The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
be Udyānapūra, Garden town.[2780] Of this Bābur's Adīnapūr is held to be
a corruption; the same meaning of garden has survived on approximately
the same ground in Bālā-bāgh and Roẓābād.
Nagarahāra is seen, therefore, to be a parenthetical name between others
which are all derived from gardens. It may shew the promotion of a
"Garden-town" to a "Chief-town". If it did this, there was relapse of
name when the Chief-town lost status. Was it ever applied beyond the
delta? If it were, would it, when dead in the delta, persist along the
riverain tract? If it were not, _cadit quæstio_; the suggestion of two
names distinct in origin, is upheld.
Certainly the riverain tract would fall naturally under the government
of any town flourishing in the delta, the richest and most populous part
of the region. But for this very reason it must have had a name older
than parenthetical Nagarahāra. That inevitable name would be
appropriately Nīng-nahār (or Na-nahār) Nine-streams; and for a period
Nagarahāra would be the Chief-town of the district of Na-nahār
(Nine-streams).[2781]
_d. Bābur's statements about the name._
What the cautious Bābur says of his _tūmān_ of Nīng-nahār has weight:—
1. That some histories write it Nagarahār (Ḥaidarābād Codex,
f. 131_b_);
2. That Nīng-nahār is nine torrents, _i.e._ mountain streams,
_tūquz-rud_;
3. That (the) nine torrents issue from Safed-koh (f. 132_b_).
Of his first statement can be said, that he will have seen the book-name
in histories he read, but will have heard Nīng-nahār, probably also have
seen it in current letters and accounts.
Of his second,—that it bears and may be meant to bear two senses, (_a_)
that the _tūmān_ consisted of nine torrents,—their lands implied; just
as he says "Asfara is four _būlūks_" (sub-divisions f. 3_b_)—(_b_) that
_tūqūz rūd_ translates _nīng-nahār_.
Of his third,—that in English its sense varies as it is read with or
without the definite article Turkī rarely writes, but that either sense
helps out his first and second, to mean that verbally and by its
constituent units Nīng-nahār is nine-torrents; as verbally and by its
constituents Panj-āb is five-waters.
_e. Last words._
Detailed work on the Kābul section of the _Bābur-nāma_ has stamped two
impressions so deeply on me, that they claim mention, not as novel or as
special to myself, but as set by the work.
The first is of extreme risk in swift decision on any problem of words
arising in North Afghānistān, because of its local concourse of tongues,
the varied utterance of its unlettered tribes resident or nomad, and the
frequent translation of proper names in obedience to their verbal
meanings. Names lie there too in _strata_, relics of successive
occupation—Greek, Turkī, Hindī, Pushtū and tribes _galore_.
The second is that the region is an exceptionally fruitful field for
first-hand observation of speech, the movent ocean of the uttered word,
free of the desiccated symbolism of alphabets and books.
The following books, amongst others, have prompted the above note:—
Ghoswāra Inscription, Kittoe, JASB., 1848, and Kielhorn,
_Indian Antiquary_, 1888, p. 311.
H. Sastrī's _Rāmacārita_, Introduction, p. 7 (ASB. Memoirs).
Cunningham's _Ancient India_, vol. i.
Beal's _Buddhist Records_, i, xxxiv, and cii, 91.
Leech's Vocabularies, JASB., 1838.
The writings of Masson (_Travels_ and _Ariana Antiqua_), Wood,
Vigne, etc.
Raverty's _T̤abaqāt-i-nāsirī_.
Jarrett's _Āyīn-i-akbarī_.
P.R.G.S. for maps, 1879; Macnair on the Kafirs, 1884; Tanner's
_On the Chugānī and neighbouring tribes of Kāfiristān_, 1881.
Simpson's _Nagarahāra_, JASB., xiii.
Biddulph's _Dialects of the Hindū-kush_, JRAS.
Gazette of India, 1907, art. Jalalābād.
Bellew's _Races of Afghānistān_.
