The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
eating than the _nārangī_ and is understood not to have the skin of that
(fruit)."
_d. The samṯara._[2821]
"The other is the _samṯara_ which is larger than the orange (_nāranj_)
but is not tart; unlike the _amrit-phal_ it is not of poor flavour (_kam
maza_) or little relish (_chūchūk_). In short a better fruit is not
seen. It is good to see, good to eat, good to digest. One does not
forget it. If it be there, no other fruit is chosen. Its peel may be
taken off by the hand. However much of the fruit be eaten, the heart
craves for it again. Its juice does not soil the hand at all. Its skin
separates easily from its flesh. It may be taken during and after food.
In Bengal the _samṯara_ is rare (_ghārib_) (or excellent, _`asīz_). It
is understood to grow in one village Sanārgām (Sonargaon) and even
therein a special quarter. There seems to be no fruit so entirely good
as the _samṯara_ amongst fruits of its class or, rather, amongst fruits
of all kinds."
_Corrigendum_:—In my note on the _turunj bajāurī_ (p. 511, n. 3) for
_bijaurā_ read _bījaurā_; and on p. 510, l. 2, for _palm_ read
_fingers_.
_Addendum_:—p. 510, l. 5. After _yūsūnlūk_ add:—"The natives of
Hindūstān when not wearing their ear-rings, put into the large ear-ring
holes, slips of the palm-leaf bought in the bāzārs, ready for the
purpose. The trunk of this tree is handsomer and more stately than that
of the date."
P.—REMARKS ON BĀBUR'S REVENUE LIST (fol. 292).
_a. Concerning the date of the List._
The Revenue List is the last item of Bābur's account of Hindūstān and,
with that account, is found _s.a._ 932 AH., manifestly too early, (1)
because it includes districts and their revenues which did not come
under Bābur's authority until subdued in his Eastern campaigns of 934
and 935 AH., (2) because Bābur's statement is that the "countries" of
the List "are _now_ in my possession" (_in loco_ p. 520).
The List appears to be one of revenues realized in 936 or 937 AH. and
not one of assessment or estimated revenue, (1) because Bābur's wording
states as a fact that the revenue was 52 _krūrs_; (2) because the
Persian heading of the (Persian) List is translatable as "Revenue
(_jama`_)[2822] of Hindūstān from what has so far come under the
victorious standards".
_b. The entry of the List into European Literature._
Readers of the L. and E. _Memoirs of Bābur_ are aware that it does not
contain the Revenue List (p. 334). The omission is due to the absence of
the List from the Elphinstone Codex and from the `Abdu'r-raḥīm Persian
translation. Since the _Memoirs of Bābur_ was published in 1826 AD., the
List has come from the _Bābur-nāma_ into European literature by three
channels.
Of the three the one used earliest is Shaikh Zain's _T̤abaqāt-i-bāburī_
which is a Persian paraphrase of part of Bābur's Hindūstān section. This
work provided Mr. Erskine with what he placed in his _History of India_
(London 1854, i, 540, Appendix D), but his manuscript, now B.M. Add.
26,202, is not the best copy of Shaikh Zain's book, being of far less
importance than B.M. Or. 1999, [as to which more will be said.][2823]
The second channel is Dr. Ilminsky's imprint of the Turkī text (Kāsān
1857, p. 379), which is translated by the _Mémoires de Bāber_ (Paris
1871, ii, 230).
The third channel is the Ḥaidarābād Codex, in the English translation of
which [_in loco_] the List is on p. 521.
Shaikh Zain may have used Bābur's autograph manuscript for his
paraphrase and with it the Revenue List. His own autograph manuscript
was copied in 998 AH. (1589-90 AD.) by Khwānd-amīr's grandson
`Abdu'l-lāh who may be the scribe "Mīr `Abdu'l-lāh" of the
_Āyīn-i-akbarī_ (Blochmann's trs. p. 109). `Abdu'l-lāh's transcript
(from which a portion is now absent,) after having been in Sir Henry
Elliot's possession, has become B.M. Or. 1999. It is noticed briefly by
Professor Dowson (_l.c._ iv, 288), but he cannot have observed that the
"old, worm-eaten" little volume contains Bābur's Revenue List, since he
does not refer to it.
