The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
phrase, he had used a Turkī one, _yīgīt_, brave would have replaced
_chuhra_, "young soldier" (Erskine). A considerable number of men on
active service are styled _chuhra_, one at least is styled _yīgīt_, in
the same way as others are styled _beg_.[2787]
Three military circles are mentioned in the _Bābur-nāma_, consisting
respectively of braves, household begs (under Bābur's own command), and
great begs. Some men are mentioned who never rose from the rank of brave
(_yīgīt_), some who became household-begs, some who went through the
three grades.
Of the corps of braves Bābur conveys the information that Abū-sa`īd
founded it at a date which will have lain between 1451 and 1457 AD.;
that `Umar Shaikh's man `Alī-darwesh belonged to it; and that Ḥusain's
man Bihbūd did so also. Both men, `Ali-darwesh and Bihbūd, when in its
circle, would appropriately be styled _chuhra_ as men of the beg-circle
were styled beg; the Dost-i-muḥammad _chuhra_ who was a commander, (he
will have had a brave's command,) at Chīkmān-sarāī (_see_ list _supra_)
will also have been of this circle. Instances of the use by Bābur of the
name _khaṣa-tābīn_ and its equivalent _būītīkīnī_ are shewn on f. 209
and f. 210_b_. A considerable number of Bābur's fighting men, the braves
he so frequently mentions as sent on service, are styled _chuhra_ and
inferentially belong to the same circle.[2788]
_d. Of Bih būd on Ḥusain Bāī-qarā's coins._
So far it does not seem safe to accept Bābur's statement literally. He
may tell a half-truth and obscure the rest by his brevity.
Nothing in the sources shows ground for signal and public honour to
Bihbūd Beg, but a good deal would allow surmise that jesting allusion to
his name might decide for _Bih būd_ as a coin mark when choice had to be
made of one, in the flush of success, in an assembly of the begs, and,
amongst those begs, lovers of word-play and enigma.
The personal name is found written Bihbūd, as one word and with medial
_h_; the mark is _Bih būd_ with the terminal _h_ in the _Bih_. There
have been discussions moreover as to whether to read on the coins _Bih
būd_, it was good, or _Bih buvad_, let it be, or become, good (valid for
currency?).
The question presents itself; would the beg's name have appeared on the
coins, if it had not coincided in form with a suitable coin-mark?
Against literal acceptance of Bābur's statement there is also doubt of a
thing at once so _ben trovato_ and so unsupported by evidence.
Another doubt arises from finding _Bih būd_ on coins of other rulers,
one of Iskandar Khan's being of a later date,[2789] others, of Tīmūr,
Shāhrukh and Abū-sa`īd, with nothing to shew who counterstruck it on
them.
On some of Ḥusain's coins the sentence _Bih būd_ appears as part of the
legend and not as a counterstrike. This is a good basis for finding a
half-truth in Bābur's statement. It does not allow of a whole-truth in
his statement because, as it is written, it is a coin-mark, not a name.
An interesting matter as bearing on Ḥusain's use of _Bih būd_ is that in
865 AH. (1461 AD.) he had an incomparable horse named Bihbūd, one he
gave in return for a falcon on making peace with Mustapha Khān.[2790]
_e. Of Bābur's vassal-coinage._
The following historical details narrow the field of numismatic
observation on coins believed struck by Bābur as a vassal of Ismā`īl
_Ṣafawī_. They are offered because not readily accessible.
The length of Bābur's second term of rule in Transoxiana was not the
three solar years of the B.M. Coin Catalogues but did not exceed eight
months. He entered Samarkand in the middle of Rajab 917 AH. (_c._ Oct.
1st, 1511 AD.). He returned to it defeated and fled at once, after the
battle of Kūl-i-malik which was fought in Ṣafar 918 AH. (mid-April to
mid-May 1512 AD.). Previous to the entry he was in the field, without a
fixed base; after his flight he was landless till at the end both of 920
AH. and of 1514 AD. he had returned to Kābul.
