noted that it both describes the ceremonious attitude of
intercourse, _i.e._ kneeling and sitting back on both heels
(Shaw), and also the kneeling on meeting. From Bābur's phrase
_Begīm bīla yūkūnūb_ [having kneeled with], it appears that
each of those meeting made the genuflection; I have not found
the phrase used of other meetings; it is not the one used when
a junior or a man of less degree meets a senior or superior in
rank (_e.g._ Khusrau and Bābur f. 123, or Bābur and
Badī`u'z-zamān f. 186).
[1188] Musalmāns employ a set of readers who succeed one
another in reading (reciting) the Qorān at the tombs of their
men of eminence. This reading is sometimes continued day and
night. The readers are paid by the rent of lands or other
funds assigned for the purpose (Erskine).
[1189] A suspicion that Khadīja put poison in Jahāngīr's wine
may refer to this occasion (T.R. p. 199).
[1190] These are _jharokha-i-darsān_, windows or balconies
from which a ruler shews himself to the people.
[1191] Mas`ūd was then blind.
[1192] Bābur first drank wine not earlier than 917 AH. (f. 49
and note), therefore when nearing 30.
[1193] _aīchkīlār_, French, _intérieur_.
[1194] The obscure passage following here is discussed in
Appendix I, _On the weeping-willows of_ f. 190_b_.
[1195] Here this may well be a gold-embroidered garment.
[1196] This, the tomb of Khwāja `Abdu'l-lāh _Anṣari_ (d. 481
AH.) stands some 2m. north of Herī. Bābur mentions one of its
numerous attendants of his day, Kamālu'd-dīn Ḥusain
_Gāzur-gāhī_. Mohan Lall describes it as he saw it in 1831;
says the original name of the locality was Kār-zār-gāh,
place-of-battle; and, as perhaps his most interesting detail,
mentions that Jalālu'd-dīn _Rūmī's Maṣnawī_ was recited every
morning near the tomb and that people fainted during the
invocation (_Travels in the Panj-āb_ etc. p. 252). Colonel
Yate has described the tomb as he saw it some 50 years later
(JASB 1887); and explains the name Gāzur-gāh (lit.
bleaching-place) by the following words of an inscription
there found; "His tomb (Anṣarī's) is a washing-place
(_gāzur-gāh_) wherein the cloud of the Divine forgiveness
washes white the black records of men" (p. 88 and p. 102).
[1197] _juāz-i-kaghazlār_ (f. 47_b_ and note).
[1198] The _Ḥabību's-siyār_ and Ḥai. MS. write this name with
medial "round _hā_"; this allows it to be Kahad-stān, a
running-place, race-course. Khwānd-amīr and Daulat-shāh call
it a meadow (_aūlāng_); the latter speaks of a feast as held
there; it was Shaibānī's head-quarters when he took Harāt.
[1199] _var._ Khatīra; either an enclosure (_qūrūq_?) or a
fine and lofty building.
[1200] This may have been a usual halting-place on a journey
(_safar_) north. It was built by Ḥusain _Bāī-qarā_, overlooked
hills and fields covered with _arghwān_ (f. 137_b_) and seems
once to have been a Paradise (Mohan Lall, p. 256).
[1201] Jāmī's tomb was in the `Īd-gah of Herī (Ḥ.S. ii, 337),
which appears to be the Muṣalla (Praying-place) demolished by
Amīr `Abdu'r-raḥmān in the 19th century. Col. Yate was shewn a
tomb in the Muṣalla said to be Jāmī's and agreeing in the age,
81, given on it, with Jāmī's at death, but he found a _crux_
in the inscription (pp. 99, 106).
[1202] This may be the Muṣalla (Yate, p. 98).
[1203] This place is located by the Ḥ.S. at 5 _farsakh_ from
Herī (de Meynard at 25 _kilomètres_). It appears to be rather
an abyss or fissure than a pond, a crack from the sides of
which water trickles into a small bason in which dwells a
mysterious fish, the beholding of which allows the attainment
of desires. The story recalls Wordsworth's undying fish of
Bow-scale Tarn. (_Cf._ Ḥ.S. Bomb. ed. ii, _Khatmat_ p. 20 and
de Meynard, _Journal Asiatique_ xvi, 480 and note.)
[1204] This is on maps to the north of Herī.
[1205] d. 232 AH. (847 AD.). _See_ Yate, p. 93.
[1206] Imām Fakhru'd-dīn _Raẓī_ (de Meynard, _Journal
Asiatique_ xvi, 481).
[1207] d. 861 AH.-1457 AD. Guhār-shād was the wife of Tīmūr's
son Shāhrukh. _See_ Mohan Lall, p. 257 and Yate, p. 98.
[1208] This Marigold-garden may be named after
Hārūnu'r-rashīd's wife Zubaida.
[1209] This will be the place n. of Herī from which Maulānā
Jalālu'd-dīn _Pūrānī_ (d. 862 AH.) took his cognomen, as also
Shaikh Jamālu'd-dīn Abū-sa`īd _Pūrān_ (f. 206) who was visited
there by Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, ill-treated by Shaibānī (f. 206),
left Herī for Qandahār, and there died, through the fall of a
roof, in 921 AH. (Ḥ.S. iii, 345; _Khazīnatu'l-asfiya_ ii,
321).
[1210] His tomb is dated 35 or 37 AH. (656 or 658 AD.; Yate,
p. 94).
[1211] Mālān was a name of the Herī-rūd (_Journal Asiatique_
xvi, 476, 511; Mohan Lall, p. 279; Ferrier, p. 261; _etc._).
[1212] Yate, p. 94.
[1213] The position of this building between the Khūsh and
Qībchāq Gates (de Meynard, l.c. p. 475) is the probable
explanation of the variant, noted just below, of Kushk for
Khūsh as the name of the Gate. The _Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_ (p.
429), mentions this kiosk in its list of the noted ones of the
world.
[1214] var. Kushk (de Meynard, l.c. p. 472).
[1215] The reference here is, presumably, to Bābur's own
losses of Samarkand and Andijān.
[1216] Ākā or Āgā is used of elder relations; a _yīnkā_ or
_yīngā_ is the wife of an uncle or elder brother; here it
represents the widow of Bābur's uncle Aḥmad _Mīrān-shāhī_.
From it is formed the word _yīnkālīk_, levirate.
[1217] The almshouse or convent was founded here in Tīmūr's
reign (de Meynard, l.c. p. 500).
[1218] _i.e._ No smoke without fire.
[1219] This name may be due to the splashing of water. A
Langar which may be that of Mīr Ghiyās̤, is shewn in maps in
the Bām valley; from it into the Herī-rūd valley Bābur's route
may well have been the track from that Langar which, passing
the villages on the southern border of Gharjistān, goes to
Ahangarān.
[1220] This escape ought to have been included in the list of
Bābur's transportations from risk to safety given in my note
to f. 96.
[1221] The right and wrong roads are shewn by the Indian
Survey and French Military maps. The right road turns off from
the wrong one, at Daulat-yār, to the right, and mounts
diagonally along the south rampart of the Herī-rūd valley, to
the Zirrīn-pass, which lies above the Bakkak-pass and carries
the regular road for Yaka-aūlāng. It must be said, however,
that we are not told whether Yaka-aūlāng was Qāsim Beg's
objective; the direct road for Kābul from the Herī-rūd valley
is not over the Zirrīn-pass but goes from Daulat-yār by
"Āq-zarat", and the southern flank of Koh-i-bābā (bābār) to
the Unai-pass (Holdich's _Gates of India_ p. 262).
[1222] _circa_ Feb. 14th 1507, Bābur's 24th birthday.
[1223] The Hazāras appear to have been wintering outside their
own valley, on the Ghūr-bund road, in wait for travellers
[_cf._ T.R. p. 197]. They have been perennial highwaymen on
the only pass to the north not closed entirely in winter.
[1224] The Ghūr-bund valley is open in this part; the Hazāras
may have been posted on the naze near the narrows leading into
the Janglīk and their own side valleys.
[1225] Although the verses following here in the text are with
the Turkī Codices, doubt cannot but be felt as to their
authenticity. They do not fit verbally to the sentence they
follow; they are a unique departure from Bābur's plain prose
narrative and nothing in the small Hazāra affair shews cause
for such departure; they differ from his usual topics in their
bombast and comment on his men (_cf._ f. 194 for comment on
shirking begs). They appear in the 2nd Persian translation
(217 f. 134) in Turkī followed by a prose Persian rendering
(_khalāṣa_). They are not with the 1st Pers. trs. (215 f.
159), the text of which runs on with a plain prose account
suiting the size of the affair, as follows:—"The braves,
seeing their (the Hazāras) good soldiering, had stopped
surprised; wishing to hurry them I went swiftly past them,
shouting 'Move on! move on!' They paid me no attention. When,
in order to help, I myself attacked, dismounting and going up
the hill, they shewed courage and emulation in following.
Getting to the top of the pass, we drove that band off,
killing many, capturing others, making their families prisoner
and plundering their goods." This is followed by "I myself
collected" _etc._ as in the Turkī text after the verse. It
will be seen that the above extract is not a translation of
the verse; no translator or even summariser would be likely to
omit so much of his original. It is just a suitably plain
account of a trivial matter.
[1226] _Gulistān_ Cap. I. Story 4.
[1227] Bābur seems to have left the Ghūr-bund valley, perhaps
pursuing the Hazāras towards Janglīk, and to have come "by
ridge and valley" back into it for Ushtur-shahr. I have not
located Tīmūr Beg's Langar. As has been noted already (_q.v._
index) the Ghūr-bund narrows are at the lower end of the
valley; they have been surmised to be the fissured rampart of
an ancient lake.
[1228] Here this may represent a guard- or toll-house (Index
_s.n._).
[1229] As _yūrūn_ is a patch, the bearer of the sobriquet
might be Black Aḥmad the repairing-tailor.
[1230] _Second Afghān War_, Map of Kābul and its environs.
[1231] I understand that the arrival undiscovered was a result
of riding in single-file and thus shewing no black mass.
[1232] or _gharbīcha_, which Mr. Erskine explains to be the
four plates of mail, made to cover the back, front and sides;
the _jība_ would thus be the wadded under-coat to which they
are attached.
[1233] This prayer is composed of extracts from the Qorān
(_Méms_, i, 454 note); it is reproduced as it stands in Mr.
Erskine's wording (p. 216).
[1234] Bābur's reference may well be to Sanjar's birth as well
as to his being the holder of Nīngnahār. Sanjar's father had
been thought worthy to mate with one of the six Badakhshī
begīms whose line traced back to Alexander (T. R. p. 107); and
his father was a Barlās, seemingly of high family.
[1235] It may be inferred that what was done was for the
protection of the two women.
[1236] Not a bad case could have been made out for now putting
a Tīmūrid in Bābur's place in Kābul; _viz._ that he was
believed captive in Herī and that Mīrzā Khān was an effective
_locum tenens_ against the Arghūns. Haidar sets down what in
his eyes pleaded excuse for his father Muḥ. Ḥusain (T.R. p.
198).
[1237] _qūsh_, not even a little plough-land being given
(_chand qulba dihya_, 215 f. 162).
[1238] They were sons of Sl. Aḥmad Khān _Chaghatāī_.
[1239] f. 160.
[1240] Ḥaidar's opinion of Bābur at this crisis is of the more
account that his own father was one of the rebels let go to
the mercy of the "avenging servitor". When he writes of Bābur,
as being, at a time so provoking, gay, generous, affectionate,
simple and gentle, he sets before us insight and temper in
tune with Kipling's "If...."
[1241] Bābur's distinction, made here and elsewhere, between
Chaghatāī and Mughūl touches the old topic of the right or
wrong of the term "Mughūl dynasty". What he, as also Ḥaidar,
allows said is that if Bābur were to describe his mother in
tribal terms, he would say she was half-Chaghatāī,
half-Mughūl; and that if he so described himself, he would say
he was half-Tīmūrid-Turk, half-Chaghatāī. He might have called
the dynasty he founded in India Turkī, might have called it
Tīmūriya; he would never have called it Mughūl, after his
maternal grandmother.
Ḥaidar, with imperfect classification, divides Chīngīz Khān's
"Mughūl horde" into Mughūls and Chaghatāīs and of this
Chaghatāī offtake says that none remained in 953 _AH._ (1547
_AD._) except the rulers, _i.e._ sons of Sl. Aḥmad Khan (T.R.
