[2126] _qīlūrlār aīkān dūr._ This presumptive past tense is

frequently used by the cautious Bābur. I quote it here and in

a few places near-following because it supports Shaw's

statement that in it the use of _aīkān_ (_īkān_) reduces the

positive affirmation of the perfect to presumption or rumour.

With this statement all grammarians are not agreed; it is

fully supported by the _Bābur-nāma_.

[2127] Contrast here is suggested between Sulṯāns of Dihlī &

Hind; is it between the greater Turks with whom Bābur classes

himself immediately below as a conqueror of Hind, and the Lūdī

Sulṯāns of Dihlī?

[2128] The strength of the Tijāra hills towards Dihlī is

historical (Powlett _l.c._ p. 132).

[2129] This is one of the names of the principal river which

flows eastwards to the south of Alwar town; other names are

Bārah and Rūparel. Powlett notes that it appears in Thorn's

Map of the battle of Laswarree (1803 AD.), which he reproduces

on p. 146. But it is still current in Gurgaon, with also a

variant Mānas-le, man-killer (_G. of Gurgaon_ 1910 AD. ivA,

p.6).

[2130] _aūltūrūrlār aīkān dūr_, the presumptive past tense.

[2131] f.308.

[2132] _qīlghān aīkān dūr_, the presumptive past tense.

[2133] _Sulṯān ātīghā juldū būlūb_; Pers. trs. _Juldū ba nām-i

Sulṯān shud_. The _juldū_ guerdon seems to be apart from the

fief and allowance.

[2134] f. 315.

[2135] Bābur does not record this detail (f. 315).

[2136] f. 298_b_ and f. 328_b_. Ja`far is mentioned as Mahdī's

son by Gul-badan and in the _Ḥabību's-siyar_ iii, 311, 312.

[2137] f. 388_b_.

[2138] The town of Fīrūzpūr is commonly known as

Fīrūzpūr-jhirka (Fīrūzpūr of the spring), from a small

perennial stream which issues from a number of fissures in the

rocks bordering the road through a pass in the Mīwāt hills

which leads from the town _viâ_ Tijāra to Rewārī (_G. of

Gurgaon_, p. 249). In Abū'l-faẓl's day there was a Hindū

shrine of Mahadeo near the spring, which is still a place of

annual pilgrimage. The Kūtila lake is called Kotla-_jhil_ in

the _G. of G._ (p. 7). It extends now 3 m. by 2-1/2 m. varying

in size with the season; in Abū'l-faẓl's day it was 4 _kos_ (8

m.) round. It lies partly in the district of Nūh, partly in

Gurgaon, where the two tracts join at the foot of the Alwar

hills.

[2139] This is the frequently mentioned size for reservoirs;

the measure here is probably the _qārī_, _cir._ a yard.

[2140] Bābur does not state it as a fact known to himself that

the Mānas-nī falls into the Kūtila lake; it did so formerly,

but now does not, tradition assigning a cause for the change

(_G. of G._ p. 6). He uses the hear-say tense, _kīrār aīmīsh_.

[2141] Kharī and Toda were in Akbar's _sarkār_ of Rantaṃbhor.

[2142] Bhosāwar is in Bhurtpūr, and Chausa (or Jūsa) may be

the Chausath of the _Āyīn-i-akbarī_, ii, 183.

[2143] As has been noted frequently, this phrase stands for

artificial water-courses.

[2144] Certainly Trans-Hindū-kush lands; presumably also those

of Trans-Indus, Kābul in chief.

[2145] _aūstī_; perhaps the reservoir was so built as to

contain the bubbling spring.

[2146] _Chūn jā'ī khẉush karda ām._

[2147] f. 315.

[2148] var. Janwār (Jarrett). It is 25 m. east of Āgra on the

Muttra-Etāwa road (_G. of I._).

[2149] _kūcha-band_, perhaps a barricade at the limit of a

suburban lane.

[2150] This has been mentioned already (f. 327).

[2151] f. 315.

[2152] _i.e._ those professedly held for Bābur.

[2153] Or, according to local pronunciation, Badāyūn.

[2154] This is the old name of Shāhābād in Rāmpūr (_G. of I._

xxii, 197). The _A.-i-A._ locates it in Saṃbal. Cf. E. and

D.'s _History of India_, iv, 384 n. and v. 215 n.

[2155] Perhaps the one in Sītapūr.

[2156] f. 305_b_.

[2157] As the Elphinstone Codex which is the treasure-house of

Humāyūn's notes, has a long _lacuna_ into which this episode

falls, it is not known if the culprit entered in his copy of

the _Bābur-nāma_ a marginal excuse for his misconduct (cf. f.

252 and n.); such excuse was likely to be that he knew he

would be forgiven by his clement father.

[2158] f. 305_b_.

[2159] Kāmrān would be in Qandahār. Erskine notes that the sum

sent to him would be about £750, but that if the coins were

rūpīs, it would be £30,000.

[2160] _qiṯa`_, for account of which form of poem _see_

Blochmann's translations of Saifī's and Jāmī's _Prosody_, p.

86.

[2161] _Rāmpūr Dīwān_ (E. D. Ross' ed. p. 16 and Plate 14_a_).

I am uncertain as to the meaning of ll. 4 and 10. I am not

sure that what in most MSS. ends line 4, _viz._ _aūl dam_,

should not be read as _aūlūm_, death; this is allowed by Plate

14a where for space the word is divided and may be _aūlūm_. To

read _aūlūm_ and that the deserters fled from the death in

Hind they were anxious about, has an answering phrase in "we

still are alive". Ll. 9 and 10 perhaps mean that in the things

named all have done alike. [Ilminsky reads _khāir nafsī_ for

the elsewhere _ḥaz̤z̤-nafsī_.]

[2162] These are 20 attitudes (_rak`ah_) assumed in prayer

during Ramẓān after the Bed-time Prayer. The ablution

(_ghusl_) is the bathing of the whole body for ceremonial

purification.

[2163] This Feast is the `Id-i-fiṯṛ, held at the breaking of

the Ramẓān Fast on the 1st of Shawwāl.

[2164] Erskine notes that this is the earliest mention of

playing-cards he can recall in oriental literature.

[2165] f. 339_b_.

[2166] The two varieties mentioned by Bābur seem to be

_Diospyrus melanoxylon_, the wood of which is called _tindu

abnūs_ in Hindūstānī, and _D. tomentosa_, Hindi, _tindu_

(Brandis _s.nn._). Bārī is 19 m. west of Dūlpūr.

[2167] _mī`ād_, perhaps the time at which the Shaikh was to

appear before Bābur.

[2168] The Pers. trs. makes the more definite statement that

what had to be read was a Section of the Qoran (_wird_). This

was done with remedial aim for the illness.

[2169] As this statement needs comment, and as it is linked to

matters mentioned in the _Rāmpūr Dīwān_, it seems better to

remit remarks upon it to Appendix Q, _Some matters concerning

the Rāmpūr Dīwān_.

[2170] _risāla._ _See_ Appendix Q.

[2171] Elph. MS. _lacuna_; I.O. 215 _lacuna_ and 217 f. 229;

Mems. p. 373. This year's narrative resumes the diary form.

[2172] There is some uncertainty about these names and also as

to which adversary crossed the river. The sentence which, I

think, shews, by its plural verb, that Humāyūn left two men

and, by its co-ordinate participles, that it was they crossed

the river, is as follows:—(Darwīsh and Yūsuf, understood)

_Quṯb Sīrwānī-nī u bīr pāra rājalār-nī bīr daryā aūtūb

aūrūshūb yakshī bāsīb tūrlār_. _Aūtūb_, _aūrūshūb_ and _bāsīb_

are grammatically referable to the same subject, [whatever was

the fact about the crossing].

[2173] _bīr daryā_; W.-i-B. 217 f. 229, _yak daryā_, one

river, but many MSS. _har daryā_, every river. If it did not

seem pretty certain that the rebels were not in the

Miyān-dū-āb one would surmise the river to be "one river" of

the two enclosing the tract "between the waters", and that one

to be the Ganges. It may be one near Saṃbhal, east of the

Ganges.

[2174] var. Shīrwānī. The place giving the cognomen may be

Sarwān, a _thakurāt_ of the Mālwā Agency (_G. of I._). Quṯb of

Sīrwān may be the Quṯb Khān of earlier mention without the

cognomen.

[2175] n.w. of Aligarh (Kūl). It may be noted here, where

instances begin to be frequent, that my translation "we

marched" is an evasion of the Turkī impersonal "it was

marched". Most rarely does Bābur write "we marched", never, "I

marched."

[2176] in the Aligarh (Kūl) district; it is the Sikandara Rao

of the _A.-i-A._ and the _G. of I._

[2177] _Rāmpūr Dīwān_ (E. D. Ross' ed., p. 19, Plate 16_b_).

This _Dīwān_ contains other quatrains which, judging from

their contents, may well be those Bābur speaks of as also

composed in Saṃbal. _See_ Appendix Q, _Some matters concerning

the Rāmpūr Dīwān_.

[2178] These are aunts of Bābur, daughters of Sl. Abū-sa`īd

_Mīrān-shāhī_.

[2179] Sikandarābād is in the Buland-shahr district of the

United Provinces.

[2180] It is not clear whether Bābur returned from Sīkrī on

the day he started for Jalīsīr; no question of distance would

prevent him from making the two journeys on the Monday.

[2181] As this was the rendezvous for the army, it would be

convenient if it lay between Āgra and Anwār; as it was 6 m.

from Āgra, the only mapped place having approximately the name

Jalīsīr, _viz._ Jalesar, in Etah, seems too far away.

[2182] Anwār would be suitably the Unwāra of the _Indian

Atlas_, which is on the first important southward dip of the

Jumna below Āgra. Chandwār is 25 m. east of Āgra, on the

Muttra-Etāwah road (_G. of I._); Jarrett notes that

Tiefenthaler identifies it with Fīrūzābād (_A.-i-A._ ii, 183

n.).

[2183] In the district of Kālpī. The name does not appear in

maps I have seen.

[2184] _āghā_, Anglicé, uncle. He was Sa`īd Khān of Kāshghar.

Ḥaidar M. says Bābā Sl. was a spoiled child and died without

mending his ways.

[2185] From Kālpī Bābur will have taken the road to the s.w.

near which now runs the Cawnpur (Kānhpūr) branch of the Indian

Midland Railway, and he must have crossed the Betwa to reach

Īrij (Irich, _Indian Atlas_, Sheet 69 N.W.).

[2186] Leaving Īrij, Bābur will have recrossed the Betwa and

have left its valley to go west to Bāndīr (Bhander) on the

Pahūj (_Indian Atlas_, Sheet 69 S.W.).

[2187] beneficent, or Muḥassan, comely.

[2188] The one man of this name mentioned in the _B.N._ is an

amīr of Sl. Ḥusain _Bāī-qarā_.

[2189] It seems safe to take Kachwa [Kajwa] as the Kajwarra of

Ibn Batūta, and the Kadwāha (Kadwaia) of the _Indian Atlas_,

Sheet 52 N.E. and of Luard's _Gazetteer_ _of Gwalior_ (i,

247), which is situated in 24° 58' N. and 77° 57' E. Each of

the three names is of a place standing on a lake; Ibn Batūta's

lake was a league (4 m.) long, Bābur's about 11 miles round;

Luard mentions no lake, but the _Indian Atlas_ marks one quite

close to Kadwāha of such form as to seem to have a tongue of

land jutting into it from the north-west, and thus suiting

Bābur's description of the site of Kachwa. Again,—Ibn Batūta

writes of Kajwarra as having, round its lake, idol-temples;

Luard says of Kadwāha that it has four idol-temples standing

and nine in ruins; there may be hinted something special about

Bābur's Kachwa by his remark that he encouraged its people,

and this speciality may be interaction between Muḥammadanism

and Hindūism serving here for the purpose of identification.

For Ibn Batūta writes of the people of Kajwarra that they were

_jogīs_, yellowed by asceticism, wearing their hair long and

matted, and having Muḥammadan followers who desired to learn

their (occult?) secrets. If the same interaction existed in

Bābur's day, the Muḥammadan following of the Hindū ascetics

may well have been the special circumstance which led him to

promise protection to those Hindūs, even when he was out for

Holy-war. It has to be remembered of Chandīrī, the nearest

powerful neighbour of Kadwāha, that though Bābur's capture

makes a vivid picture of Hindūism in it, it had been under

Muḥammadan rulers down to a relatively short time before his

conquest. The _jogīs_ of Kachwa could point to long-standing

relations of tolerance by the Chandīrī Governors; this, with

their Muḥammadan following, explains the encouragement Bābur

gave them, and helps to identify Kachwa with Kajarra. It may

be observed that Bābur was familiar with the interaction of

the two creeds, witness his "apostates", mostly Muḥammadans

following Hindū customs, witness too, for the persistent fact,

the reports of District-officers under the British _Rāj_.

Again,—a further circumstance helping to identify Kajwarra,

Kachwa and Kadwāha is that these are names of the last

important station the traveller and the soldier, as well

perhaps as the modern wayfarer, stays in before reaching

Chandīrī. The importance of Kajwarra is shewn by Ibn Batūta,

and of Kadwāha by its being a _maḥāll_ in Akbar's _sarkār_ of

Bāyawān of the _ṣūba_ of Āgra. Again,—Kadwāha is the place

nearest to Chandīrī about which Bābur's difficulties as to

intermediate road and jungle would arise. That intermediate

road takes off the main one a little south of Kadwāha and runs

through what looks like a narrow valley and broken country

down to Bhamor, Bhurānpūr and Chandīrī. Again,—no bar to

identification of the three names is placed by their

differences of form, in consideration of the vicissitudes they

have weathered in tongue, script, and transliteration. There

is some ground, I believe, for surmising that their common

source is _kajūr_, the date-fruit. [I am indebted to my

husband for the help derived from Ibn Batūta, traced by him in

Sanguinetti's trs. iv, 33, and S. Lee's trs. p. 162.]

(Two places similar in name to Kachwa, and situated on Bābur's

route _viz._ Kocha near Jhansi, and Kuchoowa north of Kadwāha

(Sheet 69 S.W.) are unsuitable for his "Kachwa", the first

because too near Bandīr to suit his itinerary, the second

because too far from the turn off the main-road mentioned

above, because it has no lake, and has not the help in

identification detailed above of Kadwāha.)

[2190] _qūrūghīr_ which could mean also _reserved_ (from the

water?).

[2191] _qāzān._ There seems to have been one only; how few

Bābur had is shewn again on f. 337.

[2192] _Indian Atlas_, Sheet 52 N.E. near a tributary of the

Betwa, the Or, which appears to be Bābur's Burhānpūr-water.

[2193] The bed of the Betwa opposite Chandīrī is 1050 ft.

above the sea; the walled-town (_qūrghān_) of Chandīrī is on a

table-land 250 ft. higher, and its citadel is 230 ft. higher

again (Cunningham's _Archeological Survey Report_, 1871 A.D.

ii, 404).

[2194] The plan of Chandīrī illustrating Cunningham's Report

(_see_ last note) allows surmise about the road taken by

Bābur, surmise which could become knowledge if the names of

tanks he gives were still known. The courtesy of the

Government of India allows me to reproduce that plan [Appendix

R, _Chandīrī_ and _Gwālīāwar]_.

[2195] He is said to have been Governor of Chandīrī in 1513

AD.

[2196] Here and in similar passages the word _m:ljār_ or

_m:lchār_ is found in MSS. where the meaning is that of T.

_būljār_. It is not in any dictionary I have seen; Mr. Irvine

found it "obscure" and surmised it to mean "approach by

trenches", but this does not suit its uses in the _Bābur-nāma_

of a military post, and a rendezvous. This surmise,

containing, as it does, a notion of protection, links _m:ljār_

in sense with Ar. _malja'_. The word needs expert

consideration, in order to decide whether it is to be received

into dictionaries, or to be rejected because explicable as the

outcome of unfamiliarity in Persian scribes with T. _būljār_

or, _more Persico_ with narrowed vowels, _bŭljăr_. Shaw in his

Vocabulary enters _būljāq_ (_būljār_?), "a station for troops,

a rendezvous, see _malja'_," thus indicating, it would seem,

that he was aware of difficulty about _m:ljār_ and _būljāq_

(_būljār_?). There appears no doubt of the existence of a

Turkī word _būljār_ with the meanings Shaw gives to _būljāq_;

it could well be formed from the root _būl_, being, whence

follows, being in a place, posted. _Maljā_ has the meaning of

a standing-place, as well as those of a refuge and an asylum;

both meanings seem combined in the _m:ljār_ of f. 336_b_,

where for matchlockmen a _m:ljār_ was ordered "raised". (Cf.