F.—ON THE NAME DARA-I-NŪR
Some European writers have understood the name Dara-i-nūr to mean Valley
of Light, but natural features and also the artificial one mentioned by
Colonel H. G. Tanner (_infra_), make it better to read the component
_nūr_, not as Persian _nūr_, light, but as Pushtū _nūr_, rock. Hence it
translates as Valley of Rocks, or Rock-valley. The region in which the
valley lies is rocky and boulder-strewn; its own waters flow to the
Kābul-river east of the water of Chitrāl. It shews other names composed
with _nūr_, in which _nūr_ suits if it means rock, but is inexplicable
if it means light, _e.g._ Nūr-lām (Nūr-fort), the master-fort in the
mouth of Nūr-valley, standing high on a rock between two streams, as
Bābur and Tanner have both described it from eye-witness,—Nūr-gal
(village), a little to the north-west of the valley,—Aūlūgh-nūr (great
rock), at a crossing mentioned by Bābur, higher up the Bārān-water,—and
Koh-i-nūr (Rocky-mountains), which there is ground for taking as the
correct form of the familiar "Kunar" of some European writers (Raverty's
_Notes_, p. 106). The dominant feature in these places dictates reading
_nūr_ as rock; so too the work done in Nūr-valley with boulders, of
which Colonel H. G. Tanner's interesting account is subjoined (P.R.G.S.
1881, p. 284).
"Some 10 miles from the source of the main stream of the Nur-valley the
Dameneh stream enters, but the waters of the two never meet; they flow
side by side about three-quarters of a mile apart for about 12 miles and
empty themselves into the Kunar river by different mouths, each torrent
hugging closely the foot of the hills at its own side of the valley.
Now, except in countries where terracing has been practised continuously
for thousands of years, such unnatural topography as exists in the
valley of Nur is next to impossible. The forces which were sufficient to
scoop out the valley in the first instance, would have kept a water-way
at the lowest part, into which would have poured the drainage of the
surrounding mountains; but in the Nur-valley long-continued terracing
has gradually raised the centre of the valley high above the edges. The
population has increased to its maximum limit and every available inch
of ground is required for cultivation; the people, by means of
terrace-walls built of ponderous boulders in the bed of the original
single stream, have little by little pushed the waters out of their true
course, until they run, where now found, in deep rocky cuttings at the
foot of the hills on either side" (p. 280).
"I should like to go on and say a good deal more about boulders; and
while I am about it I may as well mention one that lies back from a
hamlet in Shulut, which is so big that a house is built in a fault or
crack running across its face. Another pebble lies athwart the village
and covers the whole of the houses from that side."
G.—ON THE NAMES OF TWO DARA-I-NŪR WINES.
From the two names, Arat-tāshī and Sūhān (Suhār) -tāshī, which Bābur
gives as those of two wines of the Dara-i-nūr, it can be inferred that
he read _nūr_ to mean rock. For if in them Turkī _tāsh_, rock, be
replaced by Pushtū _nūr_, rock, two place-names emerge, Arat (-nūrī) and
Sūhān (-nūrī), known in the Nūr-valley.
These may be villages where the wines were grown, but it would be quite
exceptional for Bābur to say that wines are called from their villages,
or indeed by any name. He says here not where they grow but what they
are called.
I surmise that he is repeating a joke, perhaps his own, perhaps a
standing local one, made on the quality of the wines. For whether with
_tāsh_ or with _nūr_ (rock), the names can be translated as Rock-saw and
Rock-file, and may refer to the rough and acid quality of the wines,
rasping and setting the teeth on edge as does iron on stone.
The villages themselves may owe their names to a serrated edge or
splintered pinnacle of weathered granite, in which local people, known
as good craftsmen, have seen resemblance to tools of their trade.
H.—ON THE COUNTERMARK BIH BŪD ON COINS.
As coins of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā _Bāī-qarā_ and other rulers do actually
bear the words _Bih būd_, Bābur's statement that the name of Bihbūd Beg
was on the Mīrzā's coins acquires a numismatic interest which may make
serviceable the following particulars concerning the passage and the
beg.[2782]
_a. The Turkī passage_ (Elph. MS. f. 135_b_; Ḥaidarābād Codex
f. 173_b_; Ilminsky p. 217).