148). Manifestly there was a body of Chaghatāīs with Bābur and
there appear to have been many near his day in the Herī
region,—`Alī-sher _Nawā`i_ the best known.
Bābur supplies directions for naming his dynasty when, as
several times, he claims to rule in Hindūstān where the "Turk"
had ruled (f. 233_b_, f. 224_b_, f. 225). To call his dynasty
Mughūl seems to blot out the centuries, something as we should
do by calling the English Teutons. If there is to be such
blotting-out, Abū'l-ghāzī would allow us, by his tables of
Turk descent, to go further, to the primal source of all the
tribes concerned, to Turk, son of Japhet. This traditional
descent is another argument against "Mughūl dynasty."
[1242] They went to Qandahār and there suffered great
privation.
[1243] Bārān seems likely to be the Baian of some maps.
Gul-i-bahār is higher up on the Panjhīr road. Chāsh-tūpa will
have been near-by; its name might mean _Hill of the heap of
winnowed-corn_.
[1244] f. 136.
[1245] Answer; Visions of his father's sway.
[1246] Elph. MS. f. 161; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 164 and 217 f.
139_b_; Mems. p. 220.
[1247] The narrative indicates the location of the tribe, the
modern Ghilzāī or Ghilzī.
[1248] Sih-kāna lies s.e. of Shorkach, and near Kharbīn.
Sar-i-dih is about 25 or 30 miles s. of Ghaznī (Erskine). A
name suiting the pastoral wealth of the tribe _viz._
Mesh-khail, Sheep-tribe, is shewn on maps somewhat s. from
Kharbīn. _Cf._ Steingass _s.n._ Masht.
[1249] _yāghrūn_, whence _yāghrūnchī_, a diviner by help of
the shoulder-blades of sheep. The defacer of the Elphinstone
Codex has changed _yāghrūn_ to _yān_, side, thus making Bābur
turn his side and not his half-back to the north, altering his
direction, and missing what looks like a jesting reference to
his own divination of the road. The Pole Star was seen,
presumably, before the night became quite black.
[1250] From the subsequent details of distance done, this must
have been one of those good _yīghāch_ of perhaps 5-6 miles,
that are estimated by the ease of travel on level lands (Index
_s.v._ _yīghāch_).
[1251] I am uncertain about the form of the word translated by
"whim". The Elph. and Ḥai. Codices read _khūd d:lma_ (altered
in the first to _y:lma_); Ilminsky (p. 257) reads _khūd l:ma_
(de C. ii, 2 and note); Erskine has been misled by the Persian
translation (215 f. 164_b_ and 217 f. 139_b_). Whether
_khūd-dilma_ should be read, with the sense of "out of their
own hearts" (spontaneously), or whether _khūd-yalma_, own pace
(Turkī, _yalma_, pace) the contrast made by Bābur appears to
be between an unpremeditated gallop and one premeditated for
haste. Persian _dalama_, tarantula, also suggests itself.
[1252] _chāpqūn_, which is the word translated by gallop
throughout the previous passage. The Turkī verb _chāpmāq_ is
one of those words-of-all-work for which it is difficult to
find a single English equivalent. The verb _qūīmāq_ is
another; in its two occurrences here the first may be a
metaphor from the pouring of molten metal; the second
expresses that permission to gallop off for the raid without
which to raid was forbidden. The root-notion of _qūīmāq_ seems
to be letting-go, that of _chāpmāq_, rapid motion.
[1253] _i.e._ on the raiders' own road for Kābul.
[1254] f. 198_b_.
[1255] The Fifth taken was manifestly at the ruler's
disposition. In at least two places when dependants send gifts
to Bābur the word [_tassaduq_] used might be rendered as
"gifts for the poor". Does this mean that the _pādshāh_ in
receiving this stands in the place of the Imām of the Qorān
injunction which orders one-fifth of spoil to be given to the
Imām for the poor, orphans, and travellers,—four-fifths being
reserved for the troops? (Qorān, Sale's ed. 1825, i, 212 and
Hidāyat, Book ix).
[1256] This may be the sum of the separate items of sheep
entered in account-books by the commissaries.
[1257] Here this comprehensive word will stand for deer, these
being plentiful in the region.
[1258] Three Turkī MSS. write _ṣīghīnīb_, but the Elph. MS.
has had this changed to _yītīb_, having reached.
[1259] _bāsh-sīz_, lit. without head, doubtless a pun on
Aūz-beg (own beg, leaderless). B.M. Or. 3714 shows an artist's
conception of this _tart-part_.
[1260] Bābā Khākī is a fine valley, some 13 _yīghāch_ e. of
Herī (f. 13) where the Herī sulṯāns reside in the heats (_J.
Asiatique_ xvi, 501, de Meynard's article; Ḥ.S. iii, 356).
[1261] f. 172_b_.
[1262] _aūkhshātā almādī._ This is one of many passages which
Ilminsky indicates he has made good by help of the Memoirs (p.
261; _Mémoires_ ii, 6).
[1263] They are given also on f. 172.
[1264] This may be Sirakhs or Sirakhsh (Erskine).
[1265] _Tūshlīq tūshdīn yūrdī bīrūrlār._ At least two meanings
can be given to these words. Circumstances seem to exclude the
one in which the Memoirs (p. 222) and _Mémoires_ (ii, 7) have
taken them here, _viz._ "each man went off to shift for
himself", and "chacun s'en alla de son côté et s'enfuit comme
il put", because Ẕū'n-nūn did not go off, and the Mīrzās broke
up after his defeat. I therefore suggest another reading, one
prompted by the Mīrzās' vague fancies and dreams of what they
might do, but did not.
[1266] The encounter was between "Belāq-i-marāl and
Rabāṯ-i-`alī-sher, near Bādghīs" (Raverty's _Notes_ p. 580).
For particulars of the taking of Herī _see_ Ḥ.S. iii, 353.
[1267] One may be the book-name, the second the name in common
use, and due to the colour of the buildings. But Bābur may be
making an ironical jest, and nickname the fort by a word
referring to the defilement (_ālā_) of Aūzbeg possession. (Cf.
Ḥ.S. iii, 359.)
[1268] Mr. Erskine notes that Badī`u'z-zamān took refuge with
Shāh Ismā`īl _Ṣafawī_ who gave him Tabrīz. When the Turkish
Emperor Sālim took Tabrīz in 920 AH. (1514 AD.), he was taken
prisoner and carried to Constantinople, where he died in 923
AH. (1517 AD.).
[1269] In the fort were his wife Kābulī Begīm, d. of Aūlūgh
Beg M. _Kābulī_ and Ruqaiya Āghā, known as the Nightingale. A
young daughter of the Mīrzā, named the Rose-bud (Chūchak), had
died just before the siege. After the surrender of the fort,
Kābulī Begīm was married by Mīrzā Kūkūldāsh (perhaps
`Āshiq-i-muḥammad _Arghūn_); Ruqaiya by Tīmūr Sl. _Aūzbeg_
(Ḥ.S. iii, 359).
[1270] The _Khuṯba_ was first read for Shaibāq Khān in Herī on
Friday Muḥarram 15th 913 AH. (May 27th 1507 AD.).
[1271] There is a Persian phrase used when a man engages in an
unprofitable undertaking _Kīr-i-khar gerift_, _i.e._ _Asini
nervum deprehendet_ (Erskine). The Ḥ.S. does not mention
Banā'i as fleecing the poets but has much to say about one
Maulānā `Abdu'r-raḥīm a Turkistānī favoured by Shaibānī, whose
victim Khwānd-amīr was, amongst many others. Not infrequently
where Bābur and Khwānd-amīr state the same fact, they
accompany it by varied details, as here (Ḥ.S. iii, 358, 360).
[1272] _`adat._ Muḥammadan Law fixes a term after widowhood or
divorce within which re-marriage is unlawful. Light is thrown
upon this re-marriage by Ḥ.S. iii, 359. The passage, a
somewhat rhetorical one, gives the following details:—"On
coming into Her[i.] on Muḥarram 11th, Shaibānī at once set
about gathering in the property of the Tīmūrids. He had the
wives and daughters of the former rulers brought before him.
The great lady Khān-zāda Begīm (f. 163_b_) who was daughter of
Aḥmad Khān, niece of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, and wife of Muz̤affar
Mīrzā, shewed herself pleased in his presence. Desiring to
marry him, she said Muz̤affar M. had divorced her two years
before. Trustworthy persons gave evidence to the same effect,
so she was united to Shaibānī in accordance with the glorious
Law. Mihr-angez Begīm, Muẓaffar M.'s daughter, was married to
`Ubaidu'llāh Sl. (_Aūzbeg_); the rest of the chaste ladies
having been sent back into the city, Shaibānī resumed his
search for property." Manifestly Bābur did not believe in the
divorce Khwānd-amīr thus records.
[1273] A sarcasm this on the acceptance of literary honour
from the illiterate.
[1274] f. 191 and note; Pul-i-sālār may be an irrigation-dam.
[1275] Qalāt-i-nādirī, the birth-place of Nādir Shāh, n. of
Mashhad and standing on very strong ground (Erskine).
[1276] This is likely to be the road passing through the
Carfax of Rabāṯ-i-sangbast, described by Daulat-shāh (Browne,
p. 176).
[1277] This will mean that the Arghūns would acknowledge his
suzerainty; Ḥaidar Mīrzā however says that Shāh Beg had higher
views (T. R. p. 202). There had been earlier negotiations
between Ẕū'n-nūn with Badī`u'z-zamān and Bābur which may have
led to the abandonment of Bābur's expedition in 911 AD. (f.
158; Ḥ.S. iii, 323; Raverty's account (_Notes_ p. 581-2) of
Bābur's dealings with the Arghūn chiefs needs revision).
[1278] They will have gone first to Tūn or Qāīn, thence to
Mashhad, and seem likely to have joined the Begīm after
cross-cutting to avoid Herī.
[1279] _yāghī wilāyatī-ghā kīlādūrghān._ There may have been
an accumulation of caravans on their way to Herāt, checked in
Qalāt by news of the Aūzbeg conquest.
[1280] Jahāngīr's son, thus brought by his mother, will have
been an infant; his father had gone back last year with Bābur
by the mountain road and had been left, sick and travelling in
a litter, with the baggage when Bābur hurried on to Kābul at
the news of the mutiny against him (f. 197); he must have died
shortly afterwards, seemingly between the departure of the two
rebels from Kābul (f. 201_b_-202) and the march out for
Qandahār. Doubtless his widow now brought her child to claim
his uncle Bābur's protection.
[1281] Persians pay great attention in their correspondence
not only to the style but to the kind of paper on which a
letter is written, the place of signature, the place of the
seal, and the situation of the address. Chardin gives some
curious information on the subject (Erskine). Bābur marks the
distinction of rank he drew between the Arghūn chiefs and
himself when he calls their letter to him, _`arẓ-dāsht_, his
to them _khat̤t̤_. His claim to suzerainty over those chiefs
is shewn by Ḥaidar Mīrzā to be based on his accession to
Tīmūrid headship through the downfall of the Bāī-qarās, who
had been the acknowledged suzerains of the Arghūns now
repudiating Bābur's claim. Cf. Erskine's _History of India_ i,
cap. 3.
[1282] on the main road, some 40 miles east of Qandahār.
[1283] var. Kūr or Kawar. If the word mean _ford_, this might
well be the one across the Tarnak carrying the road to Qarā
(maps). Here Bābur seems to have left the main road along the
Tarnak, by which the British approach was made in 1880 AD.,
for one crossing west into the valley of the Argand-āb.
[1284] Bābā Ḥasan _Abdāl_ is the Bābā Walī of maps. The same
saint has given his name here, and also to his shrine east of
Atak where he is known as Bābā Walī of Qandahār. The torrents
mentioned are irrigation off-takes from the Argand-āb, which
river flows between Bābā Walī and Khalishak. Shāh Beg's force
was south of the torrents (cf. Murghān-koh on S.A.W. map).