Irvine's _Army of the Indian Moghuls_ p. 278.)

[2197] _yāghdā_; Pers. trs. _sar-āshīb_. Bābur's remark seems

to show that for effect his mortar needed to be higher than

its object. Presumably it stood on the table-land north of the

citadel.

[2198] _shātū._ It may be noted that this word, common in

accounts of Bābur's sieges, may explain one our friend the

late Mr. William Irvine left undecided (_l.c._ p. 278), _viz._

_shāṯūr_. On p. 281 he states that _nardubān_ is the name of a

scaling-ladder and that Bābur mentions scaling ladders more

than once. Bābur mentions them however always as _shātū_.

Perhaps _shāṯūr_ which, as Mr. Irvine says, seems to be made

of the trunks of trees and to be a siege appliance, is really

_shātū u_ ... (ladder and ...) as in the passage under note

and on f. 216_b_, some other name of an appliance following.

[2199] The word here preceding _tūra_ has puzzled scribes and

translators. I have seen the following variants in

MSS.;—_nūkrī_ or _tūkrī_, _b:krī_ or _y:krī_, _būkrī_ or

_yūkrī_, _būkrāī_ or _yūkrāī_, in each of which the _k_ may

stand for _g_. Various suggestions might be made as to what

the word is, but all involve reading the Persian enclitic _ī_

(forming the adjective) instead of Turkī _līk_. Two roots,

_tīg_ and _yūg_, afford plausible explanations of the unknown

word; appliances suiting the case and able to bear names

formed from one or other of these roots are _wheeled

mantelet_, and _head-strike_ (P. _sar-kob_). That the word is

difficult is shewn not only by the variants I have quoted, but

by Erskine's reading _naukarī tūra_, "to serve the _tūras_," a

requisite not specified earlier by Bābur, and by de

Courteille's paraphrase, _tout ce qui est nécessaire aux

touras_.

[2200] Sl. Nāṣiru'd-dīn was the Khīljī ruler of Mālwā from 906

to 916 A.H. (1500-1510 AD.).

[2201] He was a Rājpūt who had been prime-minister of Sl.

Maḥmūd II. _Khīljī_ (son of Nāṣīru'd-dīn) and had rebelled.

Bābur (like some other writers) spells his name Mindnī,

perhaps as he heard it spoken.

[2202] Presumably the one in the United Provinces. For

Shamsābād in Gūālīār _see_ Luard _l.c._ i, 286.

[2203] _chīqtī_; Pers. trs. _bar āmad_ and, also in some MSS.

_namī bar āmad_; Mems. p. 376, "averse to conciliation";

_Méms._ ii, 329, "_s'élevèrent contre cette proposition_." So

far I have not found Bābur using the verb _chīqmāq_

metaphorically. It is his frequent verb to express "getting

away", "going out of a fort". It would be a short step in

metaphor to understand here that Medinī's men "got out of it",

_i.e._ what Bābur offered. They may have left the fort also;

if so, it would be through dissent.

[2204] f. 332.

[2205] I.O. 217, f. 231, inserts here what seems a gloss, "_Tā

īn jā Farsī farmūda_" (_gufta_, said). As Bābur enters his

speech in Persian, it is manifest that he used Persian to

conceal the bad news.

[2206] The _Illustrated London News_ of July 10th, 1915 (on

which day this note is written), has an àpropos picture of an

ancient fortress-gun, with its stone-ammunition, taken by the

Allies in a Dardanelles fort.

[2207] The _dū-tahī_ is the _āb-duzd_, water-thief, of f. 67.

Its position can be surmised from Cunningham's Plan [Appendix

R].

[2208] For Bābur's use of hand (_qūl_) as a military term

_see_ f. 209.

[2209] His full designation would be Shāh Muḥammad _yūz-begī_.

[2210] This will be flight from the ramparts to other places

in the fort.

[2211] Bābur's account of the siege of Chandīrī is incomplete,

inasmuch as it says nothing of the general massacre of pagans

he has mentioned on f. 272. Khẉāfī Khān records the massacre,

saying, that after the fort was surrendered, as was done on

condition of safety for the garrison, from 3 to 4000 pagans

were put to death by Bābur's troops on account of hostility

shewn during the evacuation of the fort. The time assigned to

the massacre is previous to the _jūhar_ of 1000 women and

children and the self-slaughter of men in Medinī Rāo's house,

in which he himself died. It is not easy to fit the two

accounts in; this might be done, however, by supposing that a

folio of Bābur's MS. was lost, as others seem lost at the end

of the narrative of this year's events (_q.v._). The lost

folio would tell of the surrender, one clearly affecting the

mass of Rājpūt followers and not the chiefs who stood for

victory or death and who may have made sacrifice to honour

after hearing of the surrender. Bābur's narrative in this part

certainly reads less consecutive than is usual with him;

something preceding his account of the _jūhar_ would improve

it, and would serve another purpose also, since mention of the

surrender would fix a term ending the now too short time of

under one hour he assigns as the duration of the fighting. If

a surrender had been mentioned, it would be clear that his "2

or 3 _garīs_" included the attacking and taking of the

_dū-tahī_ and down to the retreat of the Rājpūts from the

walls. On this Bābur's narrative of the unavailing sacrifice

of the chiefs would follow in due order. Khẉāfī Khān is more

circumstantial than Firishta who says nothing of surrender or

massacre, but states that 6000 men were killed fighting.

Khẉāfī Khān's authorities may throw light on the matter, which

so far does not hang well together in any narrative, Bābur's,

Firishta's, or Khẉāfī Khān's. One would like to know what led

such a large body of Rājpūts to surrender so quickly; had they

been all through in favour of accepting terms? One wonders,

again, why from 3 to 4000 Rājpūts did not put up a better

resistance to massacre. Perhaps their assailants were Turks,

stubborn fighters down to 1915 AD.

[2212] For suggestion about the brevity of this period, _see_

last note.

[2213] Clearly, without Bābur's taking part in the fighting.

[2214] These words by _abjad_ make 934. The Ḥai. MS.

mistakenly writes _Būd Chandīrī_ in the first line of the

quatrain instead of _Būd chandī_. Khẉāfī Khān quotes the

quatrain with slight variants.

[2215] _Chandīrī ṯaurī wilāyat_ (_dā_?) _wāqī` būlūb tūr_,

which seems to need _dā_, in, because the fort, and not the

country, is described. Or there may be an omission _e.g._ of a

second sentence about the walled-town (fort).

[2216] This is the "Kirat-sagar" of Cunningham's Plan of

Chandīrī; it is mentioned under this name by Luard (_l.c._ i,

210). "Kirat" represents Kirtī or Kirit Sīngh who ruled in

Gūālīār from 1455 to 1479 AD., there also making a tank

(Luard, _l.c._ i, 232).

[2217] For illustrative photographs _see_ Luard, _l.c._ vol.

i, part iv.

[2218] I have taken this sentence to apply to the location of

the tanks, but with some doubt; they are on the table-land.

[2219] Bābur appears to have written Betwī, this form being in

MSS. I have read the name to be that of the river Betwa which

is at a considerable distance from the fort. But some writers

dispraise its waters where Bābur praises.

[2220] T. _qīā_ means a slope or slant; here it may describe

tilted _strata_, such as would provide slabs for roofing and

split easily for building purposes. (_See_ next note.)

[2221] _`imārat qīlmāq munāsib_. This has been read to mean

that the _qīālar_ provide good sites (Mems. & _Méms._), but

position, distance from the protection of the fort, and the

merit of local stone for building incline me to read the words

quoted above as referring to the convenient lie of the stone

for building purposes. (_See_ preceding note.)

[2222] _Chandīrī-dā judai (jady)-nīng irtiqā`ī yīgīrma-bīsh

darja dūr_; Erskine, p. 378, Chanderi is situated in the 25th

degree of N. latitude; de Courteille, ii, 334, _La hauteur du

Capricorne à Tchanderi est de 25 degrées_. The latitude of

Chandīrī, it may be noted, is 24° 43'. It does not appear to

me indisputable that what Bābur says here is a statement of

latitude. The word _judai_ (or _jady_) means both Pole-star

and the Sign Capricorn. M. de Courteille translates the quoted

sentence as I have done, but with Capricorn for Pole-star. My

acquaintance with such expressions in French does not allow me

to know whether his words are a statement of latitude. It

occurs to me against this being so, that Bābur uses other

words when he gives the latitude of Samarkand (f. 44_b_); and

also that he has shewn attention to the Pole-star as a guide

on a journey (f. 203, where he uses the more common word

_Quṯb_). Perhaps he notes its lower altitude when he is far

south, in the way he noted the first rise of Canopus to his

view (f. 125).

[2223] Mallū Khān was a noble of Mālwā, who became ruler of

Mālwā in 1532 or 1533 AD. [?], under the style of Qādir Shāh.

[2224] _i.e._ paid direct to the royal treasury.

[2225] This is the one concerning which bad news reached Bābur

just before Chandīrī was taken.

[2226] This presumably is the place offered to Medinī Rāo (f.

333_b_), and Bikramājīt (f. 343).

[2227] Obviously for the bridge.

[2228] _m:ljār_ (_see_ f. 333 n.). Here the word would mean

befittingly a protected standing-place, a refuge, such as

matchlockmen used (f. 217 and Index _s.n._ _arāba_).

[2229] _sīghīrūrdī_, a vowel-variant, perhaps, of

_sūghūrūrdī_.

[2230] f. 331_b_. This passage shews that Bābur's mortars were

few.

[2231] _nufūr qūl-lār-dīn ham karka bīla rah rawā kīshī u āt

aītīlār_, a difficult sentence.

[2232] _Afghānlār kūprūk bāghlāmāq-nī istib`ād qīlīb tamaskhur

qīlūrlār aīkāndūr._ The ridicule will have been at slow

progress, not at the bridge-making itself, since

pontoon-bridges were common (Irvine's _Army of the Indian

Moghuls_).

[2233] _tūīlāb_; Pers. trs. _uftān u khezān_, limping, or

falling and rising, a translation raising doubt, because such

a mode of progression could hardly have allowed escape from

pursuers.

[2234] Anglicé, on Friday night.

[2235] According to the Persian calendar, New-year's-day is

that on which the Sun enters Aries.

[2236] so-spelled in the Ḥai. MS.; by de Courteille

Banguermādū; the two forms may represent the same one of the

Arabic script.

[2237] or Gūī, from the context clearly the Gumti. Jarrett

gives Godi as a name of the Gumti; Gūī and Godī may be the

same word in the Arabic script.

[2238] Some MSS. read that there was not much pain.

[2239] I take this to be the Kali-Sarda-Chauka affluent of the

Gogra and not its Sarju or Saru one. To so take it seems

warranted by the context; there could be no need for the fords

on the Sarju to be examined, and its position is not suitable.

[2240] Unfortunately no record of the hunting-expedition

survives.

[2241] One historian, Aḥmad-i-yādgār states in his

_Tārīkh-i-salāṯīn-i-afāghina_ that Bābur went to Lāhor

immediately after his capture of Chandīrī, and on his return

journey to Āgra suppressed in the Panj-āb a rising of the

Mundāhar (or, Mandhar) Rājpūts. His date is discredited by

Bābur's existing narrative of 934 AH. as also by the absence

in 935 AH. of allusion to either episode. My husband who has

considered the matter, advises me that the Lāhor visit may

have been made in 936 or early in 937 AH. [These are a period

of which the record is lost or, less probably, was not

written.]

[2242] Elph. MS. f. 262; I. O. 215 f. 207b and 217 f. 234_b_;

_Mems._ p. 382. Here the Elphinstone MS. recommences after a

_lacuna_ extending from Ḥai. MS. f. 312_b_.

[2243] _See_ Appendix S:—_Concerning the dating of_ 935 AH.

[2244] `Askarī was now about 12 years old. He was succeeded in

Multān by his elder brother Kāmrān, transferred from Qandahār

[Index; JRAS. 1908 p. 829 para. (1)]. This transfer, it is

safe to say, was due to Bābur's resolve to keep Kābul in his

own hands, a resolve which his letters to Humāyūn (f. 348), to

Kāmrān (f. 359), and to Khwāja Kalān (f. 359) attest, as well

as do the movements of his family at this time. What would

make the stronger government of Kāmrān seem now more "for the

good of Multān" than that of the child `Askarī are the Bīlūchī

incursions, mentioned somewhat later (f. 355_b_) as having

then occurred more than once.

[2245] This will be his own house in the

Garden-of-eight-paradises, the Chār-bāgh begun in 932 AH.

(August 1526 AD.).

[2246] To this name Khwānd-amīr adds Aḥmadu'l-ḥaqīrī, perhaps

a pen-name; he also quotes verses of Shihāb's

(_Ḥabību's-siyar_ lith. ed. iii, 350).

[2247] Khwānd-amīr's account of his going into Hindūstān is

that he left his "dear home" (Herāt) for Qandahār in

mid-Shawwāl 933 AH. (mid-July 1527 AD.); that on Jumāda I.

10th 934 AH. (Feb. 1st 1528 AD.) he set out from Qandahār on

the hazardous journey into Hindūstān; and that owing to the

distance, heat, setting-in of the Rains, and breadth of rapid

rivers, he was seven months on the way. He mentions no

fellow-travellers, but he gives as the day of his arrival in

Āgra the one on which Bābur says he presented himself at

Court. (For an account of annoyances and misfortunes to which

he was subjected under Aūzbeg rule in Herāt _see Journal des

Savans_, July 1843, pp. 389, 393, Quatremère's art.)

[2248] Concerning Gūālīār _see_ Cunningham's _Archeological

Survey Reports_ vol. ii; Louis Rousselet's _L'Inde des Rajas_;

Lepel Griffin's _Famous Monuments of Central India_,

especially for its photographs; _Gazetteer of India_; Luard's

_Gazetteer of Gwalior_, text and photographs; _Travels of

Peter Mundy_, Hakluyt Society ed. R. C. Temple, ii, 61,

especially for its picture of the fort and note (p. 62)

enumerating early writers on Gūālīār. Of Persian books there

is Jalāl _Ḥiṣārī's Tārīkh-i-Gwālīāwar_ (B.M. Add. 16,859) and

Hirāman's (B.M. Add. 16,709) unacknowledged version of it,

which is of the B.M. MSS. the more legible.

[2249] Perhaps this stands for Gwālīāwar, the form seeming to

be used by Jalāl _Ḥiṣārī_, and having good traditional support

(Cunningham p. 373 and Luard p. 228).

[2250] _tūshlānīb_, _i.e._ they took rest and food together at

mid-day.

[2251] This seems to be the conjoined Gambhīr and Bāngānga

which is crossed by the Āgra-Dhūlpūr road (_G. of I._ Atlas,

Sheet 34).

[2252] _aīchtūq_, the plural of which shews that more than one

partook of the powders (_safūf_).

[2253] T. _tālqān_, Hindī _sattu_ (Shaw). M. de Courteille's

variant translation may be due to his reading for _tālqān_,

_tālghāq_, _flot_, _agitation_ (his Dict. _s.n._) and _yīl_,

wind, for _bīla_, with.

[2254] in 933 AH. f. 330_b_.

[2255] "Each beaked promontory" (Lycidas). Our name

"Selsey-bill" is an English instance of Bābur's (not

infrequent) _tūmshūq_, beak, bill of a bird.

[2256] No order about this Chār-bāgh is in existing annals of

934 AH. Such order is likely to have been given after Bābur's

return from his operations against the Afghāns, in his account

of which the annals of 934 AH. break off.

[2257] The fort-hill at the northern end is 300 ft. high, at

the southern end, 274 ft.; its length from north to south is

1-3/4 m.; its breadth varies from 600 ft. opposite the main

entrance (Hātī-pūl) to 2,800 ft. in the middle opposite the

great temple (Sās-bhao). Cf. Cunningham p. 330 and Appendix R,

_in loco_, for his Plan of Gūālīār.

[2258] This Arabic plural may have been prompted by the

greatness and distinction of Mān-sing's constructions. Cf.

Index _s.nn._ _begāt_ and _bāghāt_.

