The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
her. They are said to have come from Thana by M`amūra (?), crossed the
river at Chakdara, taken a narrow road between two hills and past
Talāsh-village to the back of Tīrī (?) where the Pādshāh's escort met
them. The Maliks returned, spent one night at Chakdara and next morning
reached their homes at the Mahūra _sangur_.
Meanwhile Runa the nurse who had control of Malik Manṣūr's household,
with two other nurses and many male and female servants, went on with
Bībī Mubāraka to the royal camp. The bride was set down with all honour
at a large tent in the middle of the camp.
That night and on the following day the wives of the officers came to
visit her but she paid them no attention. So, they said to one another
as they were returning to their tents, "Her beauty is beyond question,
but she has shewn us no kindness, and has not spoken to us; we do not
know what mystery there is about her."
Now Bībī Mubāraka had charged her servants to let her know when the
Pādshāh was approaching in order that she might receive him according to
Malik Aḥmad's instructions. They said to her, "That was the pomp just
now of the Pādshāh's going to prayers at the general mosque." That same
day after the Mid-day Prayer, the Pādshāh went towards her tent. Her
servants informed her, she immediately left her divan and advancing,
lighted up the carpet by her presence, and stood respectfully with
folded hands. When the Pādshāh entered, she bowed herself before him.
But her face remained entirely covered. At length the Pādshāh seated
himself on the divan and said to her, "Come Afghāniya, be seated." Again
she bowed before him, and stood as before. A second time he said,
"Afghāniya, be seated." Again she prostrated herself before him and came
a little nearer, but still stood. Then the Pādshāh pulled the veil from
her face and beheld incomparable beauty. He was entranced, he said
again, "O, Afghāniya, sit down." Then she bowed herself again, and said,
"I have a petition to make. If an order be given, I will make it." The
Pādshāh said kindly, "Speak." Whereupon she with both hands took up her
dress and said, "Think that the whole Yūsuf-zāī tribe is enfolded in my
skirt, and pardon their offences for my sake." Said the Pādshāh, "I
forgive the Yūsuf-zāī all their offences in thy presence, and cast them
all into thy skirt. Hereafter I shall have no ill-feeling to the
Yūsuf-zāī." Again she bowed before him; the Pādshāh took her hand and
led her to the divan.
When the Afternoon Prayer time came and the Pādshāh rose from the divan
to go to prayers, Bībī Mubāraka jumped up and fetched him his
shoes.[2798] He put them on and said very pleasantly, "I am extremely
pleased with you and your tribe and I have pardoned them all for your
sake." Then he said with a smile, "We know it was Malik Aḥmad taught you
all these ways." He then went to prayers and the Bībī remained to say
hers in the tent.
After some days the camp moved from Dīārūn and proceeded by Bajaur and
Tankī to Kābul.[2799]...
Bībī Mubāraka, the Blessed Lady, is often mentioned by Gul-badan; she
had no children; and lived an honoured life, as her chronicler says,
until the beginning of Akbar's reign, when she died. Her brother Mīr
Jamāl rose to honour under Bābur, Humāyūn and Akbar.
L.—ON MĀHĪM'S ADOPTION OF HIND-ĀL.
The passage quoted below about Māhīm's adoption of the unborn Hind-āl we
have found so far only in Kehr's transcript of the _Bābur-nāma_ (_i.e._
the St. Petersburg Foreign Office Codex). Ilminsky reproduced it (Kāsān
imprint p. 281) and de Courteille translated it (ii, 45), both with
endeavour at emendation. It is interpolated in Kehr's MS. at the wrong
place, thus indicating that it was once marginal or apart from the text.
I incline to suppose the whole a note made by Humāyūn, although part of
it might be an explanation made by Bābur, at a later date, of an
over-brief passage in his diary. Of such passages there are several
instances. What is strongly against its being Bābur's where otherwise it
might be his, is that Māhīm, as he always calls her simply, is there
written of as Ḥaẓrat Wālida, Royal Mother and with the honorific plural.