[1285] The narrative and plans of _Second Afghan War_ (Murray
1908) illustrate Bābur's movements and show most of the places
he names. The end of the 280 mile march, from Kābul to within
sight of Qandahār, will have stirred in the General of 1507
what it stirred in the General of 1880. Lord Roberts speaking
in May 1913 in Glasgow on the rapid progress of the movement
for National Service thus spoke:—"A memory comes over me which
turns misgiving into hope and apprehension into confidence. It
is the memory of the morning when, accompanied by two of
Scotland's most famous regiments, the Seaforths and the
Gordons, at the end of a long and arduous march, _I saw in the
distance the walls and minarets of Qandahar, and knew that the
end of a great resolve and a great task was near._"
[1286] _mīn tāsh `imārat qāzdūrghān tūmshūghī-nīng alīdā_; 215
f. l68_b_, _`imarātī kah az sang yak pāra farmūda būdīm_; 217
f. 143_b_, _jāy kah man `imāratī sākhtam_; Mems. p. 226, where
I have built a palace; _Méms._ ii, 15, _l'endroit même où j'ai
bâti un palais_. All the above translations lose the sense of
_qāzdūrghān_, am causing to dig out, to quarry stone. Perhaps
for coolness' sake the dwelling was cut out in the living
rock. That the place is south-west of the main _ạrīqs_, near
Murghān-koh or on it, Bābur's narrative allows. Cf. Appendix
J.
[1287] _sic_, Ḥai. MS. There are two Lakhshas, Little Lakhsha,
a mile west of Qandahār, and Great Lakhsha, about a mile s.w.
of Old Qandahār, 5 or 6 m. from the modern one (Erskine).
[1288] This will be the main irrigation channel taken off from
the Argand-āb (Maps).
[1289] _tamām aīlīkīdīn—aīsh-kīlūr yīkītlār_, an idiomatic
phrase used of `Alī-dost (f. 14_b_ and n.), not easy to
express by a single English adjective.
[1290] The _tawāchī_ was a sort of adjutant who attended to
the order of the troops and carried orders from the general
(Erskine). The difficult passage following gives the Turkī
terms Bābur selected to represent Arabic military ones.
[1291] Ar. _aḥad_ (_Āyīn-i-akbarī_, Blochmann, index _s.n._).
The word _būī_ recurs in the text on f. 210.
[1292] _i.e._ the _būī tīkīnī_ of f. 209_b_, the _khāṣa
tābīn_, close circle.
[1293] As Mughūls seem unlikely to be descendants of Muḥammad,
perhaps the title Sayyid in some Mughūl names here, may be a
translation of a Mughūl one meaning Chief.
[1294] _Arghūn-nīng qarāsī_, a frequent phrase.
[1295] in sign of submission.
[1296] f. 176. It was in 908 AH. [1502 AD.].
[1297] This word seems to be from _sānjmāq_, to prick or stab;
and here to have the military sense of _prick_, _viz._ riding
forth. The Second Pers. trs. (217 f. 144_b_) translates it by
_ghauta khūrda raft_, went tasting a plunge under water (215
f. 170; Muḥ. _Shīrāzī_'s lith. ed. p. 133). Erskine (p. 228),
as his Persian source dictates, makes the men sink into the
soft ground; de Courteille varies much (ii, 21).
[1298] Ar. _akhmail_, so translated under the known presence
of trees; it may also imply soft ground (Lane p. 813 col. b)
but soft ground does not suit the purpose of _arīqs_
(channels), the carrying on of water to the town.
[1299] The S.A.W. map is useful here.
[1300] That he had a following may be inferred.
[1301] Ḥai. MS. _qāchār_; Ilminsky, p. 268; and both Pers.
trss. _rukhsār_ or _rukhsāra_ (f. 25 and note to _qāchār_).
[1302] So in the Turkī MSS. and the first Pers. trs. (215 f.
170_b_). The second Pers. trs. (217 f. 145_b_) has a gloss of
_ātqū u tika_; this consequently Erskine follows (p. 229) and
adds a note explaining the punishment. Ilminsky has the gloss
also (p. 269), thus indicating Persian and English influence.
[1303] No MS. gives the missing name.
[1304] The later favour mentioned was due to Saṃbhal's
laborious release of his master from Aūzbeg captivity in 917
AH. (1511 AD.) of which Erskine quotes a full account from the
_Tārīkh-i-sind_ (History of India i, 345).
[1305] Presumably he went by Sabzār, Daulatābād, and Washīr.
[1306] f. 202 and note to _Chaghatāī_.
[1307] This will be for the Nīngnahār _tūmān_ of Lamghān.
[1308] He was thus dangerously raised in his father's place of
rule.
[1309] ff. 10_b_, 11_b_. Ḥaidar M. writes, "Shāh Begīm laid
claim to Badakhshān, saying, "It has been our hereditary
kingdom for 3000 years; though I, being a woman, cannot myself
attain sovereignty, yet my grandson Mīrzā Khān can hold it"
(T. R. p. 203).
[1310] _tībrādīlār._ The agitation of mind connoted, with
movement, by this verb may well have been, here, doubt of
Bābur's power to protect.
[1311] _tūshlūq tūshdīn tāghghā yūrūkāīlār._ Cf. 205_b_ for
the same phrase, with supposedly different meaning.
[1312] _qāngshār_ lit. ridge of the nose.
[1313] _bīr aūq ham qūīā-ālmādīlār_ (f. 203_b_ note to
_chāpqūn_).
[1314] This will have been news both of Shaibāq Khān and of
Mīrzā Khān. The Pers. trss. vary here (215 f. 173 and 217 f.
148).
[1315] Index _s.n._
[1316] Māh-chūchūk can hardly have been married against her
will to Qāsim. Her mother regarded the alliance as a family
indignity; appealed to Shāh Beg and compassed a rescue from
Kābul while Bābur and Qāsim were north of the Oxus [_circa_
916 AH.]. Māh-chūchūk quitted Kābul after much hesitation, due
partly to reluctance to leave her husband and her infant of 18
months, [Nāhīd Begīm,] partly to dread less family honour
might require her death (Erskine's _History_, i, 348 and
Gul-badan's _Humāyūn-nāma_).
[1317] Erskine gives the fort the alternative name "Kaliūn",
locates it in the Bādghīs district east of Herī, and quotes
from Abū'l-ghāzī in describing its strong position (_History_
i, 282). Ḥ.S. Tīrah-tū.
[1318] f. 133 and note. Abū'l-faẓl mentions that the
inscription was to be seen in his time.
[1319] This fief ranks in value next to the Kābul _tūmān_.
[1320] Various gleanings suggest motives for Bābur's assertion
of supremacy at this particular time. He was the only Tīmūrid
ruler and man of achievement; he filled Ḥusain _Bāī-qarā_'s
place of Tīmūrid headship; his actions through a long period
show that he aimed at filling Tīmūr Beg's. There were those
who did not admit his suzerainty,—Tīmūrids who had rebelled,
Mughūls who had helped them, and who would also have helped
Sa`īd Khān _Chaghatāī_, if he had not refused to be
treacherous to a benefactor; there were also the Arghūns,
Chīngīz-khānids of high pretensions. In old times the Mughūl
Khāqāns were _pādshāh_ (supreme); Pādshāh is recorded in
history as the style of at least Sātūq-būghra Khān Pādshāh
Ghāzī; no Tīmūrid had been lifted by his style above all
Mīrzās. When however Tīmūrids had the upper hand, Bābur's
Tīmūrid grandfather Abū-sa`īd asserted his _de facto_
supremacy over Bābur's Chaghatāī grandfather Yūnas (T. R. p.
83). For Bābur to re-assert that supremacy by assuming the
Khāqān's style was highly opportune at this moment. To be
Bābur Supreme was to declare over-lordship above Chaghatāī and
Mughūl, as well as over all Mīrzās. It was done when his sky
had cleared; Mīrzā Khān's rebellion was scotched; the Arghūns
were defeated; he was the stronger for their lost possessions;
his Aūzbeg foe had removed to a less ominous distance; and
Kābul was once more his own.
Gul-badan writes as if the birth of his first-born son Humāyūn
were a part of the uplift in her father's style, but his
narrative does not support her in this, since the order of
events forbids.
[1321] The "Khān" in Humāyūn's title may be drawn from his
mother's family, since it does not come from Bābur. To whose
family Māhīm belonged we have not been able to discover. It is
one of the remarkable omissions of Bābur, Gul-badan and
Abū'l-faẓl that they do not give her father's name. The topic
of her family is discussed in my Biographical Appendix to
Gul-badan's _Humāyūn-nāma_ and will be taken up again, here,
in a final Appendix on Bābur's family.
[1322] Elph. MS. f. 172_b_; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 174_b_ and 217
f. 148_b_; Mems. p. 234.
[1323] on the head-waters of the Tarnak (R.'s _Notes_ App. p.
34).
[1324] Bābur has made no direct mention of his half-brother's
death (f. 208 and n. to Mīrzā).
[1325] This may be Darwesh-i-`alī of f. 210; the Sayyid in his
title may merely mean chief, since he was a Mughūl.
[1326] Several of these mutineers had fought for Bābur at
Qandahār.
[1327] It may be useful to recapitulate this Mīrzā's
position:—In the previous year he had been left in charge of
Kābul when Bābur went eastward in dread of Shaibānī, and, so
left, occupied his hereditary place. He cannot have hoped to
hold Kābul if the Aūzbeg attacked it; for its safety and his
own he may have relied, and Bābur also in appointing him, upon
influence his Arghūn connections could use. For these, one was
Muqim his brother-in-law, had accepted Shaibānī's suzerainty
after being defeated in Qandahār by Bābur. It suited them
better no doubt to have the younger Mīrzā rather than Bābur in
Kābul; the latter's return thither will have disappointed them
and the Mīrzā; they, as will be instanced later, stood ready
to invade his lands when he moved East; they seem likely to
have promoted the present Mughūl uprising. In the battle which
put this down, the Mīrzā was captured; Bābur pardoned him; but
he having rebelled again, was then put to death.
[1328] Bāgh-i-yūrūnchqā may be an equivalent of Bāgh-i-safar,
and the place be one of waiting "up to" (_ūnchqā_) the journey
(_yūr_). _Yūrūnchqā_ also means _clover_ (De Courteille).
[1329] He seems to have been a brother or uncle of Humāyūn's
mother Māhīm (Index; A. N. trs. i, 492 and note).
[1330] In all MSS. the text breaks off abruptly here, as it
does on f. 118_b_ as though through loss of pages, and a blank
of narrative follows. Before the later gap of f. 251_b_
however the last sentence is complete.
[1331] Index _s. n. Bābur-nāma_, date of composition and gaps.
[1332] _ibid._
[1333] Jumāda I, 14th 968 AH.-Jan. 31st 1561 AD. Concerning
the book _see_ Elliot and Dowson's _History of India_ vi, 572
and JRAS 1901 p. 76, H. Beveridge's art. _On Persian MSS. in
Indian Libraries_.
[1334] The T. R. gives the names of two only of the champions
but Firishta, writing much later gives all five; we surmise
that he found his five in the book of which copies are not now
known, the _Tārīkh-i Muḥ. `Ārif Qandahārī_. Firishta's five
are `Ali _shab-kūr_ (night-blind), `Alī _Sīstānī_, Naẕar
Bahādur _Aūzbeg_, Ya`qūb _tez-jang_ (swift in fight), and
Aūzbeg Bahādur. Ḥaidar's two names vary in the MSS. of the T.
R. but represent the first two of Firishta's list.
[1335] There are curious differences of statement about the
date of Shaibānī's death, possibly through confusion between
this and the day on which preliminary fighting began near
Merv. Ḥaidar's way of expressing the date carries weight by
its precision, he giving _roz-i-shakk_ of Ramẓān, _i.e._ a day
of which there was doubt whether it was the last of Sha`bān or
the first of Ramẓān (Lane, _yauma'u'l-shakk_). As the sources
support Friday for the day of the week and on a Friday in the
year 915 AH. fell the 29th of Sha`bān, the date of Shaibānī's
death seems to be Friday Sha`bān 29th 915 AH. (Friday December
2nd 1510 AD.).
[1336] If my reading be correct of the Turkī passage
concerning wines drunk by Bābur which I have noted on f. 49
(_in loco_ p. 83 n. 1), it was during this occupation of Kābul
that Bābur first broke the Law against stimulants.
[1337] Mr. R. S. Poole found a coin which he took to be one
struck in obedience to Bābur's compact with the Shāh (B.M.Cat.
of the coins of Persian Shāhs 1887, pp. xxiv _et seq._; T.R.
p. 246 n.).
[1338] It was held by Aḥmad-i-qāsim _Kohbur_ and is referred
to on f. 234_b_, as one occasion of those in which Dost Beg
distinguished himself.
[1339] Schuyler's _Turkistān_ has a good account and picture
of the mosque. `Ubaid's vow is referred to in my earlier
mention of the _Sūlūku'l-mulūk_. It may be noted here that
this MS. supports the spelling _Bābur_ by making the second
syllable rhyme to _pūr_, as against the form _Bābar_.