[2259] A translation point concerning the (Arabic) word

_`imārat_ is that the words "palace", "_palais_", and

"residence" used for it respectively by Erskine, de

Courteille, and, previous to the Hindūstān Section, by myself,

are too limited in meaning to serve for Bābur's uses of it in

Hindūstān; and this (1) because he uses it throughout his

writings for buildings under palatial rank (_e.g._ those of

high and low in Chandīrī); (2) because he uses it in Hindūstān

for non-residential buildings (_e.g._ for the Bādalgarh

outwork, f. 341_b_, and a Hindū temple _ib._); and (3) because

he uses it for the word "building" in the term building-stone,

f. 335_b_ and f. 339_b_. _Building_ is the comprehensive word

under which all his uses of it group. For labouring this point

a truism pleads my excuse, namely, that a man's vocabulary

being characteristic of himself, for a translator to increase

or diminish it is to intrude on his personality, and this the

more when an autobiography is concerned. Hence my search here

(as elsewhere) for an English grouping word is part of an

endeavour to restrict the vocabulary of my translation to the

limits of my author's.

[2260] Jalāl _Ḥiṣārī_ describes "Khwāja Raḥīm-dād" as a

paternal-nephew of Mahdī Khwāja. Neither man has been

introduced by Bābur, as it is his rule to introduce when he

first mentions a person of importance, by particulars of

family, _etc._ Both men became disloyal in 935 AH. (1529 AD.)

as will be found referred to by Bābur. Jalāl _Ḥiṣārī_

supplements Bābur's brief account of their misconduct and

Shaikh Muḥammad _Ghaus̤'_ mediation in 936 AH. For knowledge

of his contribution I am indebted to my husband's perusal of

the _Tārīkh-i-Gwālīāwar_.

[2261] Erskine notes that Indians and Persians regard

moonshine as cold but this only faintly expresses the

wide-spread fear of moon-stroke expressed in the Psalm (121 v.

6), "The Sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the Moon by

night."

[2262] _Agarcha lūk balūk u bī sīyāq._ Ilminsky [p. 441] has

_balūk balūk_ but without textual warrant and perhaps

following Erskine, as he says, speaking generally, that he has

done in case of need (Ilminsky's Preface). Both Erskine and de

Courteille, working, it must be remembered, without the help

of detailed modern descriptions and pictures, took the above

words to say that the buildings were scattered and without

symmetry, but they are not scattered and certainly Mān-sing's

has symmetry. I surmise that the words quoted above do not

refer to the buildings themselves but to the stones of which

they are made. T. _lūk_ means heavy, and T. _balūk_ [? block]

means a thing divided off, here a block of stone. Such blocks

might be _bī sīyāq_, _i.e._ irregular in size. To take the

words in this way does not contradict known circumstances, and

is verbally correct.

[2263] The Rājas' buildings Bābur could compare were Rāja

Karna (or Kirtī)'s [who ruled from 1454 to 1479 AD.], Rāja

Mān-sing's [1486 to 1516 AD.], and Rāja Bikramājīt's [1516 to

1526 AD. when he was killed at Panīpat].

[2264] The height of the eastern face is 100 ft. and of the

western 60 ft. The total length from north to south of the

outside wall is 300 ft.; the breadth of the residence from

east to west 160 ft. The 300 ft. of length appears to be that

of the residence and service-courtyard (Cunningham p. 347 and

Plate lxxxvii).

[2265] _kaj bīla āqārītīb._ There can be little doubt that a

white pediment would show up the coloured tiles of the upper

part of the palace-walls more than would pale red sandstone.

These tiles were so profuse as to name the building Chīt

Mandīr (Painted Mandīr). Guided by Bābur's statement,

Cunningham sought for and found plaster in crevices of carved

work; from which one surmises that the white coating approved

itself to successors of Mān-sing. [It may be noted that the

word Mandīr is in the same case for a translator as is

_`imārat_ (f. 339_b_ n.) since it requires a grouping word to

cover its uses for temple, palace, and less exalted

buildings.]

[2266] The lower two storeys are not only backed by solid

ground but, except near the Hātī-pūl, have the rise of ground

in front of them which led Bābur to say they were "even in a

pit" (_chūqūr_).

[2267] MSS. vary between _har_ and _bīr_, every and one, in

this sentence. It may be right to read _bīr_, and apply it

only to the eastern façade as that on which there were most

cupolas. There are fewer on the south side, which still stands

(Luard's photo. No. 37).

[2268] The ground rises steeply from this Gate to an inner

one, called Hawā-pūl from the rush of air (_hawā_) through it.

[2269] Cunningham says the riders were the Rāja and a driver.

Perhaps they were a mahout and his mate. The statue stood to

the left on exit (_chīqīsh_).

[2270] This window will have been close to the Gate where no

mound interferes with outlook.

[2271] Rooms opening on inner and open courts appear to form

the third story of the residence.

[2272] T. _chūqūr_, hollow, pit. This storey is dark and

unventilated, a condition due to small windows, absence of

through draught, and the adjacent mound. Cunningham comments

on its disadvantages.

[2273] _Agarcha Hindūstānī takalluflār qīlīb tūrlār walī bī

hawālīk-rāq yīrlār dūr._ Perhaps amongst the pains taken were

those demanded for _punkhas_. I regret that Erskine's

translation of this passage, so superior to my own in literary

merit, does not suit the Turkī original. He worked from the

Persian translation, and not only so, but with a less rigid

rule of translation than binds me when working on Bābur's

_ipsissima verba_ (_Mems._ p. 384; Cunningham p. 349; Luard p.

226).

[2274] The words _aūrtā dā_ make apt contrast between the

outside position of Mān-sing's buildings which helped to form

the fort-wall, and Bikramājīt's which were further in except

perhaps one wall of his courtyard (see Cunningham's Plate

lxxxiii).

[2275] Cunningham (p. 350) says this was originally a

_bāra-dūrī_, a twelve-doored open hall, and must have been

light. His "originally" points to the view that the hall had

been altered before Bābur saw it but as it was only about 10

years old at that time, it was in its first form, presumably.

Perhaps Bābur saw it in a bad light. The dimensions Cunningham

gives of it suggest that the high dome must have been

frequently ill-lighted.

[2276] The word _tālār_, having various applications, is not

easy to match with a single English word, nor can one be sure

in all cases what it means, a platform, a hall, or _etc._ To

find an equivalent for its diminutive _tālār-ghina_ is still

more difficult. Raḥīm-dād's _tālār_-ette will have stood on

the flat centre of the dome, raised on four pillars or perhaps

with its roof only so-raised; one is sure there would be a

roof as protection against sun or moon. It may be noted that

the dome is not visible outside from below, but is hidden by

the continuation upwards of walls which form a mean-looking

parallelogram of masonry.

[2277] _T. tūr yūl._ Concerning this hidden road _see_

Cunningham p. 350 and Plate lxxxvii.

[2278] _bāghcha._ The context shews that the garden was for

flowers. For Bābur's distinctions between _bāghcha_, _bāgh_

and _baghāt_, _see_ Index _s.nn._

[2279] _shaft-ālū_ _i.e._ the rosy colour of peach-flowers,

perhaps lip-red (Steingass). Bābur's contrast seems to be

between those red oleanders of Hindūstān that are rosy-red,

and the deep red ones he found in Gūālīār.

[2280] _kul_, any large sheet of water, natural or artificial

(Bābur). This one will be the Sūraj-kund (Sun-tank).

[2281] This is the Telī Mandīr, or Telingana Mandīr (Luard).

Cf. Cunningham, p. 356 and Luard p. 227 for accounts of it;

and _G. of I._ _s.n._ Telīagarhi for Telī Rājas.

[2282] This is a large outwork reached from the Gate of the

same name. Bābur may have gone there specially to see the

Gūjarī Mandīr said by Cunningham to have been built by

Mān-sing's Gūjar wife Mṛiga-nayāna (fawn-eyed). Cf. Cunningham

p. 351 and, for other work done by the same Queen, in the s.

e. corner of the fort, p. 344; Luard p. 226. In this place

"construction" would serve to translate _`imārat_ (f. 340 n.).

[2283] _āb-duzd_, a word conveying the notion of a stealthy

taking of the water. The walls at the mouth of Urwā were built

by Altamsh for the protection of its water for the fort. The

date Bābur mentions (a few lines further) is presumably that

of their erection.

[2284] Cunningham, who gives 57 ft. as the height of this

statue, says Bābur estimated it at 20 _gaz_, or 40 ft., but

this is not so. Bābur's word is not _gaz_ a measure of 24

fingers-breadth, but _qārī_, the length from the tip of the

shoulder to the fingers-ends; it is about 33 inches, not less,

I understand. Thus stated in _qārīs_ Bābur's estimate of the

height comes very near Cunningham's, being a good 55 ft. to 57

ft. (I may note that I have usually translated _qārī_ by

"yard", as the yard is its nearest English equivalent. The

Pers. trs. of the B. N. translates by _gaz_, possibly a larger

_gaz_ than that of 24 fingers-breadth _i.e._ inches.)

[2285] The statues were not broken up by Bābur's agents; they

were mutilated; their heads were restored with coloured

plaster by the Jains (Cunningham p. 365; Luard p. 228).

[2286] _rozan_ [or, _aūz:n_] ... _tafarruj qīlīb_. Neither

Cunningham nor Luard mentions this window, perhaps because

Erskine does not; nor is this name of a Gate found. It might

be that of the Dhonda-paur (Cunningham, p. 339). The 1st Pers.

trs. [I.O. 215 f. 210] omits the word _rozan_ (or, _auz:n_);

the 2nd [I.O. 217 f. 236b] renders it by _jā'ī_, place.

Manifestly the Gate was opened by Bābur, but, presumably, not

precisely at the time of his visit. I am inclined to

understand that _rozan_ ... _tafarruj karda_ means enjoying

the window formerly used by Muḥammadan rulers. If _aūz:n_ be

the right reading, its sense is obscure.

[2287] This will have occurred in the latter half of 934 AH.

of which no record is now known.

[2288] He is mentioned under the name Asūk Mal _Rājpūt_, as a

servant of Rānā Sangā by the _Mirāt-i-sikandarī_, lith. ed. p.

161. In Bayley's Translation p. 273 he is called Awāsūk,

manifestly by clerical error, the sentence being _az

jānib-i-au Asūk Mal Rājpūt dar ān (qila`) būda_....

[2289] _ātā-līk, aūghūl-līk_, _i.e._ he spoke to the son as a

father, to the mother as a son.

[2290] The _Mirāt-i-sikandarī_ (lith. ed. p. 234, Bayley's

trs. p. 372) confirms Bābur's statement that the precious

things were at Bikramājīt's disposition. Perhaps they had been

in his mother's charge during her husband's life. They were

given later to Bahādur Shāh of Gujrāt.

[2291] The Telī Mandīr has not a cupola but a waggon-roof of

South Indian style, whence it may be that it has the southern

name Telingana, suggested by Col. Luard.

[2292] See Luard's Photo. No. 139 and P. Mundy's sketch of the

fort p. 62.

[2293] This will be the Ghargarāj-gate which looks south

though it is not at the south end of the fort-hill where there

is only a postern approached by a flight of stone steps

(Cunningham p. 332).

[2294] The garden will have been on the lower ground at the

foot of the ramp and not near the Hātī-pūl itself where the

scarp is precipitous.

[2295] _Mūndīn kīchīkrāq ātlānīlghān aīkāndūr._ This may imply

that the distance mentioned to Bābur was found by him an

over-estimate. Perhaps the fall was on the Mūrar-river.

[2296] Rope (Shaw); _corde qui sert à attacher le bagage sur

les chameaux_ (de Courteille); a thread of 20 cubits long for

weaving (Steingass); I have the impression that an _arghamchī_

is a horse's tether.

[2297] For information about this opponent of Bābur in the

battle of Kānwa, _see_ the _Asiatic Review_, Nov. 1915, II.

Beveridge's art. _Silhadī, and the Mirāt-i-sikandarī_.

[2298] Colonel Luard has suggested to us that the Bābur-nāma

word Sūkhjana may stand for Salwai or Sukhalhari, the names of

two villages near Gūālīār.

[2299] Presumably of night, 6-9 p.m., of Saturday Muḥ.

18th-Oct. 2nd.

[2300] f. 330_b_ and f. 339_b_.

[2301] Between the last explicit date in the text, _viz._

Sunday, Muḥ. 19th, and the one next following, _viz._

Saturday, Ṣafar 3rd, the diary of six days is wanting. The gap

seems to be between the unfinished account of doings in

Dhūlpūr and the incomplete one of those of the Monday of the

party. For one of the intermediate days Bābur had made an

appointment, when in Gūālīār (f. 343), with the envoys of

Bikramājīt, the trysting-day being Muḥ. 23rd (_i.e._ 9 days

after Muḥ. 14th). Bābur is likely to have gone to Bīāna as

planned; that envoys met him there may be surmised from the

circumstance that when negociations with Bikramājīt were

renewed in Āgra (f. 345), two sets of envoys were present, a

"former" one and a "later" one, and this although all envoys

had been dismissed from Gūālīār. The "former" ones will have

been those who went to Bīāna, were not given leave there, but

were brought on to Āgra; the "later" ones may have come to

Āgra direct from Ranthaṃbhor. It suits all round to take it

that pages have been lost on which was the record of the end

of the Dhūlpūr visit, of the journey to the, as yet unseen,

fort of Bīāna, of tryst kept by the envoys, of other doings in

Bīāna where, judging from the time taken to reach Sīkrī, it

may be that the _ma`jūn_ party was held.

[2302] Anglicé, Tuesday after 6 p.m.

[2303] _aghaz aīchīb nīma yīb_, which words seem to imply the

breaking of a fast.

[2304] Doubtless the garden owes its name to the eight heavens

or paradises mentioned in the Qurān (Hughes' _Dictionary of

Islām_ _s.n._ Paradise). Bābur appears to have reached Āgra on

the 1st of Ṣafar; the 2nd may well have been spent on the home

affairs of a returned traveller.

[2305] The great, or elder trio were daughters of Sl.

Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā, Bābur's paternal-aunts therefore, of his

dutiful attendance on whom, Gul-badan writes.

[2306] "Lesser," _i.e._ younger in age, lower in rank as not

being the daughters of a sovereign Mīrzā, and held in less

honour because of a younger generation.

[2307] Gul-badan mentions the arrival in Hindūstān of a khānīm

of this name, who was a daughter of Sl. Maḥmūd Khān

_Chaghatāī_, Bābur's maternal-uncle; to this maternal

relationship the word _chīcha_ (mother) may refer. _Yīnkā_,

uncle's or elder brother's wife, has occurred before (ff. 192,

207), _chīcha_ not till now.

[2308] Cf. f. 344_b_ and n.5 concerning the surmised movements

of this set of envoys.

[2309] This promise was first proffered in Gūālīār (f.343).

[2310] These may be Bāī-qarā kinsfolk or Mīrān-shāhīs married

to them. No record of Shāh Qāsim's earlier mission is

preserved; presumably he was sent in 934 AH. and the record

will have been lost with much more of that year's. Khwānd-amīr

may well have had to do with this second mission, since he

could inform Bābur of the discomfort caused in Herī by the

near leaguer of `Ubaidu'l-lāh _Aūzbeg_.

[2311] _Albatta aūzūmīznī har nu` qīlīb tīgūrkūmīz dūr._ The

following versions of this sentence attest its

difficulty:—_Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_, 1st trs. I.O. 215 f. 212,

_albatta khūdrā ba har nū`ī ka bāshad dar ān khūb khẉāhīm

rasānad_; and 2nd trs. I.O. 217 f. 238_b_, _albatta dar har

nu` karda khūdrā mī rasānīm_; _Memoirs_ p. 388, "I would make

an effort and return in person to Kābul"; _Mémoires_ ii, 356,

_je ferais tous mes efforts pour pousser en avant_. I surmise,

as Pāyanda-i-ḥasan seems to have done (1st Pers. trs.

_supra_), that the passage alludes to Bābur's aims in

Hindūstān which he expects to touch in the coming spring. What

seems likely to be implied is what Erskine says and more,

_viz._ return to Kābul, renewal of conflict with the Aūzbeg

and release of Khurāsān kin through success. As is said by

Bābur immediately after this, T̤ahmāsp of Persia had defeated

`Ubaidu'l-lah _Aūzbeg_ before Bābur's letter was written.

[2312] _Sīmāb yīmāknī bunyād qīldīm_, a statement which would

be less abrupt if it followed a record of illness. Such a

record may have been made and lost.