That plural Bābur uses for his own mother (dead 14 years before 925 AH.)
and never for Māhīm. The note is as follows:—
"The explanation is this:—As up to that time those of one birth
(_tūqqān_, womb) with him (Humāyūn), that is to say a son Bār-būl, who
was younger than he but older than the rest, and three daughters,
Mihr-jān and two others, died in childhood, he had a great wish for one
of the same birth with him.[2800] I had said 'What it would have been if
there had been one of the same birth with him!' (Humāyūn). Said the
Royal Mother, 'If Dil-dār Āghācha bear a son, how is it if I take him
and rear him?' 'It is very good' said I."
So far doubtfully _might_ be Bābur's but it may be Humāyūn's written as
a note for Bābur. What follows appears to be by some-one who knew the
details of Māhīm's household talk and was in Kābul when Dil-dār's child
was taken from her.
"Seemingly women have the custom of taking omens in the following
way:—When they have said, 'Is it to be a boy? is it to be a girl?' they
write `Alī or Ḥasan on one of two pieces of paper and Fāṯima on the
other, put each paper into a ball of clay and throw both into a bowl of
water. Whichever opens first is taken as an omen; if the man's, they say
a man-child will be born; if the woman's, a girl will be born. They took
the omen; it came out a man."
"On this glad tidings we at once sent letters off.[2801] A few days
later God's mercy bestowed a son. Three days before the news[2802] and
three days after the birth, they[2803] took the child from its mother,
(she) willy-nilly, brought it to our house[2804] and took it in their
charge. When we sent the news of the birth, Bhīra was being taken. They
named him Hind-āl for a good omen and benediction."[2805]
The whole may be Humāyūn's, and prompted by a wish to remove an
obscurity his father had left and by sentiment stirred through
reminiscence of a cherished childhood.
Whether Humāyūn wrote the whole or not, how is it that the passage
appears only in the Russian group of Bāburiana?
An apparent answer to this lies in the following little mosaic of
circumstances:—The St. Petersburg group of Bāburiana[2806] is linked to
Kāmrān's own copy of the _Bābur-nāma_ by having with it a letter of
Bābur to Kāmrān and also what _may be_ a note indicating its passage
into Humāyūn's hands (JRAS 1908 p. 830). If it did so pass, a note by
Humāyūn may have become associated with it, in one of several obvious
ways. This would be at a date earlier than that of the Elphinstone MS.
and would explain why it is found in Russia and not in Indian MSS.[2807]
[APPENDICES TO THE HINDŪSTĀN SECTION.]
M.—ON THE TERM _BAḤRĪ QŪT̤ĀS_.
That the term _baḥrī qūṯās_ is interpreted by Meninski, Erskine, and de
Courteille in senses so widely differing as _equus maritimus_,
mountain-cow, and _bœuf vert de mer_ is due, no doubt, to their writing
when the _qūṯās_, the yāk, was less well known than it now is.
The word _qūṯās_ represents both the yāk itself and its neck-tassel and
tail. Hence Meninski explains it by _nodus fimbriatus ex cauda seu
crinibus equi maritimi_. His "sea-horse" appears to render _baḥrī
qūṯās_, and is explicable by the circumstance that the same purposes are
served by horse-tails and by yāk-tails and tassels, namely, with both,
standards are fashioned, horse-equipage is ornamented or perhaps
furnished with fly-flappers, and the ordinary hand-fly-flappers are
made, _i.e._ the _chowries_ of Anglo-India.
Erskine's "mountain-cow" (_Memoirs_ p. 317) may well be due to his
_munshī's_ giving the yāk an alternative name, _viz._ _Kosh-gau_ (Vigne)
or _Khāsh-gau_ (Ney Elias), which appears to mean mountain-cow (cattle,
oxen).[2808]
De Courteille's _Dictionary_ p. 422, explains _qūtās_ (_qūṯās_) as _bœuf
marin_ (_baḥrī qūṯās_) and his _Mémoires_ ii, 191, renders Bābur's
_baḥrī qūṯās_ by _bœuf vert de mer_ (f. 276, p. 490 and n. 8).