[1340] _aūrūq._ Bābur refers to this exodus on f. 12_b_ when
writing of Daulat-sulṯān Khānīm.
[1341] It is one recorded with some variation, in Niyāz
Muḥammad _Khukandī's Tārīkh-i-shāhrukhī_ (Kazan, 1885) and
Nalivkine's _Khānate of Khokand_ (p. 63). It says that when
Bābur in 918 AH. (1512 AD.) left Samarkand after defeat by the
Aūzbegs, one of his wives, Sayyida Āfāq who accompanied him in
his flight, gave birth to a son in the desert which lies
between Khujand and Kand-i-badām; that Bābur, not daring to
tarry and the infant being too young to make the impending
journey, left it under some bushes with his own girdle round
it in which were things of price; that the child was found by
local people and in allusion to the valuables amongst which it
lay, called Altūn bīshik (golden cradle); that it received
other names and was best known in later life as Kḥudāyān
Sulṯān. He is said to have spent most of his life in Akhsī; to
have had a son Tīngrī-yār; and to have died in 952 AH. (1545
AD.). His grandson Yār-i-muḥammad is said to have gone to
India to relations who was descendants of Bābur (JASB 1905 p.
137 H. Beveridge's art. _The Emperor Bābur_). What is against
the truth of this tradition is that Gul-badan mentions no such
wife as Sayyida Āfāq. Māhīm however seems to have belonged to
a religious family, might therefore be styled Sayyida, and, as
Bābur mentions (f. 220), had several children who did not live
(a child left as this infant was, might if not heard of, be
supposed dead). There is this opening allowed for considering
the tradition.
[1342] Bābur refers to this on f. 265.
[1343] The _Lubbu't-tawārīkh_ would fix Ramẓān 7th.
[1344] Mr. Erskine's quotation of the Persian original of the
couplet differs from that which I have translated (_History of
India_ ii, 326; _Tārīkh-i-badāyūnī_ Bib. Ind. ed. f. 444).
Perhaps in the latter a pun is made on Najm as the leader's
name and as meaning _fortune_; if so it points the more
directly at the Shāh. The second line is quoted by Badāyūnī on
his f. 362 also.
[1345] Some translators make Bābur go "naked" into the fort
but, on his own authority (f. 106_b_), it seems safer to
understand what others say, that he went stripped of
attendance, because it was always his habit even in times of
peace to lie down in his tunic; much more would he have done
so at such a crisis of his affairs as this of his flight to
Ḥiṣār.
[1346] Ḥaidar gives a graphic account of the misconduct of the
horde and of their punishment (T.R. p. 261-3).
[1347] One of the mutineers named as in this affair (T.R. p.
257) was Sl. Qulī _chūnāq_, a circumstance attracting
attention by its bearing on the cause of the _lacunae_ in the
_Bābur-nāma_, inasmuch as Bābur, writing at the end of his
life, expresses (f. 65) his intention to tell of this man's
future misdeeds. These misdeeds may have been also at Ḥiṣār
and in the attack there made on Bābur; they are known from
Ḥaidar to have been done at Ghaznī; both times fall within
this present gap. Hence it is clear that Bābur meant to write
of the events falling in the gap of 914 AH. onwards.
[1348] In 925 AH. (ff. 227 and 238) mention is made of
courtesies exchanged between Bābur and Muḥammad-i-zamān in
Balkh. The Mīrzā was with Bābur later on in Hindūstān.
[1349] Mīr Ma`ṣūm's _Tārīkh-i-sind_ is the chief authority for
Bābur's action after 913 AH. against Shāh Beg in Qandahār; its
translation, made in 1846 by Major Malet, shews some
manifestly wrong dates; they appear also in the B. M. MS. of
the work.
[1350] f. 216_b_ and note to "Monday".
[1351] Elph. MS. f. 173_b_; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 178 and 217 f.
149; Mems. p. 246. The whole of the Ḥijra year is included in
1519 AD. (Erskine). What follows here and completes the Kābul
section of the _Bābur-nāma_ is a diary of a little over 13
months' length, supplemented by matter of later entry. The
product has the character of a draft, awaiting revision to
harmonize it in style and, partly, in topic with the composed
narrative that breaks off under 914 AH.; for the diary,
written some 11 years earlier than that composed narrative,
varies, as it would be expected _à priori_ to vary, in style
and topic from the terse, lucid and idiomatic output of
Bābur's literary maturity. A good many obscure words and
phrases in it, several new from Bābur's pen, have opposed
difficulty to scribes and translators. Interesting as such
_minutiae_ are to a close observer of Turkī and of Bābur's
diction, comment on all would be tedious; a few will be found
noted, as also will such details as fix the date of entry for
supplementary matter.
[1352] Here Mr. Erskine notes that Dr. Leyden's translation
begins again; it broke off on f. 180_b_, and finally ends on
f. 223_b_.
[1353] This name is often found transliterated as Chandul or
[mod.] Jandul but the Ḥai. MS. supports Raverty's opinion that
Chandāwal is correct.
The year 925 AH. opens with Bābur far from Kābul and east of
the Khahr (fort) he is about to attack. Afghān and other
sources allow surmise of his route to that position; he may
have come down into the Chandāwal-valley, first, from taking
Chaghān-sarāī (f. 124, f. 134 and n.), and, secondly, from
taking the Gibrī stronghold of Ḥaidar-i-`alī _Bajaurī_ which
stood at the head of the Bābā Qarā-valley. The latter surmise
is supported by the romantic tales of Afghān chroniclers which
at this date bring into history Bābur's Afghān wife, Bībī
Mubāraka (f. 220_b_ and note; Mems. p. 250 n.; and Appendix K,
_An Afghān legend_). (It must be observed here that R.'s
_Notes_ (pp. 117, 128) confuse the two sieges, _viz._ of the
Gibrī fort in 924 AH. and of the Khahr of Bajaur in 925 AH.)
[1354] Raverty lays stress on the circumstance that the fort
Bābur now attacks has never been known as Bajaur, but always
simply as Khahr, the fort (the Arabic name for the place
being, he says, plain _Shahr_); just as the main stream is
called simply Rūd (the torrent). The name Khahr is still used,
as modern maps shew. There are indeed two neighbouring places
known simply as Khahr (Fort), _i.e._ one at the mouth of the
"Mahmand-valley" of modern campaigns, the other near the
Malakand (Fincastle's map).
[1355] This word the Ḥai. MS. writes, _passim_, Dilah-zāk.
[1356] Either Ḥaidar-i-`alī himself or his nephew, the latter
more probably, since no name is mentioned.
[1357] Looking at the position assigned by maps to Khahr, in
the _dū-āb_ of the Charmanga-water and the Rūd of Bajaur, it
may be that Bābur's left moved along the east bank of the
first-named stream and crossed it into the _dū-āb_, while his
centre went direct to its post, along the west side of the
fort.
[1358] _sū-kīrīshī_; to interpret which needs local knowledge;
it might mean where water entered the fort, or where water
disembogued from narrows, or, perhaps, where water is entered
for a ford. (The verb _kīrmāk_ occurs on f. 154_b_ and f. 227
to describe water coming down in spate.)
[1359] _dīwānawār_, perhaps a jest on a sobriquet earned
before this exploit, perhaps the cause of the man's later
sobriquet _dīwāna_ (f. 245_b_).
[1360] Text, t:r:k, read by Erskine and de Courteille as Turk;
it might however be a Turkī component in Jān-i-`alī or
Muḥibb-i-`alī. (Cf. Zenker _s.n. tirik_.)
[1361] _aūshūl gūnī_, which contrasts with the frequent
_aūshbū gūnī_ (this same day, today) of manifestly diary
entries; it may indicate that the full account of the siege is
a later supplement.
[1362] This puzzling word might mean cow-horn (_kau-sarū_) and
stand for the common horn trumpet. Erskine and de Courteille
have read it as _gau-sar_, the first explaining it as
_cow-head_, surmised to be a protection for matchlockmen when
loading; the second, as _justaucorps de cuir_. That the word
is baffling is shewn by its omission in I.O. 215 (f. 178_b_),
in 217 (f. 149_b_) and in Muḥ. _Shīrāzī_'s lith. ed. (p. 137).
[1363] or _farangī._ Much has been written concerning the
early use of gun-powder in the East. There is, however, no
well-authenticated fact to prove the existence of anything
like artillery there, till it was introduced from Europe.
Bābur here, and in other places (f. 267) calls his larger
ordnance Firingī, a proof that they were then regarded as
owing their origin to Europe. The Turks, in consequence of
their constant intercourse with the nations of the West, have
always excelled all the other Orientals in the use of
artillery; and, when heavy cannon were first used in India,
Europeans or Turks were engaged to serve them (Erskine). It is
owing no doubt to the preceding gap in his writings that we
are deprived of Bābur's account of his own introduction to
fire-arms. _See_ E. & D.'s _History of India_, vi, Appendix
_On the early use of gunpowder in India_.
[1364] var. _quṯbī_, _qūchīnī_.
[1365] This sobriquet might mean "ever a fighter", or an
"argle-bargler", or a brass shilling (Zenker), or (if written
_jing-jing_) that the man was visaged like the bearded reeding
(Scully in Shaw's Vocabulary). The _T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_
includes a Mīrak Khān _Jang-jang_ in its list of Akbar's
Commanders.
[1366] _ghūl-dīn (awwal) aūl qūrghān-gha chīqtī._ I suggest to
supply _awwal_, first, on the warrant of Bābur's later
statement (f. 234_b_) that Dost was first in.
[1367] He was a son of Maulānā Muḥ. _Ṣadr_, one of the chief
men of `Umar-shaikh M.'s Court; he had six brothers, all of
whom spent their lives in Bābur's service, to whom, if we may
believe Abū'l-faẓl, they were distantly related (Erskine).
[1368] Bābur now returns towards the east, down the Rūd. The
_chashma_ by which he encamped, would seem to be near the
mouth of the valley of Bābā Qarā, one 30 miles long; it may
have been, anglicé, a spring [not that of the main stream of
the long valley], but the word may be used as it seems to be
of the water supplying the Bāgh-i-ṣafā (f. 224), _i.e._ to
denote the first considerable gathering-place of small
head-waters. It will be observed a few lines further on that
this same valley seems to be meant by "Khwāja Khiẓr".
[1369] He will have joined Bābur previous to Muḥarram 925 AH.
[1370] This statement, the first we have, that Bābur has
broken Musalmān Law against stimulants (f. 49 and n.), is
followed by many others more explicit, jotting down where and
what and sometimes why he drank, in a way which arrests
attention and asks some other explanation than that it is an
unabashed record of conviviality such conceivably as a
non-Musalmān might write. Bābur is now 37 years old; he had
obeyed the Law till past early manhood; he wished to return to
obedience at 40; he frequently mentions his lapses by a word
which can be translated as "commitment of sin" (_irtqāb_); one
gathers that he did not at any time disobey with easy
conscience. Does it explain his singular record,—one made in
what amongst ourselves would be regarded as a private
diary,—that his sins were created by Law? Had he a balance of
reparation in his thoughts?
Detaching into their separate class as excesses, all his
instances of confessed drunkenness, there remains much in his
record which, seen from a non-Musalmān point of view, is
venial; _e.g._ his _ṣubūhī_ appears to be the "morning" of the
Scot, the _Morgen-trank_ of the Teuton; his afternoon cup, in
the open air usually, may have been no worse than the sober
glass of beer or local wine of modern Continental Europe. Many
of these legal sins of his record were interludes in the day's
long ride, stirrup-cups some of them, all in a period of
strenuous physical activity. Many of his records are
collective and are phrased impersonally; they mention that
there was drinking, drunkenness even, but they give details
sometimes such as only a sober observer could include.
Bābur names a few men as drunkards, a few as entirely
obedient; most of his men seem not to have obeyed the Law and
may have been "temperate drinkers"; they effected work, Bābur
amongst them, which habitual drunkards could not have
compassed. Spite of all he writes of his worst excesses, it
must be just to remember his Musalmān conscience, and also the
distorting power of a fictitious sin. Though he broke the law
binding all men against excess, and this on several confessed
occasions, his rule may have been no worse than that of the
ordinarily temperate Western. It cannot but lighten judgment
that his recorded lapses from Law were often prompted by the
bounty and splendour of Nature; were committed amidst the
falling petals of fruit-blossom, the flaming fire of autumn
leaves, where the eye rested on the _arghwān_ or the orange
grove, the coloured harvest of corn or vine.