[2313] The preliminaries to this now somewhat obscure section

will have been lost in the gap of 934 AH. They will have given

Bābur's instructions to Khwāja Dost-i-khāwand and have thrown

light on the unsatisfactory state of Kābul, concerning which a

good deal comes out later, particularly in Bābur's letter to

its Governor Khwāja Kalān. It may be right to suppose that

Kāmrān wanted Kābul and that he expected the Khwāja to bring

him an answer to his request for it, whether made by himself

or for him, through some-one, his mother perhaps, whom Bābur

now sent for to Hindūstān.

[2314] 934 AH.-August 26th 1528 AD.

[2315] The useful verb _tībrāmāk_ which connotes agitation of

mind with physical movement, will here indicate anxiety on the

Khwāja's part to fulfil his mission to Humāyūn.

[2316] Kāmrān's messenger seems to repeat his master's words,

using the courteous imperative of the 3rd person plural.

[2317] Though Bābur not infrequently writes of _e.g._ Bengalīs

and Aūzbegs and Turks in the singular, the Bengalī, the

Aūzbeg, the Turk, he seems here to mean `Ubaidu'l-lāh, the

then dominant Aūzbeg, although Kūchūm was Khāqān.

[2318] This muster preceded defeat near Jām of which Bābur

heard some 19 days later.

[2319] Humāyūn's wife was Bega Begīm, the later Ḥājī Begīm;

Kāmrān's bride was her cousin perhaps named Māh-afrūz

(Gul-badan's _Humāyūn-nāma_ f. 64_b_). The hear-say tense used

by the messenger allows the inference that he was not

accredited to give the news but merely repeated the rumour of

Kābul. The accredited bearer-of-good-tidings came later (f.

346_b_).

[2320] There are three enigmatic words in this section. The

first is the Sayyid's cognomen; was he _daknī_, rather dark of

hue, or _zaknī_, one who knows, or _ruknī_, one who props,

erects scaffolding, _etc._? The second mentions his

occupation; was he a _ghaiba-gar_, diviner (Erskine,

water-finder), a _jība-gar_, cuirass-maker, or a _jibā-gar_,

cistern-maker, which last suits with well-making? The third

describes the kind of well he had in hand, perhaps the stone

one of f. 353_b_; had it scaffolding, or was it for

drinking-water only (_khwāralīq_); had it an arch, or was it

chambered (_khwāzalīq_)? If Bābur's orders for the work had

been preserved,—they may be lost from f. 344_b_, trouble would

have been saved to scribes and translators, as an example of

whose uncertainty it may be mentioned that from the third word

(_khwāralīq_?) Erskine extracted "jets d'eau and artificial

water-works", and de Courteille "_taillé dans le roc vif_".

[2321] All Bābur's datings in Ṣafar are inconsistent with his

of Muḥarram, if a Muḥarram of 30 days [as given by Gladwin and

others].

[2322] _ḥarārat._ This Erskine renders by "so violent an

illness" (p. 388), de Courteille by "_une inflammation

d'entrailles_" (ii, 357), both swayed perhaps by the earlier

mention, on Muh. 10th, of Bābur's medicinal quick-silver, a

drug long in use in India for internal affections (Erskine).

Some such ailment may have been recorded and the record lost

(f. 345_b_ and n. 8), but the heat, fever, and trembling in

the illness of Ṣafar 23rd, taken with the reference to last's

year's attack of fever, all point to climatic fever.

[2323] _aīndīnī_ (or, _āndīnī_). Consistently with the

readings quoted in the preceding note, E. and de C. date the

onset of the fever as Sunday and translate _aīndīnī_ to mean

"two days after". It cannot be necessary however to specify

the interval between Friday and Sunday; the text is not

explicit; it seems safe to surmise only that the cold fit was

less severe on Sunday; the fever had ceased on the following

Thursday.

[2324] Anglicé, Monday after 6 p.m.

[2325] The _Rashaḥāt-i-´aīnu'l-ḥayāt_ (Tricklings from the

fountain of life) contains an interesting and almost

contemporary account of the Khwāja and of his

_Wālidiyyah-risāla_. A summary of what in it concerns the

Khwāja can be read in the JRAS. Jan. 1916, H. Beveridge's art.

The tract, so far as we have searched, is now known in

European literature only through Bābur's metrical translation

of it; and this, again, is known only through the _Rāmpūr

Dīwān_. [It may be noted here, though the topic belongs to the

beginning of the _Bābur-nāma_ (f. 2), that the _Rashaḥāt_

contains particulars about Aḥrārī's interventions for peace

between Bābur's father ´Umar Shaikh and those with whom he

quarrelled.]

[2326] "Here unfortunately, Mr. Elphinstone's Turki copy

finally ends" (Erskine), that is to say, the Elphinstone Codex

belonging to the Faculty of Advocates of Edinburgh.

[2327] This work, Al-buṣīrī's famous poem in praise of the

Prophet, has its most recent notice in M. René Basset's

article of the _Encyclopædia of Islām_ (Leyden and London).

[2328] Bābur's technical terms to describe the metre he used

are, _ramal musaddas makhbūn ´arūẓ_ and _ẓarb gāh abtar gāh

makhbūn muhẕūf wazn_.

[2329] _aūtkān yīl (u) har maḥal mūndāq ´āriẓat kīm būldī_,

from which it seems correct to omit the _u_ (and), thus

allowing the reference to be to last year's illnesses only;

because no record, of any date, survives of illness lasting

even one full month, and no other year has a _lacuna_ of

sufficient length unless one goes improbably far back: for

these attacks seem to be of Indian climatic fever. One in last

year (934 AH.) lasting 25-26 days (f. 331) might be called a

month's illness; another or others may have happened in the

second half of the year and their record be lost, as several

have been lost, to the detriment of connected narrative.

[2330] Mr. Erskine's rendering (_Memoirs_ p. 388) of the above

section shows something of what is gained by acquaintance

which he had not, with the _Rashaḥāt-i-´āinu'l-ḥayāt_ and with

Bābur's versified _Wālidiyyah-risāla_.

[2331] This gap, like some others in the diary of 935 AH. can

be attributed safely to loss of pages, because preliminaries

are now wanting to several matters which Bābur records shortly

after it. Such are (1) the specification of the three articles

sent to Naṣrat Shāh, (2) the motive for the feast of f.

351_b_, (3) the announcement of the approach of the surprising

group of envoys, who appear without introduction at that

entertainment, in a manner opposed to Bābur's custom of

writing, (4) an account of their arrival and reception.

[2332] Land-holder (_see_ _Hobson-Jobson_ _s.n._ talookdar).

[2333] The long detention of this messenger is mentioned in

Bābur's letter to Humāyūn (f. 349).

[2334] These words, if short _a_ be read in Shăh, make 934 by

_abjad_. The child died in infancy; no son of Humāyūn's had

survived childhood before Akbar was born, some 14 years later.

Concerning Abū'l-wajd _Fārighī_, _see_ _Ḥabību's-siyar_, lith.

ed. ii, 347; _Muntakhabu't-tawārikh_, Bib. Ind. ed. i, 3; and

Index _s.n._

[2335] I am indebted to Mr. A. E. Hinks, Secretary of the

Royal Geographical Society, for the following approximate

estimate of the distances travelled by Bīān Shaikh:—(_a_) From

Kishm to Kābul 240m.—from Kābul to Peshāwar 175m.—from

Peshāwar to Āgra (railroad distance) 759 m.—total 1174 m.;

daily average _cir._ 38 miles; (_b_) Qila`-i-ẕafar to Kābul

264m.—Kābul to Qandahār 316m.—total 580m.; daily average

_cir._ 53 miles. The second journey was made probably in 913

AH. and to inform Bābur of the death of the Shāh of Badakhshān

(f. 213_b_).

[2336] On Muḥ. 10th 934 AH.-Sep. 26th 1528 AD. For accounts of

the campaign _see_ Rieu's Suppl. Persian Cat. under _Histories

of T̤ahmāsp_ (Churchill Collection); the _Ḥabību's-siyar_ and

the _`Ālam-ārāī-`abbāsī_, the last a highly rhetorical work,

Bābur's accounts (Index _s.n._ Jām) are merely repetitions of

news given to him; he is not responsible for mistakes he

records, such as those of f. 354. It must be mentioned that

Mr. Erskine has gone wrong in his description of the battle,

the starting-point of error being his reversal of two events,

the encampment of T̤ahmāsp at Rādagān and his passage through

Mashhad. A century ago less help, through maps and travel, was

available than now.

[2337] _tufak u arāba_, the method of array Bābur adopted from

the Rūmī-Persian model.

[2338] T̤ahmāsp's main objective, aimed at earlier than the

Aūzbeg muster in Merv, was Herāt, near which `Ubaid Khān had

been for 7 months. He did not take the shortest route for

Mashhad, _viz._ the Dāmghān-Sabzawār-Nīshāpūr road, but went

from Dāmghān for Mashhad by way of Kālpūsh (_`Ālam-ārāī_ lith.

ed. p. 45) and Rādagān. Two military advantages are obvious on

this route; (1) it approaches Mashhad by the descending road

of the Kechef-valley, thus avoiding the climb into that valley

by a pass beyond Nīshāpūr on the alternative route; and (2) it

passes through the fertile lands of Rādagān. [For Kālpūsh and

the route _see_ Fr. military map, Sheets Astarābād and Merv,

n.e. of Basṯām.]

[2339] 7 m. from Kushan and 86 m. from Mashhad. As Lord Curzon

reports (_Persia_, ii, 120) that his interlocutors on the spot

were not able to explain the word "Radkan," it may be useful

to note here that the town seems to borrow its name from the

ancient tower standing near it, the _Mīl-i-rādagān_, or, as

Réclus gives it, _Tour de méimandan_, both names meaning,

Tower of the bounteous (or, beneficent, highly-distinguished,

_etc._). (Cf. Vullers Dict. _s.n._ _rād_; Réclus' _L'Asie

Antérieure_ p. 219; and O'Donovan's _Merv Oasis_.) Perhaps

light on the distinguished people (_rādagān_) is given by the

_Dābistān's_ notice of an ancient sect, the Rādīyān, seeming

to be fire-worshippers whose chief was Rād-gūna, an eminently

brave hero of the latter part of Jāmshīd's reign (800 B.C.?).

Of the town Rādagān Daulat Shāh makes frequent mention. A

second town so-called and having a tower lies north of

Ispahān.

[2340] In these days of trench-warfare it would give a wrong

impression to say that T̤ahmāsp entrenched himself; he did

what Bābur did before his battles at Panīpat and Kānwa

(_q.v._).

[2341] The Aūzbegs will have omitted from their purview of

affairs that T̤ahmāsp's men were veterans.

[2342] The holy city had been captured by `Ubaid Khān in 933

AH. (1525 AD.), but nothing in Bīān Shaikh's narrative

indicates that they were now there in force.

[2343] Presumably the one in the Rādagān-meadow.

[2344] using the _yada-tāsh_ to ensure victory (Index _s.n._).

[2345] If then, as now, Scorpio's appearance were expected in

Oct.-Nov., the Aūzbegs had greatly over-estimated their power

to check T̤ahmāsp's movements; but it seems fairly clear that

they expected Scorpio to follow Virgo in Sept.-Oct. according

to the ancient view of the Zodiacal Signs which allotted two

houses to the large Scorpio and, if it admitted Libra at all,

placed it between Scorpio's claws (Virgil's _Georgics_ i, 32

and Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, ii, 195.—H. B.).

[2346] It would appear that the Aūzbegs, after hearing that

T̤ahmāsp was encamped at Rādagān, expected to interpose

themselves in his way at Mashhad and to get their 20,000 to

Rādagān before he broke camp. T̤āhmāsp's swiftness spoiled

their plan; he will have stayed at Rādagān a short time only,

perhaps till he had further news of the Aūzbegs, perhaps also

for commissariat purposes and to rest his force. He visited

the shrine of Imām Reza, and had reached Jām in time to

confront his adversaries as they came down to it from

Zawarābād (Pilgrims'-town).

[2347] or, Khirjard, as many MSS. have it. It seems to be a

hamlet or suburb of Jām. The _`Ālam-ārāī_ (lith. ed. p. 40)

writes Khusrau-jard-i-Jām (the Khusrau-throne of Jām), perhaps

rhetorically. The hamlet is Maulānā `Abdu'r-raḥmān _Jāmī's_

birthplace (Daulat Shāh's _Taẕkirat_, E. G. Browne's ed. p.

483). Jām now appears on maps as Turbat-i-Shaikh Jāmī, the

tomb (_turbat_) being that of the saintly ancestor of Akbar's

mother Ḥamīda-bānū.

[2348] The _`Ālam-ārāī_ (lith. ed. p. 31) says, but in

grandiose language, that `Ubaid Khān placed at the foot of his

standard 40 of the most eminent men of Transoxania who prayed

for his success, but that as his cause was not good, their

supplications were turned backwards, and that all were slain

where they had prayed.

[2349] Here the 1st Pers. trs. (I.O. 215 f. 214) mentions that

it was Chalma who wrote and despatched the exact particulars

of the defeat of the Aūzbegs. This information explains the

presumption Bābur expresses. It shows that Chalma was in Ḥiṣār

where he may have written his letter to give news to Humāyūn.

At the time Bīān Shaikh left, the Mīrzā was near Kishm; if he

had been the enterprising man he was not, one would surmise

that he had moved to seize the chance of the sulṯāns'

abandonment of Ḥiṣār, without waiting for his father's urgency

(f. 348_b_). Whether he had done so and was the cause of the

sulṯāns' flight, is not known from any chronicle yet come to

our hands. Chalma's father Ibrāhīm _Jānī_ died fighting for

Bābur against Shaibāq Khān in 906 AH. (f. 90_b_).

As the sense of the name-of-office Chalma is still in doubt, I

suggest that it may be an equivalent of _aftābachī_, bearer of

the water-bottle on journeys. _T. chalma_ can mean a

water-vessel carried on the saddle-bow; one Chalma on record

was a _safarchī_; if, in this word, _safar_ be read to mean

journey, an approach is made to _aftābachī_ (fol. 15_b_ and

note; Blochmann's A.-i-A. p. 378 and n. 3).

[2350] The copies of Bābur's Turkī letter to Humāyūn and the

later one to Khwāja Kalān (f. 359) are in some MSS. of the

Persian text translated only (I.O. 215 f. 214); in others

appear in Turkī only (I.O. 217 f. 240); in others appear in

Turkī and Persian (B. M. Add. 26,000 and I.O. 2989); while in

Muḥ. Shīrāzī's lith. ed. they are omitted altogether (p. 228).

[2351] Trans- and Cis-Hindukush. Pāyanda-ḥasan (in one of his

useful glosses to the 1st Pers. trs.) amplifies here by

"Khurāsān, Mā warā'u'n-nahr and Kābul".

[2352] The words Bābur gives as mispronunciations are somewhat

uncertain in sense; manifestly both are of ill-omen:—Al-amān

itself [of which the _alāmā_ of the Ḥai. MS. and Ilminsky

maybe an abbreviation,] is the cry of the vanquished,

"Quarter! mercy!"; _Aīlāmān_ and also _ālāman_ can represent a

Turkmān raider.

[2353] Presumably amongst Tīmūrids.

[2354] Perhaps Bābur here makes a placatory little joke.

[2355] _i.e._ that offered by T̤ahmāsp's rout of the Aūzbegs

at Jām.

[2356] He was an adherent of Bābur. Cf. f. 353.

[2357] The plural "your" will include Humāyūn and Kāmrān.

Neither had yet shewn himself the heritor of his father's

personal dash and valour; they had lacked the stress which

shaped his heroism.

[2358] My husband has traced these lines to Niẕāmī's _Khusrau_

and _Shīrīn_. [They occur on f. 256_b_ in his MS. of 317

folios.] Bābur may have quoted from memory, since his version

varies. The lines need their context to be understood; they

are part of Shīrīn's address to Khusrau when she refuses to

marry him because at the time he is fighting for his sovereign

position; and they say, in effect, that while all other work

stops for marriage (_kadkhudāī_), kingly rule does not.

[2359] _Aūlūghlār kūtārīmlīk kīrāk_; 2nd Pers. trs. _buzurgān

bardāsht mī bāīd kardand_. This dictum may be a quotation. I

have translated it to agree with Bābur's reference to the ages

of the brothers, but _aūlūghlār_ expresses greatness of

position as well as seniority in age, and the dictum may be

taken as a Turkī version of "_Noblesse oblige_", and may also

mean "The great must be magnanimous". (Cf. de C.'s Dict.