He would not find a full Treasury in Samarkand because the Aūzbegs
evacuated the fort at their own time; eight months would not give him
large tribute in kind. He failed in Transoxiana because he was the ally
of a Shī`a; would coins bearing the Shī`a legend have passed current
from a Samarkand mint? These various circumstances suggest that he could
not have struck many coins of any kind in Samarkand.
The coins classed in the B.M. Catalogues as of Bābur's vassalage, offer
a point of difficulty to readers of his own writings, inasmuch as
neither the "Sulṯān Muḥammad" of No. 652 (gold), nor the "Sulṯān Bābur
Bahādur" of the silver coins enables confident acceptance of them as
names he himself would use.
I.—ON THE WEEPING-WILLOWS OF f. 190_b_.
The passage omitted from f. 190_b_, which seems to describe something
decorative done with weeping willows, (_bed-i-mawallah_) has been
difficult to all translators. This may be due to inaccurate pointing in
Bābur's original MS. or may be what a traveller seeing other willows at
another feast could explain.
The first Persian translation omits the passage (I.O. 215 f. 154_b_);
the second varies from the Turkī, notably by changing _sāch_ and _sāj_
to _shākh_ throughout (I.O. 217 f. 150_b_). The English and French
translations differ much (_Memoirs_ p. 206, _Mémoires_ i, 414), the
latter taking the _mawallah_ to be _mūla_, a hut, against which much is
clear in the various MSS.
Three Turkī sources[2791] agree in reading as follows:—
_Mawallahlār-nī_ (or _muwallah_ Ḥai. MS.) _kīltūrdīlār. Bīlmān
sāchlārī-nīng yā `amlī sāchlārī-nīng ārālārīgha k:msān-nī_ (Ilminsky,
_kamān_) _shākh-nīng_ (Ḥai. MS. _șākh_) _aūzūnlūghī bīla aīnjīga aīnjīga
kīsīb, qūīūb tūrlār._
The English and French translations differ from the Turkī and from one
another:—
(_Memoirs_, p. 206) They brought in branching willow-trees. I do not
know if they were in the natural state of the tree, or if the branches
were formed artificially, but they had small twigs cut the length of the
ears of a bow and inserted between them.
(_Mémoires_ i, 434) On façonna des huttes (_mouleh_). Ils les
établissent en taillant des baguettes minces, de la longeur du bout
recourbé de l'arc, qu'on place entre des branches naturelles ou
façonnées artificiellement, je l'ignore.
The construction of the sentence appears to be thus:—_Mawal-lahlār-nī
kīltūrdīlār_, they brought weeping-willows; _k:msān-nī_ _qūīūbtūrlār_,
they had put _k:msān-nī_; _aīnjīga aīnjīga kīsīb_, cut very fine (or
slender); _shākh_ (or _șākh_)_-nīng aūzūnlūghī_, of the length of a
_shākh_, bow, or _șākh_ ...; _bīlmān sāchlārī-nīng yā `amlī
sāchlārī-nīng ārālārīgha_, to (or at) the spaces of the _sāchlār_
whether their (_i.e._ the willows') own or artificial _sāchlār_.
These translations clearly indicate felt difficulty. Mr. Erskine does
not seem to have understood that the trees were _Salix babylonica_. The
crux of the passage is the word _k:msān-nī_, which tells what was placed
in the spaces. It has been read as _kamān_, bow, by all but the scribes
of the two good Turkī MSS. and as in a phrase _horn of a bow_. This
however is not allowed by the Turkī, for the reason that _k:msān-nī_ is
not in the genitive but in the accusative case. (I may say that Bābur
does not use _nī_ for _nīng_; he keeps strictly to the prime uses of
each enclitic, _nī_ accusative, _nīng_ genitive.) Moreover, if
_k:msān-nī_ be taken as a genitive, the verbs _qūīūb-tūrlār_ and _kīsīb_
have no object, no other accusative appearing in the sentence than
_k:msān-nī_.
A weighty reason against changing _sāch_ into _shākh_ is that Dr.