[1371] As Mr. Erskine observes, there seems to be no valley
except that of Bābā Qarā, between the Khahr and the
Chandāwal-valley; "Khwāja Khiẓr" and "Bābā Qarā" may be one
and the same valley.
[1372] Time and ingenuity would be needed to bring over into
English all the quips of this verse. The most obvious pun is,
of course, that on Bajaur as the compelling cause (_ba jaur_)
of the parting; others may be meant on _guzīd_ and _gazīd_, on
_sazīd_ and _chāra_. The verse would provide the holiday
amusement of extracting from it two justifiable translations.
[1373] His possessions extended from the river of Sawād to
Bāramūla; he was expelled from them by the Yūsuf-zāī
(Erskine).
[1374] This will be the naze of the n.e. rampart of the Bābā
Qarā valley.
[1375] f. 4 and note; f. 276. Bābur seems to use the name for
several varieties of deer.
[1376] There is here, perhaps, a jesting allusion to the
darkening of complexion amongst the inhabitants of countries
from west to east, from Highlands to Indian plains.
[1377] In Dr. E. D. Ross' _Polyglot list of birds_ the
_sārigh(sārīq)-qūsh_ is said to frequent fields of ripening
grain; this suggests to translate its name as Thief-bird.
[1378] _Aquila chrysaetus_, the hunting eagle.
[1379] This _ārālīgh_ might be identified with the "Miankalai"
of maps (since Soghd, lying between two arms of the Zar-afshān
is known also as Mīānkal), but Raverty explains the Bajaur
Miankalai to mean Village of the holy men (_mīān_).
[1380] After 933 AH. presumably, when final work on the B.N.
was in progress.
[1381] Mr. Erskine notes that Pesh-grām lies north of Mahyar
(on the Chandāwal-water), and that he has not found Kahrāj (or
Kohrāj). Judging from Bābur's next movements, the two valleys
he names may be those in succession east of Chandāwal.
[1382] There is hardly any level ground in the cleft of the
Panj-kūra (R.'s _Notes_ p. 193); the villages are perched high
on the sides of the valley. The pass leading to them may be
Katgola (Fincastle's Map).
[1383] This account of Hind-āl's adoption is sufficiently
confused to explain why a note, made apparently by Humāyūn,
should have been appended to it (Appendix L, _On Hind-āl's
adoption_). The confusion reminds the reader that he has
before him a sort of memorandum only, diary jottings, apt to
be allusive and abbreviated. The expected child was Dil-dār's;
Māhīm, using her right as principal wife, asked for it to be
given to her. That the babe in question is here called Hind-āl
shews that at least part of this account of his adoption was
added after the birth and naming (f. 227).
[1384] One would be, no doubt, for Dil-dār's own information.
She then had no son but had two daughters, Gul-rang and
Gul-chihra. News of Hind-āl's birth reached Bābur in Bhīra,
some six weeks later (f. 227).
[1385] f. 218_b_.
[1386] Bībī Mubāraka, the Afghānī Aghācha of Gul-badan. An
attractive picture of her is drawn by the
_Tāwārikh-i-ḥāfi-i-raḥmat-khānī_. As this gives not only one
of Bābur's romantic adventures but historical matter, I append
it in my husband's translation [(A.Q.R. April 1901)] as
Appendix K, _An Afghān Legend_.
[1387] _Bī-sūt aīlī-nīng Bajaur-qūrghānī-dā manāsabatī-bār
jīhatī_; a characteristic phrase.
[1388] Perhaps the end of the early spring-harvest and the
spring harvesting-year. It is not the end of the campaigning
year, manifestly; and it is at the beginning of both the solar
and lunar years.
[1389] Perhaps, more than half-way between the Mid-day and
Afternoon Prayers. So too in the annals of Feb. 12th.
[1390] _tīl ālghālī_ (Pers. _zabān-gīrī_), a new phrase in the
B.N.
[1391] _chāsht_, which, being half-way between sunrise and the
meridian, is a variable hour.
[1392] See n. 2, f. 221.
[1393] Perhaps Maqām is the Mardān of maps.
[1394] Bhīra, on the Jehlam, is now in the Shāhpūr district of
the Panj-āb.
[1395] This will be the ford on the direct road from Mardān
for the eastward (Elphin-stone's _Caubul_ ii, 416).
[1396] The position of Sawātī is represented by the Suābī of
the G. of I. map (1909 AD.). Writing in about 1813 AD. Mr.
Erskine notes as worthy of record that the rhinoceros was at
that date no longer found west of the Indus.
[1397] Elph. MS. _ghura_, the 1st, but this is corrected to
16th by a marginal note. The Ḥai. MS. here, as in some other
places, has the context for a number, but omits the figures.
So does also the Elph. MS. in a good many places.
[1398] This is the Harru. Mr. Erskine observes that Bābur
appears to have turned sharp south after crossing it, since he
ascended a pass so soon after leaving the Indus and reached
the Sūhān so soon.
[1399] _i.e._ the Salt-range.
[1400] Mr. Erskine notes that (in his day) a _shāhrukhī_ may
be taken at a shilling or eleven pence sterling.
[1401] It is somewhat difficult not to forget that a man who,
like Bābur, records so many observations of geographical
position, had no guidance from Surveys, Gazetteers and Books
of Travel. Most of his records are those of personal
observation.
[1402] In this sentence Mr. Erskine read a reference to the
Musalmān Ararat, the Koh-i-jūd on the left bank of the Tigris.
What I have set down translates the Turkī words but, taking
account of Bābur's eye for the double use of a word, and
Erskine's careful work, done too in India, the Turkī may imply
reference to the Ararat-like summit of Sakeswar.
[1403] Here Dr. Leyden's version finally ends (Erskine).
[1404] Bhīra, as has been noted, is on the Jehlam; Khūsh-āb is
40 m. lower down the same river; Chīnīūt (Chīnī-wat?) is 50
miles south of Bhīra; Chīn-āb (China-water?) seems the name of
a tract only and not of a residential centre; it will be in
the Bar of Kipling's border-thief. Concerning Chīnīūt _see_ D.
G. Barkley's letter, JRAS 1899 p. 132.
[1405] _ṯaur yīrī waqī` būlūb tūr._ As on f. 160 of the valley
of Khwesh, I have taken _ṯaur_ to be Turkī, complete, shut in.
[1406] _chashma_ (f. 218_b_ and note).
[1407] The promised description is not found; there follows a
mere mention only of the garden [f. 369]. This entry can be
taken therefore as shewing an intention to write what is still
wanting from Ṣafar 926 AH. to Ṣafar 932 AH.
[1408] Mīr Muḥ. may have been a kinsman or follower of Mahdī
Khwāja. The entry on the scene, unannounced by introduction as
to parentage, of the Khwāja who played a part later in Bābur's
family affairs is due, no doubt, to the last gap of annals. He
is mentioned in the Translator's Note, _s.a._ 923 AH. (_See_
Gul-badan's H.N. Biographical Appendix _s.n._)
[1409] or Sihrind, mod. Sirhind or Sar-i-hind (Head of Hind).
It may be noted here, for what it may be found worth, that
Kh(w)āfī Khān [i, 402] calls Sar-i-hind the old name, says
that the place was once held by the Ghaznī dynasty and was its
Indian frontier, and that Shāh-jahān changed it to Sahrind.
The W.-i-B. I.O. 217 f. 155 writes Shahrind.
[1410] Three krores or crores of dāms, at 40 to the rupee,
would make this 750,000 rupees, or about £75,000 sterling
(Erskine); a statement from the ancient history of the rupī!
[1411] This Hindustānī word in some districts signifies the
head man of a trade, in others a landholder (Erskine).
[1412] In Mr. Erskine's time this sum was reckoned to be
nearly £20,000.
[1413] Here originally neither the Elph. MS. nor the Ḥai. MS.
had a date; it has been added to the former.
[1414] This rain is too early for the s.w. monsoon; it was
probably a severe fall of spring rain, which prevails at this
season or rather earlier, and extends over all the west of
Asia (Erskine).
[1415] _az ghīna shor sū._ Streams rising in the Salt-range
become brackish on reaching its skirts (G. of I.).
[1416] Here this will be the fermented juice of rice or of the
date-palm.
[1417] _Rauḥ_ is sometimes the name of a musical note.
[1418] a platform, with or without a chamber above it, and
supported on four posts.
[1419] so-written in the MSS. Cf. Raverty's _Notes_ and G. of
I.
[1420] Anglicé, cousins on the father's side.
[1421] The G. of I. describes it.
[1422] Elph. MS. f. 183b, _manṣūb_; Ḥai. MS. and 2nd W.-i-B.
_bīsūt_. The holder might be Bābā-i-kābulī of f. 225.
[1423] The 1st Pers. trs. (I.O. 215 f. 188b) and Kehr's MS.
[Ilminsky p. 293] attribute Hātī's last-recorded acts to Bābur
himself. The two mistaken sources err together elsewhere. M.
de Courteille corrects the defect (ii, 67).
[1424] night-guard. He is the old servant to whom Bābur sent a
giant _ashrafī_ of the spoils of India (Gul-badan's H.N.
_s.n._).
[1425] The _kīping_ or _kīpik_ is a kind of mantle covered
with wool (Erskine); the root of the word is _kīp_, dry.
[1426] _aūlūgh chāsht_, a term suggesting that Bābur knew the
_chota ḥāẓirī_, little breakfast, of Anglo-India. It may be
inferred, from several passages, that the big breakfast was
taken after 9 a.m. and before 12 p.m. Just below men are said
to put on their mail at _chāsht_ in the same way as, _passim_,
things other than prayer are said to be done at this or that
Prayer; this, I think, always implies that they are done after
the Prayer mentioned; a thing done shortly before a Prayer is
done "close to" or "near" or when done over half-way to the
following Prayer, the act is said to be done "nearer" to the
second (as was noted on f. 221).
[1427] _Juldū Dost Beg-nīng ātī-gha būldī._
[1428] The disarray of these names in the MSS. reveals
confusion in their source. Similar verbal disarray occurs in
the latter part of f. 229.
[1429] Manifestly a pun is made on the guide's name and on the
_cap-à-pié_ robe of honour the offenders did not receive.
[1430] _aūrdū-nīng aldī-gha_, a novel phrase.
[1431] I understand that the servants had come to do their
equivalent for "kissing hands" on an appointment _viz._ to
kneel.
[1432] spikenard. Speede's _Indian Handbook on Gardening_
identifies _saṃbhal_ with _Valeriana jatmansi_ (Sir W. Jones &
Roxburgh); "it is the real spikenard of the ancients, highly
esteemed alike as a perfume and as a stimulant medicine;
native practitioners esteeming it valuable in hysteria and
epilepsy." Bābur's word _dirakht_ is somewhat large for the
plant.
[1433] It is not given, however.
[1434] _i.e._ through the Indus.
[1435] Perhaps this _aīkī-sū-ārāsī_ (_miyān-dū-āb_) was the
angle made by the Indus itself below Atak; perhaps one made by
the Indus and an affluent.
[1436] _ma'jūnī nāklīkī_, presumably under the tranquillity
induced by the drug.
[1437] _massadus_, the six sides of the world, _i.e._ all
sides.
[1438] This is the name of one of the five champions defeated
by Bābur in single combat in 914 AH. (Translator's Note _s.a._
914 AH.).
[1439] f. 145_b_.
[1440] Humāyūn was 12, Kāmrān younger; one surmises that Bābur
would have walked under the same circumstances.
[1441] _ṣabuḥī_, the morning-draught. In 1623 AD. Pietro della
Vallé took a _ṣabuḥī_ with Mr. Thomas Rastel, the head of the
merchants of Surat, which was of hot spiced wine and sipped in
the mornings to comfort the stomach (Hakluyt ed. p. 20).
[1442] f. 128 and note.
[1443] Anglicé, in the night preceding Tuesday.
[1444] f. 106b.
[1445] This would be the under-corselet to which the four
plates of mail were attached when mail was worn. Bābur in this
adventure wore no mail, not even his helm; on his head was the
under cap of the metal helm.
[1446] Index s.n. _gharīcha_.
[1447] The earlier account helps to make this one clearer (f.
106b).
[1448] f. 112 _et seq._
[1449] Catamite, mistakenly read as _khīz_ on f. 112b
(_Mémoires_ ii, 82).
[1450] He was acting for Bābur (Translator's Note _s.a._; Ḥ.S.
iii, 318; T.R. pp. 260, 270).