_s.n._ _kūtārīmlīk_.) [It may be said of the verb _bardāshlan_

used in the Pers. trs., that Abū'l-faẓl, perhaps translating

_kūtārīmlīk_ reported to him, puts it into Bābur's mouth when,

after praying to take Humāyūn's illness upon himself, he cried

with conviction, "I have borne it away" (A.N. trs. H.B. i,

276).]

[2360] If Bābur had foreseen that his hard-won rule in

Hindūstān was to be given to the winds of one son's

frivolities and the other's disloyalty, his words of scant

content with what the Hindūstān of his desires had brought

him, would have expressed a yet keener pain (_Rāmpūr Dīwān_

E.D.R.'s ed. p. 15 l. 5 fr. ft.).

[2361] _Bostān_, cap. _Advice of Noshirwān to Hurmuz_ (H.B.).

[2362] A little joke at the expense of the mystifying letter.

[2363] For _yā_, Mr. Erskine writes _be_. What the mistake was

is an open question; I have guessed an exchange of _ī_ for

_ū_, because such an exchange is not infrequent amongst Turkī

long vowels.

[2364] That of reconquering Tīmūrid lands.

[2365] of _Kūlāb_; he was the father of Ḥaram Begīm, one of

Gul-badan's personages.

[2366] _aūn altī gūnlūk m:ljār bīla_, as on f. 354_b_, and

with exchange of T. _m:ljār_ for P. _mī`ād_, f. 355_b_.

[2367] Probably into Rājpūt lands, notably into those of

Ṣalāḥu'd-dīn.

[2368] _tukhmalīq chakmānlār_; as _tukhma_ means both button

and gold-embroidery, it may be right, especially of Hindūstān

articles, to translate sometimes in the second sense.

[2369] These statements of date are consistent with Bābur's

earlier explicit entries and with Erskine's equivalents of the

Christian Era, but at variance with Gladwin's and with

Wüstenfeldt's calculation that Rabī` II. 1st was Dec. 13th.

Yet Gladwin (_Revenue Accounts_, ed. 1790 AD. p. 22) gives

Rabī` I. 30 days. Without in the smallest degree questioning

the two European calculations, I follow Bābur, because in his

day there may have been allowed variation which finds no entry

in methodical calendars. Erskine followed Bābur's statements;

he is likely nevertheless to have seen Gladwin's book.

[2370] Erskine estimated this at £500, but later cast doubts

on such estimates as being too low (_History of India_, vol.

i, App. D.).

[2371] The bearer of the stamp (_ṯamghā_) who by impressing it

gave quittance for the payment of tolls and other dues.

[2372] Either 24ft. or 36ft. according to whether the short or

long _qārī_ be meant (_infra_). These towers would provide

resting-place, and some protection against ill-doers. They

recall the two _mīl-i-rādagān_ of Persia (f. 347 _n._ 9), the

purpose of which is uncertain. Bābur's towers were not "_kos

mīnārs_", nor is it said that he ordered each _kuroh_ to be

marked on the road. Some of the _kos mīnārs_ on the "old

Mughal roads" were over 30ft. high; a considerable number are

entered and depicted in the _Annual Progress Report_ of the

Archæological Survey for 1914 (Northern Circle, p. 45 and

Plates 44, 45). Some at least have a _lower_ chamber.

[2373] Four-doored, open-on-all-sides. We have not found the

word with this meaning in Dictionaries. It may translate H.

_chaukandī_.

[2374] Erskine makes 9 _kos_ (_kurohs_) to be 13-14 miles,

perhaps on the basis of the smaller _gaz_ of 24 inches.

[2375] _altī yām-ātī bāghlāghāīlār_ which, says one of

Erskine's manuscripts, is called a _dāk-choki_.

[2376] Neither Erskine (_Mems._ p. 394), nor de Courteille

(_Méms._ ii, 370) recognized the word _Mubīn_ here, although

each mentions the poem later (p. 431 and ii, 461), deriving

his information about it from the _Akbar-nāma_, Erskine

direct, de Courteille by way of the Turkī translation of the

same _Akbar-nāma_ passage, which Ilminsky found in Kehr's

volume and which is one of the much discussed "Fragments", at

first taken to be extra writings of Bābur's (cf. Index _in

loco_ _s.n._ Fragments). Ilminsky (p. 455) prints the word

clearly, as one who knows it; he may have seen that part of

the poem itself which is included in Berésine's _Chrestomathie

Turque_ (p. 226 to p. 272), under the title _Fragment d'un

poème inconnu de Bābour_, and have observed that Bābur himself

shews his title to be _Mubīn_, in the lines of his colophon

(p. 271),

_Chū bīān qīldīm āndā shar`īyāt,

Nī `ajab gar Mubīn dīdīm āt?_

(Since in it I have made exposition of Laws, what wonder if I

named it _Mubīn_ (exposition)?) Cf. _Translator's Note_, p.

437. [Berésine says (Ch. T.) that he prints half of his

"_unique manuscrit_" of the poem.]

[2377] The passage Bābur quotes comes from the _Mubīn_ section

on _tayammum masā'la_ (purification with sand), where he tells

his son sand may be used, _Sū yurāq būlsā sīndīn aīr bīr mīl_

(if from thee water be one _mīl_ distant), and then interjects

the above explanation of what the _mīl_ is. Two lines of his

original are not with the _Bābur-nāma_.

[2378] The _ṯanāb_ was thus 120 ft. long. Cf. A.-i-A. Jarrett

i, 414; Wilson's _Glossary of Indian Terms_ and Gladwin's

_Revenue Accounts_, p. 14.

[2379] Bābur's customary method of writing allows the

inference that he recorded, in due place, the coming and

reception of the somewhat surprising group of guests now

mentioned as at this entertainment. That preliminary record

will have been lost in one or more of the small gaps in his

diary of 935 AH. The envoys from the Samarkand Aūzbegs and

from the Persian Court may have come in acknowledgment of the

_Fātḥ-nāma_ which announced victory over Rānā Sangā; the

guests from Farghāna will have accepted the invitation sent,

says Gul-badan, "in all directions," after Bābur's defeat of

Sl. Ibrāhīm _Lūdī_, to urge hereditary servants and Tīmūrid

and Chīngīz-khānid kinsfolk to come and see prosperity with

him now when "the Most High has bestowed sovereignty" (f.

293a; Gul-badan's H.N. f. 11).

[2380] Hindū here will represent Rājpūt. D'Herbélot's

explanation of the name Qīzīl-bāsh (Red-head) comes in

usefully here:—"KEZEL BASCH or KIZIL BASCH. Mot Turc qui

signifie _Tête rouge_. Les Turcs appellent les Persans de ce

nom, depuis qu'Ismaël Sofi, fondateur de la Dynastie des

princes qui regnent aujourd'hui en Perse, commanda à ses

soldats de porter un bonnet rouge autour duquel il y a une

écharpe ou Turban à douze plis, en mémoire et à l'honneur des

12 Imams, successeurs d'Ali, desquels il prétendoit descendre.

Ce bonnet s'appelle en Persan, _Tāj_, et fut institué l'an

907^e de l'Hég." T̤ahmāsp himself uses the name Qīzīl-bāsh;

Bābur does so too. Other explanations of it are found

(Steingass), but the one quoted above suits its use without

contempt. (Cf. f. 354 n. 3).

[2381] _cir._ 140-150ft. or more if the 36in. _qārī_ be the

unit.

[2382] _Andropogon muricatus_, the scented grass of which the

roots are fitted into window spaces and moistened to mitigate

dry, hot winds. Cf. _Hobson-Jobson_ _s.n._ _Cuscuss_.

[2383] A nephew and a grandson of Aḥrāri's second son Yahya

(f. 347_b_) who had stood staunch to Bābur till murdered in

906 AH.-1500 AD. (80_b_). They are likely to be those to whom

went a copy of the _Mubīn_ under cover of a letter addressed

to lawyers of Mā warā'u'n-nahr (f. 351 n. 1). The Khwājas were

in Āgra three weeks after Bābur finished his metrical version

of their ancestor's _Wālidiyyah-risāla_; whether their coming

(which must have been announced some time before their

arrival), had part in directing his attention to the tract can

only be surmised (f. 346).

[2384] He was an Aūzbeg (f. 371) and from his association here

with a Bāī-qarā, and, later with Qāsim-i-ḥusain who was half

Bāī-qarā, half Aūzbeg, seems likely to be of the latter's

family (Index _s.nn._).

[2385] _sāchāq kīūrdī_ (_kīltūrdī_?) No record survives to

tell the motive for this feast; perhaps the gifts made to

Bābur were congratulatory on the birth of a grandson, the

marriage of a son, and on the generally-prosperous state of

his affairs.

[2386] Gold, silver and copper coins.

[2387] Made so by _bhang_ or other exciting drug.

[2388] _ārāl_, presumably one left by the winter-fall of the

Jumna; or, a peninsula.

[2389] Scribes and translators have been puzzled here. My

guess at the Turkī clause is _aūrang aīralīk kīsh jabbah_. In

reading _muslin_, I follow Erskine who worked in India and

could take local opinion; moreover gifts made in Āgra probably

would be Indian.

[2390] For one Ḥāfiẕ of Samarkand see f.237_b_.

[2391] Kūchūm was Khāqān of the Aūzbegs and had his seat in

Samarkand. One of his sons, Abū-sa`īd, mentioned below, had

sent envoys. With Abū-sa`īd is named Mihr-bān who was one of

Kūchūm's wives; Pulād was their son. Mihr-bān was, I think, a

half-sister of Bābur, a daughter of `Umar Shaikh and Umīd of

Andijān (f. 9), and a full-sister of Nāṣir. No doubt she had

been captured on one of the occasions when Bābur lost to the

Aūzbegs. In 925 AH.-1519 AD. (f. 237_b_) when he sent his

earlier _Dīwān_ to Pulād Sl. (_Translator's Note_, p. 438) he

wrote a verse on its back which looks to be addressed to his

half-sister through her son.

[2392] T̤ahmāsp's envoy; the title Chalabī shews high birth.

[2393] This statement seems to imply that the weight made of

silver and the weight made of gold were of the same size and

that the differing specific gravity of the two metals,—that of

silver being _cir._ 10 and that of gold _cir._ 20—gave their

equivalents the proportion Bābur states. Persian Dictionaries

give _sang_ (_tāsh_), a weight, but without further

information. We have not found mention of the _tāsh_ as a

recognized Turkī weight; perhaps the word _tāsh_ stands for an

ingot of unworked metal of standard size. (Cf. _inter alios

libros_, A.-i-A. Blochmann p. 36, Codrington's _Musalman

Numismatics_ p. 117, concerning the _miṣqāl, dīnār, etc._)

[2394] _tarkāsh bīla._ These words are clear in the Ḥai. MS.

but uncertain in some others. E. and de C. have no equivalent

of them. Perhaps the coins were given by the quiverful; that a

quiver of arrows was given is not expressed.

[2395] Bābur's half-nephew; he seems from his name

Keepsake-of-nāṣir to have been posthumous.

[2396] 934 AH.-1528 AD. (f. 336).

[2397] Or, gold-embroidered.

[2398] Wife of Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā.

[2399] These Highlanders of Asfara will have come by

invitation sent after the victory at Panīpat; their welcome

shows remembrance of and gratitude for kindness received a

quarter of a century earlier. Perhaps villagers from Dikh-kat

will have come too, who had seen the Pādshāh run barefoot on

their hills (_Index s.nn._).

[2400] Here gratitude is shewn for protection given in 910

AH.-1504 AD. to the families of Bābur and his men when on the

way to Kābul. Qurbān and Shaikhī were perhaps in Fort Ajar (f.

122_b_, f. 126).

[2401] Perhaps these acrobats were gipsies.

[2402] This may be the one with which Sayyid Daknī was

concerned (f. 346).

[2403] Bābur obviously made the distinction between _pahr_ and

_pās_ that he uses the first for day-watches, the second for

those of the night.

[2404] Anglicé, Tuesday, Dec. 21st; by Muḥammadan plan,

Wednesday 22nd. Dhūlpūr is 34 m. s. of Āgra; the journey of

10hrs. 20m. would include the nooning and the time taken in

crossing rivers.

[2405] The well was to fill a cistern; the 26 spouts with

their 26 supports were to take water into (26?) conduits.

Perhaps _tāsh_ means that they were hewn in the solid rock;

perhaps that they were on the outer side of the reservoir.

They will not have been built of hewn stone, or the word would

have been _sangīn_ or _tāshdīn_.

[2406] One occupation of these now blank days is indicated by

the date of the "_Rāmpūr Dīwān_", Thursday Rabī` II. 15th

(Dec. 27th).

[2407] The demon (or, athlete) sulṯān of Rumelia (_Rūmlū_);

once T̤ahmāsp's guardian (_Taẕkirat-i-T̤ahmāsp_, Bib. Ind. ed.

Phillott, p. 2). Some writers say he was put to death by

T̤ahmāsp (_æt._ 12) in 933 AH.; if this were so, it is strange

to find a servant described as his in 935 AH. (An account of

the battle is given in the _Sharaf-nāma_, written in 1005 AH.

by Sharaf Khān who was reared in T̤ahmāsp's house. The book

has been edited by Veliaminof-Zernof and translated into

French by Charmoy; cf. Trs. vol. ii, part i, p. 555.—_H.

Beveridge._)

[2408] This name, used by one who was with the Shāh's troops,

attracts attention; it may show the composition of the Persian

army; it may differentiate between the troops and their

"Qīzīl-bāsh leader".

[2409] Several writers give Sārū-qamsh (Charmoy, _roseau

jaune_) as the name of the village where the battle was

fought; Sharaf Khān gives `Umarābād and mentions that after

the fight T̤ahmāsp spent some time in the meadow of

Sārū-qamsh.

[2410] The number of T̤ahmāsp's guns being a matter of

interest, reference should be made to Bābur's accounts of his

own battles in which he arrayed in Rūmī (Ottoman) fashion; it

will then be seen that the number of carts does not imply the

number of guns (Index _s.n._ _arāba_, cart).

[2411] This cannot but represent T̤ahmāsp who was on the

battle-field (_see_ his own story _infra_). He was 14 years

old; perhaps he was called Shāh-zāda, and not Shāh, on account

of his youth, or because under guardianship (?). Readers of

the Persian histories of his reign may know the reason. Bābur

hitherto has always called the boy Shāh-zāda; after the

victory at Jām, he styles him Shāh. Jūha Sl. (_Taklū_) who was

with him on the field, was Governor of Ispahān.

[2412] If this Persian account of the battle be in its right

place in Bābur's diary, it is singular that the narrator

should be so ill-informed at a date allowing facts to be

known; the three sulṯāns he names as killed escaped to die,

Kūchūm in 937 AH.-1530 AD., Abū-sa`īd in 940 AH.-1533 AD.,

`Ubaid in 946 AH.-1539 AD. (Lane-Poole's _Muḥammadan

Dynasties_). It would be natural for Bābur to comment on the

mistake, since envoys from two of the sulṯāns reported killed,

were in Āgra. There had been time for the facts to be known:

the battle was fought on Sep. 26th; the news of it was in Āgra

on Nov. 23rd; envoys from both adversaries were at Bābur's

entertainment on Dec. 19th. From this absence of comment and

for the reasons indicated in note 3 (_infra_), it appears that

matter has been lost from the text.

[2413] T̤ahmāsp's account of the battle is as follows

(_T.-i-T̤._ p. 11):—"I marched against the Aūzbegs. The battle

took place outside Jām. At the first onset, Aūzbeg prevailed

over Qīzīl-bāsh. Ya`qūb Sl. fled and Sl. Wālāma _Taklū_ and

other officers of the right wing were defeated and put to

flight. Putting my trust in God, I prayed and advanced some

paces.... One of my body-guard getting up with `Ubaid struck

him with a sword, passed on, and occupied himself with

another. Qūlīj Bahādur and other Aūzbegs carried off the

wounded `Ubaid; Kūchkūnjī (Kūchūm) Khān and Jānī Khān Beg,

when they became aware of this state of affairs, fled to Merv.