For ease of reference the Turkī, Persian and English version are
subjoined:—
(1) _Yana Bihbūd Beg aīdī. Būrūnlār chuhra-jīrga-sī-dā khidmat qīlūr
aīdī. Mīrzā-nīng qāzāqlīqlārīdā khidmatī bāqīb Bihbūd Beg-kā bū
`ināyatnī qīlīb aīdī kīm tamghā u sikka-dā ānīng ātī aīdī._
(2) The Persian translation of `Abdu'r-raḥīm (Muḥ. Shīrāzī's lith. ed.
p. 110):—
_Dīgar Bihbūd Beg būd. Auwalhā dar jīrga-i-chuhrahā khidmat mikard. Chūn
dar qāzāqīhā Mīrzārā khidmat karda būd u ānrā mulāḥaẓa namūda, aīnrā
`ināyat karda būd kah dar tamghānāt sikka_[2783] _nām-i-au būd._
(3) A literal English translation of the Turkī:—
Another was Bihbūd Beg. He served formerly in the _chuhra-jīrga-sī_
(corps of braves). Looking to his service in the Mīrzā's guerilla-times,
the favour had been done to Bihbūd Beg that his name was on the stamp
and coin.[2784]
_b. Of Bihbūd Beg._
We have found little so far to add to what Bābur tells of Bihbūd Beg and
what he tells we have not found elsewhere. The likely sources of his
information are Daulat Shāh and Khwānd-amīr who have written at length
of Ḥusain _Bāī-qarā_. Considerable search in the books of both men has
failed to discover mention of signal service or public honour connected
with the beg. Bābur may have heard what he tells in Harāt in 912 AH.
(1506 AD.) when he would see Ḥusain's coins presumably; but later
opportunity to see them must have been frequent during his campaigns and
visits north of Hindū-kush, notably in Balkh.
The sole mention we have found of Bihbūd Beg in the _Ḥabību's-siyar_ is
that he was one of Ḥusain's commanders at the battle of Chīkmān-sarāī
which was fought with Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā _Mīrānshāhī_ in Muḥarram 876 AH.
(June-July 1471 AD.).[2785] His place in the list shews him to have had
importance. "Amīr Niẕāmu'd-dīn `Alī-sher's brother Darwesh-i-`alī the
librarian (_q.v._ Ḥai. Codex Index), and Amīr Bihbūd, and Muḥ. `Alī
_ātāka_, and Bakhshīka and Shāh Walī _Qīpchāq_, and Dost-i-muḥammad
_chuhra_, and Amīr Qul-i-`alī, and" (another).
The total of our information about the man is therefore:—
(1) That when Ḥusain[2786] from 861 to 873 AH. (1457 to 1469 AD.) was
fighting his way up to the throne of Harāt, Bihbūd served him well in
the corps of braves, (as many others will have done).
(2) That he was a beg and one of Ḥusain's commanders in 876 AH. (1471
AD.).
(3) That Bābur includes him amongst Ḥusain's begs and says of him what
has been quoted, doing this _circa_ 934 AH. (1528 AD.), some 56 years
after Khwānd-amīr's mention of him _s.a._ 876 AH. (1471 AD.).
_c. Of the term chuhra-jīrga-sī used by Bābur._
Of this term Bābur supplies an explicit explanation which I have not
found in European writings. His own book amply exemplifies his
explanation, as do also Khwānd-amīr's and Ḥaidar's.
He gives the explanation (f. 15_b_) when describing a retainer of his
father's who afterwards became one of his own begs. It is as follows:—
"`Alī-darwesh of Khurāsān served in the Khurāsān _chuhra-jīrga-sī_, one
of two special corps (_khāṣa tābīn_) of serviceable braves (_yārār
yīgītlār_) formed by Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā when he first began to arrange
the government of Khurāsān and Samarkand and, presumably, called by him
the Khurāsān corps and the Samarkand corps."
This shews the circle to have consisted of fighting-men, such
serviceable braves as are frequently mentioned by Bābur; and his words
"_yārār yīgīt_" make it safe to say that if instead of using a Persian