[1451] "Honoured," in this sentence, represents Bābur's
honorific plural.
[1452] in 921 AH. (Translator's Note _s.a._; T.R. p. 356).
[1453] _i.e._ Mīr Muḥammad son of Nāṣir.
[1454] _i.e._ after the dethronement of the Bāī-qarā family by
Shaibānī.
[1455] He had been one of rebels of 921 AH. (Translator's Note
_s.a._; T.R. p. 356).
[1456] f. 137.
[1457] This is the Adjutant-bird, Pīr-i-dang and Hargila
(Bone-swallower) of Hindūstān, a migrant through Kābul. The
fowlers who brought it would be the Multänīs of f. 142_b_.
[1458] f. 280.
[1459] _Memoirs_, p. 267, sycamore; _Mémoires_ ii, 84,
_saules_; f. 137.
[1460] Perhaps with his long coat out-spread.
[1461] The fortnight's gap of record, here ended, will be due
to illness.
[1462] f. 203_b_ and n. to _Khams_, the Fifth. _Taṣadduq_
occurs also on f. 238 denoting money sent to Bābur. Was it
sent to him as Pādshāh, as the Qorān commands the _Khams_ to
be sent to the Imām, for the poor, the traveller and the
orphan?
[1463] Rose-water, sherbet, a purgative; English, jalap,
julep.
[1464] Mr. Erskine understood Bābur to say that he never had
sat sober while others drank; but this does not agree with the
account of Harāt entertainments [912 AH.], or with the tenses
of the passage here. My impression is that he said in effect
"Every-one here shall not be deprived of their wine".
[1465] This verse, a difficult one to translate, may refer to
the unease removed from his attendants by Bābur's permission
to drink; the pun in it might also refer to _well_ and _not
well_.
[1466] Presumably to aid his recovery.
[1467] _aūtkān yīl_, perhaps in the last and unchronicled
year; perhaps in earlier ones. There are several references in
the B.N. to the enforced migrations and emigrations of tribes
into Kābul.
[1468] Pūlād (Steel) was a son of Kūchūm, the then Khāqān of
the Aūzbegs, and Mihr-bānū who may be Bābur's half-sister.
[Index _s.n._]
[1469] This may be written for Mihr-bānū, Pūlād's mother and
Bābur's half-sister (?) and a jest made on her heart as
Pūlād's and as steel to her brother. She had not left husband
and son when Bābur got the upper hand, as his half-sister
Yādgār-sulṯān did and other wives of capture _e.g._ Ḥaidar's
sister _Ḥabība_. Bābur's rhymes in this verse are not of his
later standard, _āī ṣubāḥ, kūnkūīkā, kūnkūlī-kā_.
[1470] _Taṣadduq_ sent to Bābur would seem an acknowledgment
of his suzerainty in Balkh [Index _s.n._].
[1471] This is the Gīrdīz-pass [Raverty's _Notes_, Route 101].
[1472] Raverty (p. 677) suggests that Pātakh stands for
_bātqāq_, a quagmire (f. 16 and n.).
[1473] the dark, or cloudy spring.
[1474] _yāqīsh-līq qūl_, an unusual phrase.
[1475] var. Karmān, Kurmāh, Karmās. M. de C. read Kīr-mās, the
impenetrable. The forms would give Garm-ās, hot embers.
[1476] _balafré_; marked on the face; of a horse, starred.
[1477] Raverty's _Notes_ (p. 457) give a full account of this
valley; in it are the head-waters of the Tochī and the Zurmut
stream; and in it R. locates Rustam's ancient Zābul.
[1478] It is on the Kābul side of the Gīrdīz-pass and stands
on the Luhugūr-water (Logar).
[1479] f. 143.
[1480] At this point of the text there occurs in the Elph. MS.
(f. 195_b_) a note, manifestly copied from one marginal in an
archetype, which states that what follows is copied from
Bābur's own MS. The note (and others) can be seen in JRAS 1905
p. 754 _et seq._
[1481] Masson, iii, 145.
[1482] A _qūlāch_ is from finger-tip to finger-tip of the
outstretched arms (Zenker p. 720 and _Méms._ ii, 98).
[1483] Neither _interne_ is said to have died!
[1484] f. 143.
[1485] or Atūn's-village, one granted to Bābur's mother's old
governess (f. 96); Gul-badan's guest-list has also an Atūn
Māmā.
[1486] f. 235_b_ and note.
[1487] _miswāk_; _On les tire principalement de l'arbuste
épineux appelé capparis-sodata_ (de C. ii, 101 n.).
[1488] Gul-badan's H.N. Index s.n.
[1489] This being Ramẓān, Bābur did not break his fast till
sun-set. In like manner, during Ramẓān they eat in the morning
before sun-rise (Erskine).
[1490] A result, doubtless, of the order mentioned on f.
240_b_.
[1491] Bābur's wife Gul-rukh appears to have been his sister
or niece; he was a Begchīk. Cf. Gul-badan's H.N. trs. p. 233,
p. 234; T.R. p. 264-5.
[1492] This remark bears on the question of whether we now
have all Bābur wrote of Autobiography. It refers to a date
falling within the previous gap, because the man went to
Kāshghar while Bābur was ruling in Samarkand (T.R. p. 265).
The last time Bābur came from Khwāst to Kābul was probably in
920 AH.; if later, it was still in the gap. But an alternative
explanation is that looking over and annotating the diary
section, Bābur made this reference to what he fully meant to
write but died before being able to do so.
[1493] Anglicé, the right thumb, on which the archer's ring
(_zih-gīr_) is worn.
[1494] a daughter of Yūnas Khān, Ḥaidar's account of whom is
worth seeing.
[1495] _i.e._ the water of Luhugūr (Logar). Tradition says
that Būt-khāk (Idol-dust) was so named because there Sl.
Maḥmūd of Ghaznī had idols, brought by him out of Hindūstān,
pounded to dust. Raverty says the place is probably the site
of an ancient temple (_vahāra_).
[1496] Qāsim Beg's son, come, no doubt, in obedience to the
order of f. 240_b_.
[1497] The `Īd-i-fitr is the festival at the conclusion of the
feast of Ramẓān, celebrated on seeing the new moon of Shawwāl
(Erskine).
[1498] f. 133_b_ and Appendix G, _On the names of the wines of
Nūr-valley_.
[1499] _i.e._ of the new moon of Shawwāl. The new moon having
been seen the evening before, which to Musalmāns was Monday
evening, they had celebrated the `Īd-i-fitr on Monday eve
(Erskine).
[1500] Dīwān of Hāfiẕ lith. ed. p. 22. The couplet seems to be
another message to a woman (f. 238); here it might be to Bībī
Mubāraka, still under Khwāja Kalān's charge in Bajaur (f.
221).
[1501] Here and under date Sep. 30th the wording allows a
ford.
[1502] This may be what Masson writes of (i, 149) "We reached
a spot where the water supplying the rivulet (of `Alī-masjid)
gushes in a large volume from the rocks to the left. I slaked
my thirst in the living spring and drank to repletion of the
delightfully cool and transparent water."
[1503] Mr. Erskine here notes, "This appears to be a mistake
or oversight of Bābur. The eve of `Arafa" (9th of Ẕū'l-ḥijja)
"was not till the evening of Dec. 2nd 1519. He probably meant
to say the `Id-i-fitr which had occurred only five days
before, on Sep. 26th."
[1504] This was an affair of frontiers (T.R. p. 354).
[1505] Manucci gives an account of the place (Irvine iv, 439
and ii, 447).
[1506] Sep. 8th to Oct. 9th.
[1507] _khūsh rang-i khizān._ Sometimes Bābur's praise of
autumn allows the word _khizān_ to mean the harvest-crops
themselves, sometimes the autumnal colouring.
[1508] This I have taken to mean the Kābul _tūmān_. The Ḥai.
MS. writes _wilāyatlār_ (plural) thus suggesting that _aūl_
(those) may be omitted, and those countries (Transoxiana) be
meant; but the second Pers. trs. (I.O. 217 f. 169) supports
_wilāyat_, Kābul.
[1509] joyous, happy.
[1510] _y:lk:rān._ This word has proved a difficulty to all
translators. I suggest that it stands for _aīlīkarān_, what
came to hand (_aīlīk see_ de C.'s Dict.); also that it
contains puns referring to the sheep taken from the road
(_yūlkarān_) and to the wine of the year's yield (_yīlkarān_).
The way-side meal was of what came to hand, mutton and wine,
probably local.
[1511] f. 141_b_.
[1512] f. 217 and n.
[1513] I think Bābur means that the customary announcement of
an envoy or guest must have reached Kābul in his absence.
[1514] He is in the T.R. list of the tribe (p. 307); to it
belonged Sl. Aḥmad _Taṃbal_ (_ib._ p. 316).
[1515] _Qābil-nīng kūrī-nīng qāshī-ka_, lit. to the presence
of the tomb of Qābil, _i.e._ Cain the eponymous hero of Kābul.
The Elph. MS. has been altered to "Qābil Beg"!
[1516] Mr. Erskine surmised that the line was from some
religious poem of mystical meaning and that its profane
application gave offence.
[1517] His sobriquet _khāksār_, one who sits in the dust,
suits the excavator of a _kārez_. Bābur's route can be
followed in Masson's (iii, 110), apparently to the very
_kārez_.
[1518] In Masson's time this place was celebrated for vinegar.
To reach it and return must have occupied several hours.
[1519] Kunos, _āq tūīgūn_, white falcon; _`Amal-i-ṣāliḥ_ (I.O.
MS. No. 857, f. 45_b_), _taus tūīghūn_.
[1520] f. 246.
[1521] Nawā'ī himself arranged them according to the periods
of his life (Rieu's Pers. Cat. p. 294).
[1522] Elph. MS. f. 202_b_; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 175
(misplaced) and 217 f. 172; Mems. p. 281.
[1523] _pushta aūstīda_; the Jūī-khwūsh of f. 137.
[1524] The Ḥai. MS. omits a passage here; the Elph. MS. reads
_Qāsim Bulbulī nīng awī_, thus making "nightingale" a
sobriquet of Qāsim's own. Erskine (p. 281) has "Bulbulī-hall";
Ilminsky's words translate as, the house of Sayyid Qāsim's
nightingale (p. 321).
[1525] or Dūr-namā'ī, seen from afar.
[1526] _narm-dīk_, the opposite of a _qātīq yāī_, a stiff bow.
Some MSS. write _lāzim-dīk_ which might be read to mean such a
bow as his disablement allowed to be used.
[1527] Mr. Erskine, writing early in the 19th century, notes
that this seems an easy tribute, about 400 _rupīs_ _i.e._ £40.
[1528] This is one of the three routes into Lamghān of f. 133.
[1529] f. 251_b_ and Appendix F, _On the name Dara-i-nūr_.
[1530] This passage will be the basis of the account on f.
143_b_ of the winter-supply of fish in Lamghān.
[1531] This word or name is puzzling. Avoiding extreme detail
as to variants, I suggest that it is Dāūr-bīn for Dūr-namā'ī
if a place-name; or, if not, _dūr-bīn_, foresight (in either
case the preposition requires to be supplied), and it may
refer to foreseen need of and curiosity about Kāfir wines.
[1532] _chīūrtika_ or _chīūr-i-tika_, whether _sauterelle_ as
M. de Courteille understood, or _jānwār-i-ranga_ and _chīkūr_,
partridge as the 1st Persian trs. and as Mr. Erskine
(explaining _chūr-i-tīka_) thought, must be left open. Two
points arise however, (1) the time is January, the place the
deadly Bād-i-pīch pass; would these suit locusts? (2) If
Bābur's account of a splendid bird (f. 135) were based on this
experience, this would be one of several occurrences in which
what is entered in the Description of Kābul of 910 AH. is
found as an experience in the diary of 925-6 AH.
[1533] Ḥai. MS. _maḥali-da maẕkūr būlghūsīdūr_, but W.-i-B.
I.O. 215 f. 176 for _maḥali-da_, in its place, has _dar
majlis_ [in the collection], which may point to an intended
collection of Bābur's musical compositions. Either reading
indicates intention to write what we now have not.
[1534] Perhaps an equivalent for _farẓ-waqt_, the time of the
first obligatory prayer. Much seems to happen before the sun
got up high!
[1535] Koh-i-nūr, Rocky-mountains (?). _See_ Appendix F, _On
the name Dara-i-nūr_.