Men who had fled from our army rejoined us that day. That

night I spent on the barren plain (_ṣaḥra'_). I did not know

what had happened to `Ubaid. I thought perhaps they were

devising some stratagem against me." The `A.-`A. says that

`Ubaid's assailant, on seeing his low stature and contemptible

appearance, left him for a more worthy foe.

[2414] Not only does some comment from Bābur seem needed on an

account of deaths he knew had not occurred, but loss of matter

may be traced by working backward from his next explicit date

(_Friday 19th_), to do which shows fairly well that the "same

day" will be not Tuesday the 16th but Thursday the 18th.

Ghīāṣu'd-dīn's reception was on the day preceding Friday 19th,

so that part of Thursday's record (as shewn by "on this same

day"), the whole of Wednesday's, and (to suit an expected

comment by Bābur on the discrepant story of the Aūzbeg deaths)

part of Tuesday's are missing. The gap may well have contained

mention of Ḥasan _Chalabī's_ coming (f. 357), or explain why

he had not been at the feast with his younger brother.

[2415] _qūrchī_, perhaps body-guard, life-guardsman.

[2416] As on f. 350_b_ (_q.v._ p. 628 n. 1) _aūn altī gūnlūk

bŭljār_ (or, _m:ljār_) _bīla_.

[2417] A sub-division of the Ballia district of the United

Provinces, on the right bank of the Ghogrā.

[2418] _i.e._ in 16 days; he was 24 or 25 days away.

[2419] The envoy had been long in returning; Kanwā was fought

in March, 1527; it is now the end of 1528 AD.

[2420] Rabī` II. 20th—January 1st 1529 AD.; Anglicé, Friday,

after 6p.m.

[2421] This "Bengalī" is territorial only; Naṣrat Shāh was a

Sayyid's son (f.271).

[2422] Ismā`īl Mītā (f. 357) who will have come with Mullā

Maẕhab.

[2423] _mī`ād_, cf. f. 350_b_ and f. 354_b_. Ghīāṣu'd-dīn may

have been a body-guard.

[2424] Lūdī Afghāns and their friends, including Bīban and

Bāyazīd.

[2425] _yūllūq tūrālīk_; _Memoirs_, p. 398, "should act in

every respect in perfect conformity to his commands";

_Mémoires_ ii, 379, "_chacun suivant son rang et sa dignité_."

[2426] _tawāchī._ Bābur's uses of this word support Erskine in

saying that "the _tawāchī_ is an officer who corresponds very

nearly to the Turkish _chāwush_, or special messenger"

(Zenker, p. 346, col. iii) "but he was also often employed to

act as a commissary for providing men and stores, as a

commissioner in superintending important affairs, as an

aide-de-camp in carrying orders, _etc._"

[2427] Here the Ḥai. MS. has the full-vowelled form, _būljār_.

Judging from what that Codex writes, _būljār_ may be used for

a rendezvous of troops, _m:ljār_ or _b:ljār_ for any other

kind of tryst (f. 350, p. 628 n. 1; Index _s.nn._), also for a

shelter.

[2428] _yāwūshūb aīdī_, which I translate in accordance with

other uses of the verb, as meaning approach, but is taken by

some other workers to mean "near its end".

[2429] Though it is not explicitly said, Chīn-tīmūr may have

been met with on the road; as the "also" (_ham_) suggests.

[2430] To the above news the _Akbar-nāma_ adds the important

item reported by Humāyūn, that there was talk of peace. Bābur

replied that, if the time for negotiation were not past,

Humāyūn was to make peace until such time as the affairs of

Hindūstān were cleared off. This is followed in the A. N. by a

seeming quotation from Bābur's letter, saying in effect that

he was about to leave Hindūstān, and that his followers in

Kābul and Tramontana must prepare for the expedition against

Samarkand which would be made on his own arrival. None of the

above matter is now with the _Bābur-nāma_; either it was there

once, was used by Abū'l-faẓl and lost before the Persian trss.

were made; or Abū'l-faẓl used Bābur's original, or copied,

letter itself. That desire for peace prevailed is shewn by

several matters:—T̤ahmāsp, the victor, asked and obtained the

hand of an Aūzbeg in marriage; Aūzbeg envoys came to Āgra, and

with them Turk Khwājas having a mission likely to have been

towards peace (f. 357_b_); Bābur's wish for peace is shewn

above and on f. 359 in a summarized letter to Humāyūn. (Cf.

Abū'l-ghāzī's _Shajarat-i-Turk_ [_Histoire des Mongols_,

Désmaisons' trs. p. 216]; _Akbar-nāma_, H. B.'s trs. i, 270.)

A here-useful slip of reference is made by the translator of

the _Akbar-nāma_ (_l.c._ n. 3) to the Fragment (_Mémoires_ ii,

456) instead of to the _Bābur-nāma_ translation (_Mémoires_

ii, 381). The utility of the slip lies in its accompanying

comment that de C.'s translation is in closer agreement with

the _Akbar-nāma_ than with Bābur's words. Thus the

_Akbar-nāma_ passage is brought into comparison with what it

is now safe to regard as its off-shoot, through Turkī and

French, in the Fragment. When the above comment on their

resemblance was made, we were less assured than now as to the

genesis of the Fragment (Index _s.n._ Fragment).

[2431] Hind-āl's guardian (G. B.'s _Humāyūn-nāma_ trs. p. 106,

n. 1).

[2432] Nothing more about Humāyūn's expedition is found in the

B. N.; he left Badakhshān a few months later and arrived in

Āgra, after his mother (f. 380_b_), at a date in August of

which the record is wanting.

[2433] under 6 m. from Āgra. Gul-badan (f. 16) records a visit

to the garden, during which her father said he was weary of

sovereignty. Cf. f. 331_b_, p. 589 n. 2.

[2434] _kūrnīsh kīlkān kīshīlār._

[2435] MSS. vary or are indecisive as to the omitted word. I

am unable to fill the gap. Erskine has "_Sir Māwineh_ (or

hair-twist)" (p. 399), De Courteille, _Sir-mouïneh_ (ii, 382).

_Mūīna_ means ermine, sable and other fine fur

(_Shamsu'l-lūghāt_, p 274, col. 1).

[2436] His brother Ḥaẓrat Makhdūmī Nūrā (Khwāja Khāwand

Maḥmūd) is much celebrated by Ḥaidar Mīrzā, and Bābur

describes his own visit in the words he uses of the visit of

an inferior to himself. Cf. _Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_ trs. pp. 395,

478; _Akbar-nāma_ trs., i, 356, 360.

[2437] No record survives of the arrival of this envoy or of

why he was later in coming than his brother who was at Bābur's

entertainment. Cf. f. 361_b_.

[2438] Presumably this refers to the appliances mentioned on

f. 350_b_.

[2439] f. 332, n. 3.

[2440] _zarbaft m:l:k._ Amongst gold stuffs imported into

Hindūstān, Abū'l-faẓl mentions _mīlak_ which may be Bābur's

cloth. It came from Turkistān (A.-i-A. Blochmann, p. 92 and

n.).

[2441] A _tang_ is a small silver coin of the value of about a

penny (Erskine).

[2442] _tānglāsī_, lit. at its dawning. It is not always clear

whether _tānglāsī_ means, Anglicé, next dawn or day, which

here would be Monday, or whether it stands for the dawn

(daylight) of the Muḥammadan day which had begun at 6 p. m. on

the previous evening, here Sunday. When Bābur records, _e.g._

a late audience, _tānglāsī_, following, will stand for the

daylight of the day of audience. The point is of some

importance as bearing on discrepancies of days, as these are

stated in MSS., with European calendars; it is conspicuously

so in Bābur's diary sections.

[2443] _risālat ṯarīqī bīla_; their special mission may have

been to work for peace (f. 359_b_, n. 1).

[2444] He may well be Kāmrān's father-in-law Sl. `Alī Mīrzā

T̤aghāī _Begchīk_.

[2445] _nīmcha u takband._ The _tak-band_ is a silk or woollen

girdle fastening with a "hook and eye" (Steingass), perhaps

with a buckle.

[2446] This description is that of the contents of the

"_Rāmpūr Dīwān_"; the _tarjuma_ being the _Wālidiyyah-risāla_

(f. 361 and n.). What is said here shows that four copies went

to Kābul or further north. Cf. Appendix Q.

[2447] _Sar-khaṯ_ may mean "copies" set for Kāmrān to imitate.

[2448] _bīr pahr yāwūshūb aīdī_; I.O. 215 f. 221, _qarīb yak

pās roz būd_.

[2449] _ākhar_, a word which may reveal a bad start and

uncertainty as to when and where to halt.

[2450] This, and not Chandwār (f. 331_b_), appears the correct

form. Neither this place nor Ābāpūr is mentioned in the G. of

I.'s Index or shewn in the I.S. Map of 1900 (cf. f. 331_b_ n.

3). Chandawār lies s.w. of Fīrūzābād, and near a village

called Ṣufīpūr.

[2451] Anglicé, Wednesday after 6 p.m.

[2452] or life-guardsman, body-guard.

[2453] This higher title for T̤ahmāsp, which first appears

here in the B.N., may be an early slip in the Turkī text,

since it occurs in many MSS. and also because "Shāh-zāda"

reappears on f. 359.

[2454] Slash-face, _balafré_; perhaps Ibrāhīm _Begchīk_ (Index

_s.n._), but it is long since he was mentioned by Bābur, at

least by name. He may however have come, at this time of

reunion in Āgra, with Mīrzā Beg T̤aghāī (his uncle or

brother?), father-in-law of Kāmrān.

[2455] The army will have kept to the main road connecting the

larger towns mentioned and avoiding the ravine district of the

Jumna. What the boat-journey will have been between high banks

and round remarkable bends can be learned from the G. of I.

and Neave's _District Gazetteer of Mainpūrī_. Rāprī is on the

road from Fīrūzābād to the ferry for Bateswar, where a large

fair is held annually. (It is misplaced further east in the

I.S. Map of 1900.) There are two Fatḥpūrs, n. e. of Rāprī.

[2456] _aūlūgh tūghāīnīng tūbī._ Here it suits to take the

Turkī word _tūghāī_ to mean bend of a river, and as referring

to the one shaped (on the map) like a soda-water bottle, its

neck close to Rāprī. Bābur avoided it by taking boat below its

mouth.—In neither Persian translation has _tūghāī_ been read

to mean a bend of a river; the first has _az pāyān rūīa

Rāprī_, perhaps referring to the important ford (_pāyān_); the

second has _az zīr bulandī kalān Rāprī_, perhaps referring to

a height at the meeting of the bank of the ravine down which

the road to the ford comes, with the high bank of the river.

Three examples of _tūghāī_ or _tūqāī_ [a synonym given by

Dictionaries], can be seen in Abū'l-ghāzī's _Shajrat-i-Turk_,

Fraehn's imprint, pp. 106, 107, 119 (Désmaisons' trs. pp. 204,

205, 230). In each instance Désmaisons renders it by _coude_,

elbow, but one of the examples may need reconsideration, since

the word has the further meanings of wood, dense forest by the

side of a river (Vambéry), prairie (Zenker), and reedy plain

(Shaw).

[2457] Blochmann describes the apparatus for marking lines to

guide writing (A.-i-A. trs. p. 52 n. 5):—On a card of the size

of the page to be written on, two vertical lines are drawn

within an inch of the edges; along these lines small holes are

pierced at regular intervals, and through these a string is

laced backwards and forwards, care being taken that the

horizontal strings are parallel. Over the lines of string the

pages are placed and pressed down; the strings then mark the

paper sufficiently to guide the writing.

[2458] _tarkīb (nīng) khaṯī bīla tarjuma bīlīr aūchūn._ The

_Rāmpūr Dīwān_ may supply the explanation of the uncertain

words _tarkīb khaṯī_. The "translation" (_tarjuma_), mentioned

in the passage quoted above, is the _Wālidiyyah-risāla_, the

first item of the _Dīwān_, in which it is entered on crowded

pages, specially insufficient for the larger hand of the

chapter-headings. The number of lines per page is 13; Bābur

now fashions a line-marker for 11. He has already despatched 4

copies of the translation (f. 357_b_); he will have judged

them unsatisfactory; hence to give space for the mixture of

hands (_tarkīb khaṯī_), _i.e._ the smaller hand of the poem

and the larger of the headings, he makes an 11 line marker.

[2459] Perhaps Aḥrārī's in the _Wālidiyyah-risāla_, perhaps

those of Muḥammad. A quatrain in the _Rāmpūr Dīwān_ connects

with this admonishment [Plate xiv_a_, 2nd quatrain].

[2460] Jākhān (_G. of Mainpūrī_). The _G. of Etāwa_

(Drake-Brockman) p. 213, gives this as some 18 m. n.w. of

Etāwa and as lying amongst the ravines of the Jumna.

[2461] f. 359_b_ allows some of the particulars to be known.

[2462] Mahdī may have come to invite Bābur to the luncheon he

served shortly afterwards. The Ḥai. MS. gives him the

honorific plural; either a second caller was with him or an

early scribe has made a slip, since Bābur never so-honours

Mahdī. This small point touches the larger one of how Bābur

regarded him, and this in connection with the singular story

Niẕāmu'd-dīn Aḥmad tells in his _T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_ about

Khalīfa's wish to supplant Humāyūn by Mahdī Khwāja (Index

_s.nn._).

[2463] _yīgītlārnī shokhlūqgha sāldūq_, perhaps set them to

make fun. Cf. f. 366, _yīgītlār bīr pāra shokhlūq qīldīlār_.

Muḥ. _Shīrāzī_ (p. 323 _foot_) makes the startling addition of

_dar āb_ (_andākhtīm_), _i.e._ he says that the royal party

flung the braves into the river.

[2464] The _Gazetteer of Etāwa_ (Drake-Brockman) p. 186,

_s.n._ Bāburpūr, writes of two village sites [which from their

position are Mūrī-and-Adūsa], as known by the name Sarāī

Bāburpūr from having been Bābur's halting-place. They are 24m.

to the s.e. of Etāwa, on the old road for Kālpī. Near the name

Bāburpūr in the Gazetteer Map there is Muhuri (Mūrī?); there

is little or no doubt that Sarāī Bāburpūr represents the

camping-ground Mūrī-and-Adūsa.

[2465] This connects with Kītīn-qarā's complaints of the

frontier-begs (f. 361), and with the talk of peace (f.

356_b_).

[2466] This injunction may connect with the desired peace; it

will have been prompted by at least a doubt in Bābur's mind as

to Kāmrān's behaviour perhaps _e.g._ in manifested dislike for

a Shīa`. Concerning the style Shāh-zāda _see_ f. 358, p. 643,

n. 1.

[2467] Kāmrān's mother Gul-rukh _Begchīk_ will have been of

the party who will have tried in Kābul to forward her son's

interests.

[2468] f. 348, p. 624, n. 2.

[2469] Kābul and Tramontana.

[2470] Presumably that of Shamsu'd-dīn Muḥammad's mission. One

of Bābur's couplets expresses longing for the fruits, and also

for the "running waters", of lands other than Hindūstān, with

conceits recalling those of his English contemporaries in

verse, as indeed do several others of his short poems (_Rāmpūr

Dīwān_ Plate xvii A.).

[2471] Ḥai. MS. _nā marbūṯlīghī_; so too the 2nd Pers. trs.

but the 1st writes _wairānī u karābī_ which suits the matter

of defence.

[2472] _qūrghān_, walled-town; from the _maẓbūt_ following,

the defences are meant.

[2473] _viz._ Governor Khwāja Kalān, on whose want of

dominance his sovereign makes good-natured reflection.

[2474] _`alūfa u qūnāl_; cf. 364_b_.

[2475] Following _aīlchī_ (envoys) there is in the Ḥai. MS.

and in I.O. 217 a doubtful word, _būmla_, _yūmla_; I.O. 215

(which contains a Persian trs. of the letter) is obscure,

Ilminsky changes the wording slightly; Erskine has a free

translation. Perhaps it is _yaumī_, daily, misplaced (_see_

above).

[2476] Perhaps, endow the Mosque so as to leave no right of

property in its revenues to their donor, here Bābur. Cf.

Hughes' _Dict. of Islām_ s.nn. _sharī`_, _masjid_ and _waqf_.

[2477] f. 139. Khwāja Kalān himself had taken from Hindūstān

the money for repairing this dam.

[2478] _sāpqūn ālīp_; the 2nd Pers. trs. as if from _sātqūn

ālīp_, _kharīda_, purchasing.