Ilminsky has not done so. He must have attached meaning to _sāch_ since
he uses it throughout the passage. He was nearer the region wherein the
original willows were seen at a feast. Unfortunately nothing shows how
he interpreted the word.
_Sāchmāq_ is a tassel; is it also a catkin and were there decorations,
_kimsān-nī_ (things _kimsa_, or flowers Ar. _kim_, or something shining,
_kimcha_, gold brocade) hung in between the catkins?
Ilminsky writes _mu'lah_ (with _ḥamza_) and this de Courteille
translates by hut. The Ḥai. MS. writes _muwallah_ (marking the _ẓamma_).
In favour of reading _mawallah_ (_mulah_) as a tree and that tree _Salix
babylonica_ the weeping-willow, there are annotations in the Second
Persian translation and, perhaps following it, in the Elphinstone MS. of
_nām-i-dirakht_, name of a tree, _dīdān-i-bed_, sight of the willow,
_bed-i-mawallah_, mournful-willow. Standing alone _mawallah_ means
weeping-willow, in this use answering to _majnūn_ the name Panj-ābīs
give the tree, from Leila's lover the distracted _i.e._ Majnūn
(Brandis).
The whole question may be solved by a chance remark from a traveller
witnessing similar festive decoration at another feast in that
conservative region.
J.—ON BĀBUR'S EXCAVATED CHAMBER AT QANDAHĀR (f. 208_b_).
Since making my note (f. 208_b_) on the wording of the passage in which
Bābur mentions excavation done by him at Qandahār, I have learned that
he must be speaking of the vaulted chamber containing the celebrated
inscriptions about which much has been written.[2792]
The primary inscription, the one commemorating Bābur's final possession
of Qandahār, gives the chamber the character of a Temple of Victory and
speaks of it as _Rawāq-i-jahān namāī_, World-shewing-portal,[2793]
doubtless because of its conspicuous position and its extensive view,
probably also in allusion to its declaration of victory. Mīr Ma`ṣūm
writes of it as a Pesh-ṯāq, frontal arch, which, coupled with Mohan
Lall's word arch (_ṯāq_) suggests that the chamber was entered through
an arch pierced in a parallelogram smoothed on the rock and having
resemblance to the _pesh-tāq_ of buildings, a suggestion seeming the
more probable that some inscriptions are on the "wings" of the arch. But
by neither of the above-mentioned names do Mohan Lall and later
travellers call the chamber or write of the place; all describe it by
its approach of forty steps, Chihil-zīna.[3]
The excavation has been chipped out of the white-veined limestone of the
bare ridge on and below which stood Old Qandahār.[2794] It does not
appear from the descriptions to have been on the summit of the ridge;
Bellew says that the forty steps start half-way up the height. I have
found no estimate of the height of the ridge, or statement that the
steps end at the chamber. The ridge however seems to have been of
noticeably dominating height. It rises steeply to the north and there
ends in the naze of which Bābur writes. The foot of the steps is guarded
by two towers. Mohan Lall, unaccustomed to mountains, found their ascent
steep and dizzy. The excavated chamber of the inscriptions, which Bellew
describes as "bow-shaped and dome-roofed", he estimated as 12 feet at
the highest point, 12 feet deep and 8 feet wide. Two sculptured beasts
guard the entrance; Bellew calls them leopards but tigers would better
symbolize the watch and ward of the Tiger Bābur. In truth the whole
work, weary steps of approach, tiger guardians, commemorative chamber,
laboriously incised words, are admirably symbolic of his long-sustained
resolve and action, taken always with Hindūstān as the goal.
There are several inscriptions of varying date, within and without the
chamber. Mohan Lall saw and copied them; Darmesteter worked on a copy;
the two English observers Lumsden and Bellew made no attempt at correct
interpretation. In the versions all give there are inaccuracies, arising
from obvious causes, especially from want of historical _data_. The last
word has not been said; revision awaits photography and the leisured
expert. A part of the needed revision has been done by Beames, who deals
with the geography of what Mīr Ma`ṣūm himself added under Akbar after he