[1536] Steingass gives _būza_ as made of rice, millet, or
barley.
[1537] Is this connected with Arabic _kīmiyā'_, alchemy,
chemistry?
[1538] Turkī, a whirlpool; but perhaps the name of an office
from _aīgar_, a saddle.
[1539] The river on which the rafts were used was the Kūnār,
from Chītrāl.
[1540] An uncertain name. I have an impression that these
waters are medicinal, but I cannot trace where I found the
information. The visit paid to them, and the arrangement made
for bathing set them apart. The name of the place may convey
this speciality.
[1541] _panāhī_, the word used for the hiding-places of
bird-catchers on f. 140.
[1542] This will be the basis of the details about fishing
given on f. 143 and f. 143_b_. The statement that particulars
have been given allows the inference that the diary was
annotated after the _Description of Kābul_, in which the
particulars are, was written.
[1543] _qānlīqlār._ This right of private revenge which forms
part of the law of most rude nations, exists in a mitigated
form under the Muhammadan law. The criminal is condemned by
the judge, but is delivered up to the relations of the person
murdered, to be ransomed or put to death as they think fit
(Erskine).
[1544] Here the text breaks off and a _lacuna_ separates the
diary of 11 months length which ends the Kābul section of the
_Bābur-nāma_ writings, from the annals of 932 AH. which begin
the Hindūstān section. There seems no reason why the diary
should have been discontinued.
[1545] Jan. 2nd 1520 to Nov. 17th 1525 AD. (Ṣafar 926 to Ṣafar
1st 932 AH.).
[1546] Index _s.nn._ Bāgh-i-ṣafā and B.N. _lacunae_.
[1547] Nominally Balkh seems to have been a Ṣafawī possession;
but it is made to seem closely dependent on Bābur by his
receipt from Muḥammad-i-zamān in it of _taṣadduq_ (money for
alms), and by his action connected with it (_q.v._).
[1548] _Tārīkh-i-sind_, Malet's trs. p. 77 and _in loco_, p.
365.
[1549] A chronogram given by Badāyūnī decides the vexed
question of the date of Sikandar _Lūdī's_
death—_Jannātu'l-firdūs nazlā_ = 923 (Bib. Ind. ed. i, 322,
Ranking trs. p. 425 n. 6). Erskine supported 924 AH. (i, 407),
partly relying on an entry in Bābur's diary (f. 226_b_) _s.d._
Rabī`u'l-awwal 1st 925 AH. (March 3rd 1519 AD.) which states
that on that day Mullā Murshid was sent to Ibrāhīm whose
father _Sikandar had died five or six months before_.
Against this is the circumstance that the entry about Mullā
Murshid is, perhaps entirely, certainly partly, of later entry
than what precedes and what follows it in the diary. This can
be seen on examination; it is a passage such as the diary
section shews in other places, added to the daily record and
giving this the character of a draft waiting for revision and
rewriting (fol. 216_b_ n.).
(To save difficulty to those who may refer to the L. & E.
_Memoirs_ on the point, I mention that the whole passage about
Mullā Murshid is displaced in that book and that the date
March 3rd is omitted.)
[1550] Shāl (the local name of English Quetta) was taken by
Ẕū'l-nūn in 884 AH. (1479 AD.); Sīwīstān Shāh Beg took, in
second capture, about 917 AH. (1511 AD.), from a colony of
Barlās Turks under Pīr Walī _Barlās_.
[1551] Was the attack made in reprisal for Shāh Beg's further
aggression on the Barlās lands and Bābur's hereditary
subjects? Had these appealed to the head of their tribe?
[1552] Le Messurier writes (_l.c._ p. 224) that at Old
Qandahār "many stone balls lay about, some with a diameter of
18 inches, others of 4 or 5, chiselled out of limestone. These
were said to have been used in sieges in the times of the
Arabs and propelled from a machine called _manjanic_ a sort of
balista or catapult." Meantime perhaps they served Bābur!
[1553] "Just then came a letter from Badakhshān saying, 'Mīrzā
Khān is dead; Mīrzā Sulaimān (his son) is young; the Aūzbegs
are near; take thought for this kingdom lest (which God
forbid) Badakhshān should be lost.' Mīrzā Sulaimān's mother
(Sulṯān-nigār Khānīm) had brought him to Kābul" (Gul-badan's
H. N. f. 8).
[1554] _infra_ and Appendix J.
[1555] E. & D.'s _History of India_, i. 312.
[1556] For accounts of the _Mubīn_, _Akbar-nāma_ Bib. Ind. ed.
i. 118, trs. H. Beveridge i. 278 note, Badāyūnī _ib._ i, 343,
trs. Ranking p. 450, Sprenger ZDMG. 1862, Teufel _ib._ 1883.
The _Akbar-nāma_ account appears in Turkī in the "Fragments"
associated with Kehr's transcript of the B.N. (JRAS. 1908, p.
76, A. S. B.'s art. _Bābur-nāma_). Bābur mentions the _Mubīn_
(f. 252_b_, f. 351_b_).
[1557] JRAS. 1901, _Persian MSS. in Indian Libraries_
(description of the Rāmpūr _Dīwān_); AQR. 1911, _Bābur's
Dīwān_ (_i.e._ the Rāmpūr _Dīwān_); and _Some verses of the
Emperor Bābur_ (the _Abūshqa_ quotations).
For Dr. E. D. Ross' Reproduction and account of the Rāmpūr
_Dīwān_, JASB. 1910.
[1558] "After him (Ibrāhīm) was Bābur King of Dihlī, who owed
his place to the Pathāns," writes the Afghān poet Khūsh-ḥāl
_Khattak_ (Afghān Poets of the XVII century, C. E. Biddulph,
p. 58).
[1559] The translation only has been available (E. & D.'s H.
of I., vol. 1).
[1560] The marriage is said to have been Kāmrān's (E. & D.'s
trs.).
[1561] Erskine calculated that `Ālam Khān was now well over 70
years of age (H. of I. i, 421 n.).
[1562] A. N. trs. H. Beveridge, i, 239.
[1563] The following old English reference to Isma`il's
appearance may be quoted as found in a corner somewhat
out-of-the-way from Oriental matters. In his essay on beauty
Lord Bacon writes when arguing against the theory that beauty
is usually not associated with highmindedness, "But this holds
not always; for Augustus Cæsar, Titus Vespasianus, Philip le
Bel of France, Edward the Fourth of England, Alcibiades of
Athens, Isma`il the Sophy (Ṣafawī) of Persia, were all high
and great spirits, and yet the most beautiful men of their
times."
[1564] Cf. _s.a._ 928 AH. for discussion of the year of death.
[1565] Elph. MS. f. 205_b_; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 199_b_ omits
the year's events on the ground that Shaikh Zain has
translated them; I.O. 217 f. 174; Mems. p. 290; Kehr's Codex
p. 1084.
A considerable amount of reliable textual material for
revising the Hindūstān section of the English translation of
the _Bābur-nāma_ is wanting through loss of pages from the
Elphinstone Codex; in one instance no less than an equivalent
of 36 folios of the Ḥaidarābād Codex are missing (f. 356 _et
seq._), but to set against this loss there is the valuable
_per contra_ that Kehr's manuscript throughout the section
becomes of substantial value, losing its Persified character
and approximating closely to the true text of the Elphinstone
and Ḥaidarābād Codices. Collateral help in revision is given
by the works specified (_in loco_ p. 428) as serving to fill
the gap existing in Bābur's narrative previous to 932 AH. and
this notably by those described by Elliot and Dowson. Of these
last, special help in supplementary details is given for 932
AH. and part of 933 AH. by Shaikh Zain [_Khawāfi_]'s
_T̤abaqāt-i-bāburī_, which is a highly rhetorical paraphrase
of Bābur's narrative, requiring familiarity with ornate
Persian to understand. For all my references to it, I am
indebted to my husband. It may be mentioned as an interesting
circumstance that the B.M. possesses in Or. 1999 a copy of
this work which was transcribed in 998 AH. by one of
Khwānd-amīr's grandsons and, judging from its date, presumably
for Abū'l-faẓl's use in the _Akbar-nāma_.
Like part of the Kābul section, the Hindūstān one is in
diary-form, but it is still more heavily surcharged with
matter entered at a date later than the diary. It departs from
the style of the preceding diary by an occasional lapse into
courtly phrase and by exchange of some Turkī words for Arabic
and Persian ones, doubtless found current in Hind, _e.g._
_fauj_, _dīra_, _manzil_, _khail-khāna_.
[1566] This is the Logar affluent of the Bārān-water
(Kābul-river). Masson describes this haltingplace (iii, 174).
[1567] _muḥaqqar saughāt u bīlāk or tīlāk._ A small verbal
point arises about _bīlāk_ (or _tīlāk_). _Bīlāk_ is said by
Quatremère to mean a gift (N. et E. xiv, 119 n.) but here
_muḥaqqar saughāt_ expresses gift. Another meaning can be
assigned to _bīlāk_ here, [one had also by _tīlāk_,] _viz._
that of word-of-mouth news or communication, sometimes
supplementing written communication, possibly secret
instructions, possibly small domestic details. In _bīlāk_, a
gift, the root may be _bīl_, the act of knowing, in _tīlāk_ it
is _tīl_, the act of speaking [whence _tīl_, the tongue, and
_tīl tūtmāk_, to get news]. In the sentence noted, either word
would suit for a verbal communication. Returning to _bīlāk_ as
a gift, it may express the _nuance_ of English _token_, the
maker-known of friendship, affection and so-on. This
differentiates _bīlāk_ from _saughāt_, used in its frequent
sense of ceremonial and diplomatic presents of value and
importance.
[1568] With Sa`īd at this time were two Khānīms Sulṯān-nigār
and Daulat-sulṯān who were Bābur's maternal-aunts. Erskine
suggested Khūb-nigār, but she had died in 907 AH. (f. 96).
[1569] Humāyūn's non-arrival would be the main cause of delay.
Apparently he should have joined before the Kābul force left
that town.
[1570] The halt would be at Būt-khāk, the last station before
the Adīnapūr road takes to the hills.
[1571] Discussing the value of coins mentioned by Bābur,
Erskine says in his _History of India_ (vol. i, Appendix E.)
which was published in 1854 AD. that he had come to think his
estimates of the value of the coins was set too low in the
_Memoirs_ (published in 1826 AD.). This sum of 20,000
_shāhrukhīs_ he put at £1000. Cf. E. Thomas' _Pathan Kings of
Dihli and Resources of the Mughal Empire_.
[1572] One of Masson's interesting details seems to fit the
next stage of Bābur's march (iii, 179). It is that after
leaving Būt-khāk, the road passes what in the thirties of the
19th Century, was locally known as Bābur Pādshāh's Stone-heap
(cairn) and believed piled in obedience to Bābur's order that
each man in his army should drop a stone on it in passing. No
time for raising such a monument could be fitter than that of
the fifth expedition into Hindūstān when a climax of
opportunity allowed hope of success.
[1573] _rezāndalīk._ This Erskine translates, both here and on
ff. 253, 254, by _defluxion_, but de Courteille by _rhume de
cerveau_. Shaikh Zain supports de Courteille by writing, not
_rezāndalīk_, but _nuzla_, catarrh. De Courteille, in
illustration of his reading of the word, quotes Burnes'
account of an affection common in the Panj-āb and there called
_nuzla_, which is a running at the nostrils, that wastes the
brain and stamina of the body and ends fatally (_Travels in
Bukhara_ ed. 1839, ii, 41).
[1574] Tramontana, north of Hindū-kush.
[1575] Shaikh Zain says that the drinking days were Saturday,
Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
[1576] The Elph. Codex (f. 208_b_) contains the following note
of Humāyūn's about his delay; it has been expunged from the
text but is still fairly legible:—"The time fixed was after
`Āshūrā (10th Muḥarram, a voluntary fast); although we arrived
after the next-following 10th (_`āshūr_, _i.e._ of Ṣafar), the
delay had been necessary. The purpose of the letters (Bābur's)
was to get information; (in reply) it was represented that the
equipment of the army of Badakhshān caused delay. If this
slave (Humāyūn), trusting to his [father's] kindness, caused
further delay, he has been sorry."
Bābur's march from the Bāgh-i-wafā was delayed about a month;
Humāyūn started late from Badakhshān; his force may have
needed some stay in Kābul for completion of equipment; his
personal share of blame for which he counted on his father's
forgiveness, is likely to have been connected with his
mother's presence in Kābul.