[2479] _naẕar-gāh_, perhaps, theatre, as showing the play

enacted at the ford. Cf. ff. 137, 236, 248_b_. Tūtūn-dara will

be Masson's Tūtām-dara. Erskine locates Tūtūn-dara some 8

_kos_ (16 m.) n. w. of Hūpīān (Ūpīān). Masson shews that it

was a charming place (_Journeys in Biluchistan, Afghanistan

and the Panj-āb_, vol. iii, cap. vi and vii).

[2480] _jībachī._ Bābur's injunction seems to refer to the

maintaining of the corps and the manufacture of armour rather

than to care for the individual men involved.

[2481] Either the armies in Nīl-āb, or the women in the

Kābul-country (f. 375).

[2482] Perhaps what Bābur means is, that both what he had said

to `Abdu'l-lāh and what the quatrain expresses, are dissuasive

from repentance. Erskine writes (_Mems._ p. 403) but without

textual warrant, "I had resolution enough to persevere"; de

Courteille (_Mems._ ii, 390), "_Voici un quatrain qui exprime

au juste les difficultés de ma position._"

[2483] The surface retort seems connected with the jacket,

perhaps with a request for the gift of it.

[2484] Clearly what recalled this joke of Banāī's long-silent,

caustic tongue was that its point lay ostensibly in a baffled

wish—in `Alī-sher's professed desire to be generous and a

professed impediment, which linked in thought with Bābur's

desire for wine, baffled by his abjuration. So much Banāī's

smart verbal retort shows, but beneath this is the

_double-entendre_ which cuts at the Beg as miserly and as

physically impotent, a defect which gave point to another jeer

at his expense, one chronicled by Sām Mīrzā and translated in

Hammer-Purgstall's _Geschichte von schönen Redekünste

Persiens_, art. CLV. (Cf. f. 179-80.)—The word _mādagī_ is

used metaphorically for a button-hole; like _nā-mardī_, it

carries secondary meanings, miserliness, impotence, _etc._

(Cf. Wollaston's _English-Persian Dictionary_ _s.n._

button-hole, where only we have found _mādagī_ with this

sense.)

[2485] The 1st Pers. trs. expresses "all these jokes", thus

including with the double-meanings of _mādagī_, the jests of

the quatrain.

[2486] The 1st Pers. trs. fills out Bābur's allusive phrase

here with "of the _Wālidiyyah_". His wording allows the

inference that what he versified was a prose Turkī translation

of a probably Arabic original.

[2487] Erskine comments here on the non-translation into

Persian of Bābur's letters. Many MSS., however, contain a

translation (f. 348, p. 624, n. 2 and E.'s n. f. 377_b_).

[2488] Anglicé, Thursday after 6 p.m.

[2489] What would suit measurement on maps and also Bābur's

route is "Jumoheen" which is marked where the Sarāī

Bāburpūr-Atsu-Phaphand road turns south, east of Phaphand

(I.S. Map of 1900, Sheet 68).

[2490] var. _Qabāq_, _Qatāk_, _Qanāk_, to each of which a

meaning might be attached. Bābur had written to Humāyūn about

the frontier affair, as one touching the desired peace (f.

359).

[2491] This will refer to the late arrival in Āgra of the

envoy named, who was not with his younger brother at the feast

of f. 351_b_ (f. 357, p. 641, n. 2).—As to T̤ahmāsp's style,

see f. 354, f. 358.

[2492] Shāh-qulī may be the ill-informed narrator of f. 354.

[2493] Both are marked on the southward road from Jumoheen

(Jumandnā?) for Auraiya.

[2494] The old Kālpī _pargana_ having been sub-divided,

Dīrapūr is now in the district of Cawnpore (Kānhpūr).

[2495] That this operation was not hair-cutting but

head-shaving is shewn by the verbs T. _qīrmāq_ and its Pers.

trs. _tarāsh kardan_. To shave the head frequently is common

in Central Asia.

[2496] This will be Chaparghatta on the

Dīrapūr-Bhognīpūr-Chaparghatta-Mūsanagar road, the affixes

_kada_ and _ghatta_ both meaning house, temple, _etc._

[2497] Māhīm, and with her the child Gul-badan, came in

advance of the main body of women. Bābur seems to refer again

to her assumption of royal style by calling her Walī, Governor

(f. 369 and n.). It is unusual that no march or halt is

recorded on this day.

[2498] or, Ārampūr. We have not succeeded in finding this

place; it seems to have been on the west bank of the Jumna,

since twice Bābur when on the east bank, writes of coming

opposite to it (_supra_ and f. 379). If no move was made on

Tuesday, Jumāda II. 6th (cf. last note), the distance entered

as done on Wednesday would locate the halting-place somewhere

near the Akbarpūr of later name, which stands on a road and at

a ferry. But if the army did a stage on Tuesday, of which

Bābur omits mention, Wednesday's march might well bring him

opposite to Hamirpūr and to the "Rampur"-ferry. The verbal

approximation of Ārampūr and "Rampur" arrests attention.—Local

encroachment by the river, which is recorded in the District

Gazetteers, may have something to do with the disappearance

from these most useful books and from maps, of _pargana_

Ādampūr (or, Ārampūr).

[2499] _tūshlāb._ It suits best here, since solitude is the

speciality of the excursion, to read _tūshmāk_ as meaning to

take the road, Fr. _cheminer_.

[2500] _da`wī bīla_; _Mems._ p. 404, challenge; _Méms._ ii,

391, _il avait fait des façons_, a truth probably, but one

inferred only.

[2501] This will be more to the south than Kūra Khas, the

headquarters of the large district; perhaps it is "Koora

Khera" (? Kūra-khirāj) which suits the route (I.S. Map, Sheet

88).

[2502] Perhaps Kunda Kanak, known also as "Kuria, Koria, Kura

and Kunra Kanak" (_D.G. of Fatḥpūr_).

[2503] Haswa or Hanswa. The conjoint name represents two

villages some 6m. apart, and is today that of their

railway-station.

[2504] almost due east of Fatḥpūr, on the old King's Highway

(_Bādshāhī Sar-rāh_).

[2505] His ancestors had ruled in Jūnpūr from 1394 to 1476

AD., his father Ḥusain Shāh having been conquered by Sl.

Sikandar _Lūdī_ at the latter date. He was one of three rivals

for supremacy in the East (_Sharq_), the others being

Jalālu'd-dīn _Nūhānī_ and Maḥmūd _Lūdī_,—Afghāns all three.

Cf. Erskine's _History of India, Bābur_, i, 501.

[2506] This name appears on the I.S. Map, Sheet 88, but too

far north to suit Bābur's distances, and also off the Sarāī

Munda-Kusār-Karrah road. The position of Naubasta suits

better.

[2507] Sher Khān was associated with Dūdū Bībī in the charge

of her son's affairs. Bābur's favours to him, his son

Humāyūn's future conqueror, will have been done during the

Eastern campaign in 934 AH., of which so much record is

missing. Cf. _Tārīkh-i-sher-shāhī_, E. & D.'s _History of

India_, iv, 301 _et seq._ for particulars of Sher Khān (Farīd

Khān _Sūr Afghān_).

[2508] In writing "Sl. Maḥmūd", Bābur is reporting his

informant's style, he himself calling Maḥmūd "Khān" only (f.

363 and f. 363_b_).

[2509] This will be the more northerly of two Kusārs marked as

in Karrah; even so, it is a very long 6 _kurohs_ (12m.) from

the Dugdugī of the I.S. Map (cf. n. _supra_).

[2510] _bīr pāra āsh u ta`ām_, words which suggest one of

those complete meals served, each item on its separate small

dish, and all dishes fitting like mosaic into one tray. T.

_āsh_ is cooked meat (f. 2 n. 1 and f. 343_b_); Ar. _ta`ām_

will be sweets, fruit, bread, perhaps rice also.

[2511] The _yaktāī_, one-fold coat, contrasts with the

_dū-tāhī_, two-fold (A.-i-A. Bib. Ind. ed., p. 101, and

Blochmann's trs. p. 88).

[2512] This acknowledgement of right to the style Sulṯān

recognized also supremacy of the Sharqī claim to rule over

that of the Nūḥānī and _Lūdī_ competitors.

[2513] _mīndīn bītī tūrgān waqāī'._ This passage Teufel used

to support his view that Bābur's title for his book was

_Waqāī`_, and not _Bābur-nāma_ which, indeed, Teufel describes

as the _Kazaner Ausgabe adoptirte Titel_. _Bābur-nāma_,

however, is the title [or perhaps, merely scribe's name]

associated both with Kehr's text and with the Ḥaidarābād

Codex.—I have found no indication of the selection by Bābur of

any title; he makes no mention of the matter and where he uses

the word _waqāī`_ or its congeners, it can be read as a common

noun. In his colophon to the _Rāmpūr Dīwān_, it is a parallel

of _ash`ār_, poems. Judging from what is found in the _Mubīn_,

it may be right to infer that, if he had lived to complete his

book—now broken off _s.a._ 914 AH. (f. 216_b_)—he would have

been explicit as to its title, perhaps also as to his grounds

for choosing it. Such grounds would have found fitting mention

in a preface to the now abrupt opening of the _Bābur-nāma_ (f.

1_b_), and if the _Malfūzāt-i-tīmūrī_ be Tīmūr's authentic

autobiography, this book might have been named as an ancestral

example influencing Bābur to write his own. Nothing against

the authenticity of the _Malfūzāt_ can be inferred from the

circumstance that Bābur does not name it, because the preface

in which such mention would be in harmony with _e.g._ his

_Walidiyyah_ preface, was never written. It might accredit the

_Malfūzāt_ to collate passages having common topics, as they

appear in the _Bābur-nāma_, _Malfūzāt-i-tīmūrī_ and

_Z̤afar-nāma_ (cf. E. & D.'s H. of I. iv, 559 for a discussion

by Dr. Sachau and Prof. Dowson on the _Malfūzāt_). (Cf. Z.D.M.

xxxvii, p. 184, Teufel's art. _Bābur und Abū'l-faẓl_;

Smirnow's Cat. of _Manuscrits Turcs_, p. 142; Index _in loco_

_s.nn._ _Mubīn_ and Title.)

[2514] Koh-khirāj, Revenue-paying Koh (H. G. Nevill's _D. G.

of Allāhābād_, p. 261).

[2515] _kīma aīchīdā_, which suggests a boat with a cabin, a

_bajrā_ (_Hobson-Jobson_ _s.n._ budgerow).

[2516] He had stayed behind his kinsman Khwāja Kalān. Both, as

Bābur has said, were descendants of Khwāja `Ubaidu'l-lāh

_Aḥrārī_. Khwāja Kalān was a grandson of Aḥrārī's second son

Yahyā; Khwāja `Abdu'sh-shahīd was the son of his fifth, Khwāja

`Abdu'l-lāh (Khwājagān-khwāja). `Abdu'sh-shahīd returned to

India under Akbar, received a fief, maintained 2,000 poor

persons, left after 20 years, and died in Samarkand in 982

AH.-1574-5 AD. (A.-i-A., Blochmann's trs. and notes, pp. 423,

539).

[2517] f. 363, f. 363_b_.

[2518] Not found on maps; OOjani or Ujahni about suits the

measured distance.

[2519] Prayāg, Ilāhābād, Allāhābād. Between the asterisk in my

text (_supra_) and the one following "ford" before the

foliation mark f. 364, the Ḥai. MS. has a _lacuna_ which, as

being preceded and followed by broken sentences, can hardly be

due to a scribe's skip, but may result from the loss of a

folio. What I have entered above between the asterisks is

translated from the Kehr-Ilminsky text; it is in the two

Persian translations also. Close scrutiny of it suggests that

down to the end of the swimming episode it is not in order and

that the account of the swim across the Ganges may be a

survival of the now missing record of 934 AH. (f. 339). It is

singular that the Pers. trss. make no mention of Pīāg or of

Sīr-auliya; their omission arouses speculation, as to in which

text, the Turkī or Persian, it was first tried to fill what

remains a gap in the Ḥai. Codex. A second seeming sign of

disorder is the incomplete sentence _yūrtgha kīlīb_, which is

noted below. A third is the crowd of incidents now standing

under "Tuesday". A fourth, and an important matter, is that on

grounds noted at the end of the swimming passage (p. 655 n. 3)

it is doubtful whether that passage is in its right place.—It

may be that some-one, at an early date after Bābur's death,

tried to fill the _lacuna_ discovered in his manuscript, with

help from loose folios or parts of them. Cf. Index _s.n._

swimming, and f. 377_b_, p. 680 n. 2.

[2520] The Chaghatāī sulṯāns will have been with `Askarī east

of the Ganges.

[2521] _tūr hawālīk_; _Mems._ p. 406, violence of the wind;

_Méms_. ii, 398, _une température très agréable_.

[2522] _yūrtgha kīlīb_, an incomplete sentence.

[2523] _ārāl bār aīkāndūr_, phrasing implying uncertainty;

there may have been an island, or such a peninsula as a

narrow-mouthed bend of a river forms, or a spit or bluff

projecting into the river. The word _ārāl_ represents

_Aīkī-sū-ārāsī_, _Miyān-dū-āb_, _Entre-eaux_,

Twixt-two-streams, Mesopotamia.

[2524] _qūl_; Pers. trss. _dast andākhtan_ and _dast_.

Presumably the 33 strokes carried the swimmer across the deep

channel, or the Ganges was crossed higher than Pīāg.

[2525] The above account of Bābur's first swim across the

Ganges which is entered under date Jumāda II. 27th, 935 AH.

(March 8th, 1529 AD.), appears misplaced, since he mentions

under date Rajab 25th, 935 AH. (April 4th, 1529 AD. f.

366_b_), that he had swum the Ganges at Baksara (Buxar) a year

before, _i.e._ on or close to Rajab 25th, 934 AH. (April 15th,

1528 AD.). Nothing in his writings shews that he was near Pīāg

(Allāhābād) in 934 AH.; nothing indisputably connects the

swimming episode with the "Tuesday" below which it now stands;

there is no help given by dates. One supposes Bābur would take

his first chance to swim the Ganges; this was offered at

Qanauj (f. 336), but nothing in the short record of that time

touches the topic. The next chance would be after he was in

Aūd, when, by an unascertained route, perhaps down the Ghogrā,

he made his way to Baksara where he says (f. 366_b_) he swam

the river. Taking into consideration the various testimony

noted, [Index _s.n._ swimming] there seems warrant for

supposing that this swimming passage is a survival of the

missing record of 934 AH. (f. 339). Cf. f. 377_b_, p. 680 and

n. 2 for another surmised survival of 934 AH.

[2526] "Friday" here stands for Anglicé, Thursday after 6

p.m.; this, only, suiting Bābur's next explicit date Sha`bān

1st, Saturday.

[2527] The march, beginning on the Jumna, is now along the

united rivers.

[2528] _ẓarb-zanlīk arābalār._ Here the carts are those

carrying the guns.

[2529] From the particulars Bābur gives about the Tūs (Tons)

and Karmā-nāśā, it would seem that he had not passed them

last year, an inference supported by what is known of his

route in that year:—He came from Gūālīār to the Kanār-passage

(f. 336), there crossed the Jumna and went direct to Qanauj

(f. 335), above Qanauj bridged the Ganges, went on to

Bangarmāu (f. 338), crossed the Gūmtī and went to near the

junction of the Ghogrā and Sardā (f. 338_b_). The next

indication of his route is that he is at Baksara, but whether

he reached it by water down the Ghogrā, as his meeting with

Muḥ. Ma`rūf _Farmūlī_ suggests (f. 377), or by land, nothing

shews. From Baksara (f. 366) he went up-stream to Chausa (f.

365_b_), on perhaps to Sayyidpūr, 2m. from the mouth of the

Gūmtī, and there left the Ganges for Jūnpūr (f. 365). I have

found nothing about his return route to Āgra; it seems

improbable that he would go so far south as to near Pīāg; a

more northerly and direct road to Fatḥpūr and Sarāī Bāburpūr

may have been taken.—Concerning Bābur's acts in 934 AH. the

following item, (met with since I was working on 934 AH.),

continues his statement (f. 338_b_) that he spent a few days

near Aūd (Ajōdhya) to settle its affairs. The _D.G. of

Fyzābāa_ (H. E. Nevill) p. 173 says "In 1528 AD. Bābur came to

Ajōdhya (Aūd) and halted a week. He destroyed the ancient

temple" (marking the birth-place of Rāma) "and on its site

built a mosque, still known as Bābur's Mosque.... It has two

inscriptions, one on the outside, one on the pulpit; both are

in Persian; and bear the date 935 _AH._" This date may be that

of the completion of the building.—(_Corrigendum_:—On f. 339

n. 1, I have too narrowly restricted the use of the name

Sarjū. Bābur used it to describe what the maps of Arrowsmith

and Johnson shew, and not only what the _Gazetteer of India_

map of the United Provinces does. It applies to the Sardā (f.