The term _baḥrī qūṯās_ could be interpreted with more confidence if one
knew where the seemingly Arabic-Turkī compound originated.[2809] Bābur
uses it in Hindūstān where the neck-tassel and the tail of the domestic
yāk are articles of commerce, and where, as also probably in Kābul, he
will have known of the same class of yāk as a saddle-animal and as a
beast of burden into Kashmīr and other border-lands of sufficient
altitude to allow its survival. A part of its wide Central Asian habitat
abutting on Kashmīr is Little Tibet, through which flows the upper Indus
and in which tame yāk are largely bred, Skardo being a place specially
mentioned by travellers as having them plentifully. This suggests that
the term _baḥrī qūṯās_ is due to the great river (_baḥr_) and that those
of which Bābur wrote in Hindūstān were from Little Tibet and its great
river. But _baḥrī_ may apply to another region where also the domestic
yāk abounds, that of the great lakes, inland seas such as Pangong,
whence the yāk comes and goes between _e.g._ Yārkand and the Hindūstān
border.
The second suggestion, _viz._ that "_baḥrī qūṯās_" refers to the habitat
of the domestic yāk in lake and marsh lands of high altitude (the wild
yāk also but, as Tibetan, it is less likely to be concerned here) has
support in Dozy's account of the _baḥrī_ falcon, a bird mentioned also
by Abū'l-faẓl amongst sporting birds (_Āyīn-i-akbarī_, Blochmann's trs.
p. 295):—"_Baḥrī, espèce de faucon le meilleur pour les oiseaux de
marais. Ce renseignment explique peut-être l'origine du mot. Marguerite
en donne la même etymologie que Tashmend et le Père Guagix. Selon lui ce
faucon aurait été appelé ainsi parce qu'il vient de l'autre côté de la
mer, mais peut-être dériva-t-il de baḥrī dans le sens de marais, flaque,
étang._"
Dr. E. Denison Ross' _Polyglot List of Birds_ (_Memoirs of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal_ ii, 289) gives to the _Qarā Qīrghāwal_ (Black
pheasant) the synonym "Sea-pheasant", this being the literal translation
of its Chinese name, and quotes from the Manchū-Chinese "Mirror" the
remark that this is a black pheasant but called "sea-pheasant" to
distinguish it from other black ones.
It may be observed that Bābur writes of the yāk once only and then of
the _baḥrī qūṯās_ so that there is no warrant from him for taking the
term to apply to the wild yāk. His cousin and contemporary Ḥaidar
Mīrzā, however, mentions the wild yāk twice and simply as the wild
_qūṯās_.
The following are random gleanings about "_baḥrī_" and the yāk:—
(1) An instance of the use of the Persian equivalent _daryā'ī_ of
_baḥrī_, sea-borne or over-sea, is found in the _Akbar-nāma_ (Bib. Ind.
ed. ii, 216) where the African elephant is described as _fīl-i-daryā'ī_.
(2) In Egypt the word _baḥrī_ has acquired the sense of northern,
presumably referring to what lies or is borne across its northern sea,
the Mediterranean.
(3) Vigne (_Travels in Kashmīr_ ii, 277-8) warns against confounding the
_qūch-qār_ _i.e._ the gigantic _moufflon_, Pallas' _Ovis ammon_, with
the _Kosh-gau_, the cow of the Kaucasus, _i.e._ the yāk. He says,
"Kaucasus (_hodie_ Hindū-kush) was originally from Kosh, and Kosh is
applied occasionally as a prefix, _e.g._ _Kosh-gau_, the yāk or ox of
the mountain or Kaucasus." He wrote from Skardo in Little Tibet and on
the upper Indus. He gives the name of the female yāk as _yāk-mo_ and of
the half-breeds with common cows as _bzch_, which class he says is
common and of "all colours".
(4) Mr. Ney Elias' notes (_Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_ trs. pp. 302 and 466) on
the _qūṯās_ are of great interest. He gives the following synonymous
names for the wild yāk, _Bos Poëphagus_, _Khāsh-gau_, the Tibetan yāk or
Dong.