Humāyūn's note is quoted in Turkī by one MS. of the Persian
text (B.M. W.-i-B. 16,623 f. 128); and from certain
indications in Muḥammad _Shīrāzī_'s lithograph (p. 163),
appears to be in his archetype the Udaipūr Codex; but it is
not with all MSS. of the Persian text _e.g._ not with I.O. 217
and 218. A portion of it is in Kehr's MS. (p. 1086).
[1577] Bird's-dome [f. 145_b_, n.] or The pair (_qūsh_) of
domes.
[1578] _gūn khūd kīch būlūb aīdī_; a little joke perhaps at
the lateness both of the day and the army.
[1579] Shaikh Zain's maternal-uncle.
[1580] Shaikh Zain's useful detail that this man's pen-name
was Sharaf distinguishes him from Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ the author of
the _Shaibānī-nāma_.
[1581] _gosha_, angle (_cf._ _gosha-i-kār_, limits of work).
Parodies were to be made, having the same metre, rhyme, and
refrain as the model couplet.
[1582] I am unable to attach sense to Bābur's second line;
what is wanted is an illustration of two incompatible things.
Bābur's reflections [_infra_] condemned his verse. Shaikh Zain
describes the whole episode of the verse-making on the raft,
and goes on with, "He (Bābur) excised this choice couplet from
the pages of his Acts (_Wāqi`āt_) with the knife of censure,
and scratched it out from the tablets of his noble heart with
the finger-nails of repentance. I shall now give an account of
this spiritual matter" (_i.e._ the repentance), "by presenting
the recantations of his Solomon-like Majesty in his very own
words, which are weightier than any from the lips of Aesop."
Shaikh Zain next quotes the Turkī passage here translated in
_b. Mention of the Mubīn_.
[1583] The _Mubīn_ (_q.v._ Index) is mentioned again and
quoted on f. 351_b_. In both places its name escaped the
notice of Erskine and de Courteille, who here took it for
_mīn_, I, and on f. 351_b_ omitted it, matters of which the
obvious cause is that both translators were less familiar with
the poem than it is now easy to be. There is amplest textual
warrant for reading _Mubīn_ in both the places indicated
above; its reinstatement gives to the English and French
translations what they have needed, namely, the clinch of a
definite stimulus and date of repentance, which was the
influence of the Mubīn in 928 AH. (1521-2 AD.). The whole
passage about the peccant verse and its fruit of contrition
should be read with others that express the same regret for
broken law and may all have been added to the diary at the
same time, probably in 935 AH. (1529 AD.). They will be found
grouped in the Index _s.n._ Bābur.
[1584] _mūndīn būrūn_, by which I understand, as the
grammatical construction will warrant, _before writing the
Mubīn_. To read the words as referring to the peccant verse,
is to take the clinch off the whole passage.
[1585] _i.e._ of the _Qorān_ on which the _Mubīn_ is based.
[1586] Dropping down-stream, with wine and good company, he
entirely forgot his good resolutions.
[1587] This appears to refer to the good thoughts embodied in
the _Mubīn_.
[1588] This appears to contrast with the "sublime realities"
of the _Qorān_.
[1589] In view of the interest of the passage, and because
this verse is not in the Rāmpūr _Dīwān_, as are many contained
in the Hindūstān section, the Turkī original is quoted. My
translation differs from those of Mr. Erskine and M. de
Courteille; all three are tentative of a somewhat difficult
verse.
_Nī qīlā mīn sīnīng bīla āī tīl?
Jihatīng dīn mīnīng aīchīm qān dūr.
Nīcha yakhshī dīsāng bū hazl aīla shi`r
Bīrī-sī faḥash ū bīrī yālghān dūr.
Gar dīsāng kūīmā mīn, bū jazm bīla
Jalāu'īngnī bū `arṣa dīn yān dūr._
[1590] The Qorān puts these sayings into the mouths of Adam
and Eve.
[1591] Ḥai. MS. _tīndūrūb_; Ilminsky, p. 327, _yāndūrūb_;
W.-i-B. I.O. 217, f. 175, _sard sākhta_.
[1592] Of `Alī-masjid the _Second Afghān War_ (official
account) has a picture which might be taken from Bābur's camp.
[1593] Shaikh Zain's list of the drinking-days (f. 252 note)
explains why sometimes Bābur says he preferred _ma`jūn_. In
the instances I have noticed, he does this on a drinking-day;
the preference will be therefore for a confection over wine.
December 9th was a Saturday and drinking-day; on it he
mentions the preference; Tuesday Nov. 21st was a drinking day,
and he states that he ate _ma`jūn_.
[1594] presumably the _karg-khāna_ of f. 222_b_,
rhinoceros-home in both places. A similar name applies to a
tract in the Rawalpindi District,—Bābur-khāna, Tiger-home,
which is linked to the tradition of Buddha's self-sacrifice to
appease the hunger of seven tiger-cubs. [In this Bābur-khāna
is the town Kacha-kot from which Bābur always names the river
Hārū.]
[1595] This is the first time on an outward march that Bābur
has crossed the Indus by boat; hitherto he has used the ford
above Attock, once however specifying that men on foot were
put over on rafts.
[1596] f. 253.
[1597] In my Translator's Note (p. 428), attention was drawn
to the circumstance that Bābur always writes Daulat Khān
_Yūsuf-khail_, and not Daulat Khān _Lūdī_. In doing this, he
uses the family- or clan-name instead of the tribal one,
_Lūdī_.
[1598] _i.e._ day by day.
[1599] _daryā_, which Bābur's precise use of words _e.g._ of
_daryā_, _rūd_, and _sū_, allows to apply here to the Indus
only.
[1600] Presumably this was near Parhāla, which stands, where
the Sūhān river quits the hills, at the eastern entrance of a
wild and rocky gorge a mile in length. It will have been up
this gorge that Bābur approached Parhāla in 925 AH.
(Rawalpindi Gazetteer p. 11).
[1601] _i.e._ here, bed of a mountain-stream.
[1602] The Elphinstone Codex here preserves the following
note, the authorship of which is attested by the scribe's
remark that it is copied from the handwriting of Humāyūn
Pādshāh:—As my honoured father writes, we did not know until
we occupied Hindūstān (932 AH.), but afterwards did know, that
ice does form here and there if there come a colder year. This
was markedly so in the year I conquered Gujrāt (942 AH.-1535
AD.) when it was so cold for two or three days between Bhūlpūr
and Guālīār that the waters were frozen over a hand's
thickness.
[1603] This is a Kakar (Gakkhar) clan, known also as
Baragowah, of which the location in Jahāngīr Pādshāh's time
was from Rohtās to Hātya, _i.e._ about where Bābur encamped
(_Memoirs of Jahāngīr_, Rogers and Beveridge, p. 97; E. and D.
vi, 309; Provincial Gazetteers of Rawalpindi and Jihlam, p. 64
and p. 97 respectively).
[1604] _āndīn aūtūb_, a reference perhaps to going out beyond
the corn-lands, perhaps to attempt for more than provisions.
[1605] _qūsh-āt_, a led horse to ride in change.
[1606] According to Shaikh Zain it was in this year that Bābur
made Buhlūlpūr a royal domain (B.M. Add. 26,202 f. 16), but
this does not agree with Bābur's explanation that he visited
the place because it was _khalṣa_. Its name suggests that it
had belonged to Buhlūl _Lūdī_; Bābur may have taken it in 930
AH. when he captured Sīālkot. It never received the population
of Sīālkot, as Bābur had planned it should do because
pond-water was drunk in the latter town and was a source of
disease. The words in which Bābur describes its situation are
those he uses of Akhsī (f. 4_b_); not improbably a resemblance
inclined his liking towards Buhlūlpūr. (It may be noted that
this Buhlūlpūr is mentioned in the _Āyīn-i-akbarī_ and marked
on large maps, but is not found in the G. of I. 1907.)
[1607] Both names are thus spelled in the _Bābur-nāma_. In
view of the inclination of Turkī to long vowels, Bābur's short
one in Jat may be worth consideration since modern usage of
Jat and Jāt varies. Mr. Crooke writes the full vowel, and
mentions that Jāts are Hindūs, Sikhs, and Muḥammadans (_Tribes
and Castes of the North-western Provinces and Oude_, iii, 38).
On this point and on the orthography of the name, Erskine's
note (_Memoirs_ p. 294) is as follows: "The Jets or Jats are
the Muḥammadan peasantry of the Panj-āb, the bank of the
Indus, Sīwīstān _etc._ and must not be confounded with the
Jāts, a powerful Hindū tribe to the west of the Jamna, about
Agra _etc._ and which occupies a subordinate position in the
country of the Rājpūts."
[1608] The following section contains a later addition to the
diary summarizing the action of `Ālam Khān before and after
Bābur heard of the defeat from the trader he mentions. It
refutes an opinion found here and there in European writings
that Bābur used and threw over `Ālam Khān. It and Bābur's
further narrative shew that `Ālam Khān had little valid
backing in Hindūstān, that he contributed nothing to Bābur's
success, and that no abstention by Bābur from attack on
Ibrāhīm would have set `Ālam Khān on the throne of Dihlī. It
and other records, Bābur's and those of Afghān chroniclers,
allow it to be said that if `Ālam Khān had been strong enough
to accomplish his share of the compact that he should take and
should rule Dihlī, Bābur would have kept to his share, namely,
would have maintained supremacy in the Panj-āb. He advanced
against Ibrāhīm only when `Ālam Khān had totally failed in
arms and in securing adherence.
[1609] This objurgation on over-rapid marching looks like the
echo of complaint made to Bābur by men of his own whom he had
given to `Ālam Khān in Kābul.
[1610] Maḥmūd himself may have inherited his father's title
Khān-i-jahān but a little further on he is specifically
mentioned as the son of Khān-i-jahān, presumably because his
father had been a more notable man than he was. Of his tribe
it may be noted that the Ḥaidarābād MS. uniformly writes
Nuḥānī and not Luḥānī as is usual in European writings, and
that it does so even when, as on f. 149_b_, the word is
applied to a trader. Concerning the tribe, family, or caste
_vide_ G. of I. _s.n._ Lohānas and Crooke _l.c._ _s.n._
Pathān, para. 21.
[1611] _i.e._ west of Dihlī territory, the Panj-āb.
[1612] He was of the Farmul family of which Bābur says (f.
139_b_) that it was in high favour in Hindūstān under the
Afghāns and of which the author of the _Wāqi`āt-i-mushtāqī_
says that it held half the lands of Dihlī in _jāgīr_ (E. and
D. iv, 547).
[1613] Presumably he could not cut off supplies.
[1614] The only word similar to this that I have found is one
"Jaghat" said to mean serpent and to be the name of a Hindū
sub-caste of Nats (Crooke, iv, 72 & 73). The word here might
be a nick-name. Bābur writes it as two words.
[1615] _khaṣa-khail_, presumably members of the Sāhū-khail
(family) of the Lūdī tribe of the Afghān race.
[1616] Erskine suggested that this man was a rich banker, but
he might well be the Farmulī Shaikh-zāda of f. 256_b_, in view
of the exchange Afghān historians make of the Farmulī title
Shaikh for Mīān (_Tārīkh-i-sher-shāhī_, E. & D. iv, 347 and
_Tārīkh-i-daudī_ ib. 457).
[1617] This Biban, or Bīban, as Bābur always calls him without
title, is Malik Biban _Jilwānī_. He was associated with Shaikh
Bāyazīd _Farmulī_ or, as Afghān writers style him, Mīān
Bāyazīd _Farmulī_. (Another of his names was Mīān Biban, son
of Mīān Āṭā _Sāhū-khail_ (E. & D. iv, 347).)
[1618] This name occurs so frequently in and about the Panj-āb
as to suggest that it means a fort (Ar. _maluẕat_?). This one
in the Siwāliks was founded by Tātār Khān _Yūsuf-khail_
(_Lūdī_) in the time of Buhlūl _Lūdī_ (E. and D. iv, 415).
[1619] In the Beth Jalandhar _dū-āb_.
[1620] _i.e._ on the Siwāliks, here locally known as Katār
Dhār.
[1621] Presumably they were from the Hazāra district east of
the Indus. The _T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_ mentions that this
detachment was acting under Khalīfa apart from Bābur and
marching through the skirt-hills (lith. ed. p. 182).
[1622] _dūn_, f. 260 and note.
[1623] These were both refugees from Harāt.
[1624] Sarkār of Baṭāla, in the Bārī _dū-āb_ (A.-i-A. Jarrett,
p. 110).