339) as Bābur uses it when writing of the fords.)

[2530] Here the lacuna of the Ḥai. Codex ends.

[2531] Perhaps, where there is now the railway station of

"Nulibai" (I.S. Map). The direct road on which the army moved,

avoids the windings of the river.

[2532] This has been read as T. _kīnt_, P. _dih_, Eng. village

and Fr. _village_.

[2533] "Nankunpur" lying to the north of Puhari

railway-station suits the distance measured on maps.

[2534] These will be the women-travellers.

[2535] Perhaps jungle tracts lying in the curves of the river.

[2536] _jīrga_, which here stands for the beaters' incurving

line, witness the exit of the buffalo at the end. Cf. f.

367_b_ for a _jīrga_ of boats.

[2537] _aūzūn aūzāgh_, many miles and many hours?

[2538] Bulloa? (I.S. Map).

[2539] Anglicé, Sunday after 6 p.m.

[2540] _`alufa u qunal_ (f. 359_b_).

[2541] than the Ganges perhaps; or narrowish compared with

other rivers, _e.g._ Ganges, Ghogrā, and Jūn.

[2542] _yīl-tūrgī yūrt_, by which is meant, I think, close to

the same day a year back, and not an indefinite reference to

some time in the past year.

[2543] Maps make the starting-place likely to be Sayyidpūr.

[2544] re-named Zamānīa, after Akbar's officer `Alī-qulī Khān

Khān-i-zamān, and now the head-quarters of the Zamānīa

_pargana_ of Ghāzīpūr. Madan-Benāres was in Akbar's _sarkār_

of Ghāzīpūr. (It was not identified by E. or by de C.) Cf.

_D.G. of Ghāzīpūr_.

[2545] In the earlier part of the Ḥai. Codex this Afghān

tribal-name is written Nūḥānī, but in this latter portion a

different scribe occasionally writes it Lūḥānī (Index _s.n._).

[2546] _`arza-dāsht_, _i.e._ phrased as from one of lower

station to a superior.

[2547] His letter may have announced his and his mother Dūdū

Bībī's approach (f. 368-9).

[2548] Naṣīr Khān had been an amīr of Sl. Sikandar _Lūdī_.

Sher Khān _Sūr_ married his widow "Guhar Kusāīn", bringing him

a large dowry (A.N. trs. p. 327; and _Tārīkh-i-sher-shāhi_, E.

& D.'s _History of India_ iv, 346).

[2549] He started from Chaparghatta (f. 361_b_, p. 650 n. 1).

[2550] _yīl-tūrgī yūrt._

[2551] "This must have been the Eclipse of the 10th of May

1528 AD.; a fast is enjoined on the day of an eclipse"

(Erskine).

[2552] Karmā-nā['s]ā means loss of the merit acquired by good

works.

[2553] The I.S. Map marks a main road leading to the mouth of

the Karmā-nā['s]ā and no other leading to the river for a

considerable distance up-stream.

[2554] Perhaps "Thora-nadee" (I.S. Map).

[2555] Anglicé, Sunday after 6 p.m.

[2556] _aūtkān yīl._

[2557] Perhaps the _dū-āba_ between the Ganges and

"Thora-nadee".

[2558] _yīl-tūr ... Gang-sūī-dīn mīn dastak bīla aūtūb, ba`ẓī

āt, ba`ẓī tīwah mīnīb, kīlīb, sair qīlīlīb aīdī._ Some

uncertainty as to the meaning of the phrase _dastak bīla

aūtūb_ is caused by finding that while here de Courteille

agrees with Erskine in taking it to mean swimming, he varies

later (f. 373_b_) to _appuyés sur une pièce de bois_. Taking

the Persian translations of three passages about crossing

water into consideration (p. 655 after f. 363_b_, f. 366_b_

(here), f. 373_b_), and also the circumstances that E. and de

C. are once in agreement and that Erskine worked with the help

of Oriental _munshīs_, I incline to think that _dastak bīla_

does express swimming.—The question of its precise meaning

bears on one concerning Bābur's first swim across the Ganges

(p. 655, n. 3).—Perhaps I should say, however, that if the

sentence quoted at the head of this note stood alone, without

the extraneous circumstances supporting the reading of _dastak

bīla_ to mean swimming, I should incline to read it as stating

that Bābur went on foot through the water, feeling his footing

with a pole (_dastak_), and that his followers rode through

the ford after him. Nothing in the quoted passage suggests

that the horses and camels swam. But whether the Ganges was

fordable at Baksara in Bābur's time, is beyond surmise.

[2559] _faṣl soz_, which, manifestly, were to be laid before

the envoy's master. The articles are nowhere specified; one is

summarized merely on f. 365. The incomplete sentence of the

Turkī text (_supra_) needs their specification at this place,

and an explicit statement of them would have made clearer the

political relations of Bābur with Naṣrat Shāh.—A folio may

have been lost from Bābur's manuscript; it might have

specified the articles, and also have said something leading

to the next topic of the diary, now needing preliminaries,

_viz._ that of the Mīrzā's discontent with his new

appointment, a matter not mentioned earlier.

[2560] This suits Bābur's series, but Gladwin and Wüstenfeld

have 10th.

[2561] The first is near, the second on the direct road from

Buxar for Ārrah.

[2562] The Ḥai. MS. makes an elephant be posted as the sole

scout; others post a _sardār_, or post braves; none post man

and beast.

[2563] This should be 5th; perhaps the statement is confused

through the gifts being given late, Anglicé, on Tuesday 4th,

Islamicé on Wednesday night.

[2564] The Mīrzā's Tīmūrid birth and a desire in Bābur to give

high status to a representative he will have wished to leave

in Bihār when he himself went to his western dominions,

sufficiently explain the bestowal of this sign of sovereignty.

[2565] _jīrgā._ This instance of its use shews that Bābur had

in mind not a completed circle, but a line, or in sporting

parlance, not a hunting-circle but a beaters'-line. [Cf. f.

251, f. 364_b_ and _infra_ of the crocodile.] The word is used

also for a governing-circle, a tribal-council.

[2566] _aūlūgh_ (_kīma_). Does _aūlūgh_ (_aūlūq_, _ūlūq_)

connect with the "bulky Oolak or baggage-boat of Bengal"?

(_Hobson-Jobson_ _s.n._ Woolock, oolock).

[2567] De Courteille's reading of Ilminsky's "Bāburī" (p. 476)

as Bāīrī, old servant, hardly suits the age of the boat.

[2568] Bābur anticipated the custom followed _e.g._ by the

White Star and Cunard lines, when he gave his boats names

having the same terminal syllable; his is _āīsh_; on it he

makes the quip of the har _āīsh_ of the Farmāīsh.

[2569] As Vullers makes Ar. _ghurfat_ a synonym of

_chaukandī_, the Farmāīsh seems likely to have had a cabin,

open at the sides. De Courteille understood it to have a

rounded stern. [Cf. E. & D.'s _History of India_ v, 347, 503

n.; and Gul-badan's H. N. trs. p. 98, n. 2.]

[2570] _mīndīn rukhṣat āldī_; phrasing which bespeaks admitted

equality, that of Tīmūrid birth.

[2571] _i.e._ subjects of the Afghān ruler of Bengal; many

will have been Bihārīs and Pūrbiyas. Makhdūm-i-`ālam was

Naṣrat Shāh's Governor in Ḥājīpūr.

[2572] This might imply that the Afghāns had been prevented

from joining Maḥmūd Khān _Lūdī_ near the Son.

[2573] Sl. Muḥammad Shāh _Nūḥānī Afghān_, the former ruler of

Bihār, dead within a year. He had trained Farīd Khān _Sūr_ in

the management of government affairs; had given him, for

gallant encounter with a tiger, the title Sher Khān by which,

or its higher form Sher Shāh, history knows him, and had made

him his young son's "deputy", an office Sher Khān held after

the father's death in conjunction with the boy's mother Dūdū

Bībī (_Tārīkh-i-sher-shāhī_, E. & D.'s _History of India_ iv,

325 _et seq._).

[2574] _gūz bāghī yūsūnlūq_; by which I understand they were

held fast from departure, as _e.g._ a mouse by the fascination

of a snake.

[2575] f. 365 mentions a letter which may have announced their

intention.

[2576] Ganges; they thus evaded the restriction made good on

other Afghāns.

[2577] Anglicé, Saturday 8th after 6 p.m.

[2578] The _D. G. of Shāhābād_ (pp. 20 and 127) mentions that

"it is said Bābur marched to Ārrah after his victory over

Maḥmūd _Lūdī_", and that "local tradition still points to a

place near the Judge's Court as that on which he pitched his

camp".

[2579] Kharīd which is now a _pargana_ of the Ballia district,

lay formerly on both sides of the Ghogrā. When the army of

Kharīd opposed Bābur's progress, it acted for Naṣrat Shāh, but

this Bābur diplomatically ignored in assuming that there was

peace between Bengal and himself.—At this time Naṣrat Shāh

held the riverain on the left bank of the Ghogrā but had lost

Kharīd of the right bank, which had been taken from him by

Jūnaid _Barlās_. A record of his occupation still survives in

Kharīd-town, an inscription dated by his deputy as for 1529

AD. (_District Gazetteer of Ballia_ H. R. Nevill), and _D. G.

of Sāran_ (L. L. S. O'Malley), Historical Chapters.

[2580] Bābur's opinion of Naṣrat Shāh's hostility is more

clearly shewn here than in the verbal message of f. 369.

[2581] This will be an unceremonious summary of a

word-of-mouth message.

[2582] Cf. f. 366_b_, p. 661 n. 2.

[2583] This shews that Bābur did not recognize the Sāran

riverain down to the Ganges as belonging to Kharīd. His

offered escort of Turks would safe-guard the Kharīdīs if they

returned to the right bank of the Ghogrā which was in Turk

possession.

[2584] The Ḥai. MS. has _wālī_, clearly written; which, as a

word representing Māhīm would suit the sentence best, may make

playful reference to her royal commands (f. 361_b_), by

styling her the Governor (_wālī_). Erskine read the word as a

place-name Dipālī, which I have not found; De Courteille omits

Ilminsky's _w:ras_ (p. 478). The MSS. vary and are uncertain.

[2585] This is the "Kadjar" of Réclus' _L'Asie antérieure_ and

is the name of the Turkmān tribe to which the present ruling

house of Persia belongs. "Turkmān" might be taken as applied

to Shāh T̤aḥmāsp by Dīv Sulṯān's servant on f. 354.

[2586] _Nelumbium speciosum_, a water-bean of great beauty.

[2587] Shaikh Yaḥyā had been the head of the Chishtī Order.

His son (d. 782 AH.-1380-1 AD.) was the author of works named

by Abū'l-faẓl as read aloud to Akbar, a discursive detail

which pleads in my excuse that those who know Bābur well

cannot but see in his grandson's character and success the

fruition of his mental characteristics and of his labours in

Hindūstān. (For Sharafu'd-dīn _Munīrī_, cf.

_Khazīnatu'l-asfiyā_ ii, 390-92; and _Āyīn-i-akbarī_ _s.n._)

[2588] Kostenko's _Turkistān Region_ describes a regimen for

horses which Bābur will have seen in practice in his native

land, one which prevented the defect that hindered his at

Munīr from accomplishing more than some 30 miles before

mid-day.

[2589] The distance from Munīr to the bank of the Ganges will

have been considerably longer in Bābur's day than now because

of the change of the river's course through its desertion of

the Burh-gangā channel (cf. next note).

[2590] In trying to locate the site of Bābur's coming battle

with the forces of Naṣrat Shāh, it should be kept in mind that

previous to the 18th century, and therefore, presumably, in

his day, the Ganges flowed in the "Burh-ganga" (Old Ganges)

channel which now is closely followed by the western boundary

of the Ballia _pargana_ of Dū-āba; that the Ganges and Ghogrā

will have met where this old channel entered the bed of the

latter river; and also, as is seen from Bābur's narrative,

that above the confluence the Ghogrā will have been confined

to a narrowed channel. When the Ganges flowed in the

Burh-ganga channel, the now Ballia _pargana_ of Dū-āba was a

sub-division of Bihiya and continuous with Shāhābād. From it

in Bihiya Bābur crossed the Ganges into Kharīd, doing this at

a place his narrative locates as some 2 miles from the

confluence. Cf. _D. G. of Ballia_, pp. 9, 192-3, 206, 213. It

may be observed that the former northward extension of Bihiya

to the Burh-ganga channel explains Bābur's estimate (f. 370)

of the distance from Munīr to his camp on the Ganges; his

12_k._ (24m.) may then have been correct; it is now too high.

[2591] De Courteille, _pierrier_, which may be a balista.

Bābur's writings give no indication of other than

stone-ammunition for any projectile-engine or fire-arm. Cf. R.

W. F. Payne-Gallwey's _Projectile-throwing engines of the

ancients_.

[2592] Sir R. W. F. Payne-Gallwey writes in _The Cross-bow_

(p. 40 and p. 41) what may apply to Bābur's _ẓarb-zan_

(culverin?) and _tufang_ (matchlock), when he describes the

larger culverin as a heavy hand-gun of from 16-18lb., as used

by the foot-soldier and requiring the assistance of an

attendant to work it; also when he says that it became the

portable arquebus which was in extensive use in Europe by the

Swiss in 1476 AD.; and that between 1510 and 1520 the arquebus

described was superseded by what is still seen amongst remote

tribes in India, a matchlock arquebus.

[2593] The two positions Bābur selected for his guns would

seem to have been opposite two ferry-heads, those, presumably,

which were blocked against his pursuit of Bīban and Bāyazīd.

`Alī-qulī's emplacement will have been on the high bank of old

alluvium of south-eastern Kharīd, overlooking the narrowed

channel demanded by Bābur's narrative, one pent in presumably

by _kankar_ reefs such as there are in the region. As

illustrating what the channel might have been, the varying

breadth of the Ghogrā along the `Azamgarh District may be

quoted, _viz._ from 10 miles to 2/5m., the latter being where,

as in Kharīd, there is old alluvium with _kankar_ reefs

preserving the banks. Cf. Reid's _Report of Settlement

Operations in `Azamgarh, Sikandarpur, and Bhadaon_.—Firishta

gives Badrū as the name of one ferry (lith. ed. i. 210).

[2594] Muṣṯafa, like `Alī-qulī, was to take the offensive by

gun-fire directed on the opposite bank. Judging from maps and

also from the course taken by the Ganges through the

Burh-ganga channel and from Bābur's narrative, there seems to

have been a narrow reach of the Ghogrā just below the

confluence, as well as above.

[2595] This ferry, bearing the common name Haldī (turmeric),

is located by the course of events as at no great distance

above the enemy's encampment above the confluence. It cannot

be the one of Sikandarpūr West.

[2596] _guẕr_, which here may mean a casual ford through water

low just before the Rains. As it was not found, it will have

been temporary.

[2597] _i.e._ above Bābur's positions.

[2598] _sarwar_ (or _dar_) _waqt_.

[2599] The preceding sentence is imperfect and varies in the

MSS. The 1st Pers. trs., the wording of which is often

explanatory, says that there were _no_ passages, which, as

there were many ferries, will mean fords. The Haldī-guẕr where

`Askarī was to cross, will have been far below the lowest

Bābur mentions, _viz._ Chatur-mūk (Chaupāra).

[2600] This passage presupposes that guns in Kharīd could hit

the hostile camp in Sāran. If the river narrowed here as it

does further north, the Ghāzī mortar, which seems to have been

the only one Bābur had with him, would have carried across,

since it threw a stone 1,600 paces (_qadam_, f. 309). Cf.

Reid's _Report_ quoted above.

[2601] Anglicé, Saturday after 6p.m.

[2602] _yaqīn būlghān fauj_, var. _ta`īn būlghān fauj_, the

army appointed (to cross). The boats will be those collected

at the Haldī-ferry, and the army `Askarī's.

[2603] _i.e._ near `Alī-qulī's emplacement.