_c. Agreement and variation in copies of the List._
The figures in the two copies (Or. 1999 and Add. 26,202) of the
_T̤abaqāt-i-bāburī_ are in close agreement. They differ, however, from
those in the Ḥaidarābād Codex, not only in a negligible unit and a ten
of _tankas_ but in having 20,000 more _tankas_ from Oudh and Baraich and
30 _laks_ of _tankas_ more from Trans-sutlej.
The figures in the two copies of the _Bābur-nāma_, _viz._ the Ḥaidarābād
Codex and the Kehr-Ilminsky imprint are not in agreement throughout, but
are identical in opposition to the variants (20,000 _t._ and 30 _l._)
mentioned above. As the two are independent, being collateral
descendants of Bābur's original papers, the authority of the Ḥaidarābād
Codex in the matter of the List is still further enhanced.
_d. Varia._
(1) The place-names of the List are all traceable, whatever their varied
forms. About the entry L:knū [or L:knūr] and B:ks:r [or M:ks:r] a
difficulty has been created by its variation in manuscripts, not only in
the List but where the first name occurs _s.a._ 934 and 935 AH. In the
Ḥaidarābād List and in that of Or. 1999 L:knūr is clearly written and
may represent (approximately) modern Shahābād in Rāmpūr. Erskine and de
Courteille, however, have taken it to be Lakhnau in Oudh. [The
distinction of Lakhnaur from Lakhnau in the historical narrative is
discussed in Appendix T.]
(2) It may be noted, as of interest, that the name Sarwār is an
abbreviation of Sarjūpār which means "other side of Sarjū" (Sarū,
Goghrā; E. and D.'s H. of I. i, 56, n.4).
(3) Rūp-narā[:i]n (Deo or Dev) is mentioned in Ajodhya Prasad's short
history of Tirhut and Darbhanga, the _Gulzār-i-Bihār_ (Calcutta 1869,
Cap. v, 88) as the 9th of the Brahman rulers of Tirhut and as having
reigned for 25 years, from 917 to 942 _Faslī_(?). If the years were
Ḥijrī, 917-42 AH. would be 1511-1535.[2824]
(4) Concerning the _tanka_ the following modern description is quoted
from Mr. R. Shaw's _High Tartary_ (London 1871, p. 464) "The _tanga_"
(or _tanka_) "is a nominal coin, being composed of 25 little copper
cash, with holes pierced in them and called _dahcheen_. These are strung
together and the quantity of them required to make up the value of one
of these silver ingots" ("_kooroos_ or _yamboo_, value nearly _£_17")
"weighs a considerable amount. I once sent to get change for a
_kooroos_, and my servants were obliged to charter a donkey to bring it
home."
(5) The following interesting feature of Shaikh Zain's
_T̤abaqāt-i-bāburī_ has been mentioned to me by my husband:—Its author
occasionally reproduces Bābur's Turkī words instead of paraphrasing them
in Persian, and does this for the noticeable passage in which Bābur
records his dissatisfied view of Hindūstān (f. 290_b_, _in loco_ p.
518), prefacing his quotation with the remark that it is best and will
be nearest to accuracy not to attempt translation but to reproduce the
Pādshāh's own words. The main interest of the matter lies in the motive
for reproducing the _ipsissima verba_. Was that motive deferential? Did
the revelation of feeling and opinion made in the quoted passage clothe
it with privacy so that Shaikh Zain reserved its perusal from the larger
public of Hindūstān who might read Persian but not Turkī? Some such
motive would explain the insertion untranslated of Bābur's letters to
Humāyūn and to Khwāja Kalān which are left in Turkī by `Abdu'r-raḥīm
Mīrzā.[2825]
Q.—CONCERNING THE "RĀMPŪR DĪWĀN".
Pending the wide research work necessary to interpret Bābur's Hindūstān
poems which the Rāmpūr manuscript preserves, the following comments,
some tentative and open to correction, may carry further in making the
poems publicly known, what Dr. E. Denison Ross has effected by
publishing his Facsimile of the manuscript.[2826] It is legitimate to
associate comment on the poems with the _Bābur-nāma_ because many of
them are in it with their context of narrative; most, if not all,
connect with it; some without it, would be dull and vapid.
_a. An authorized English title._
The contents of the Rāmpūr MS. are precisely what Bābur describes
sending to four persons some three weeks after the date attached to the
manuscript,[2827] _viz._ "the Translation and whatnot of poems made on
coming to Hindūstān";[2828] and a similar description may be meant in
the curiously phrased first clause of the colophon, but without mention
of the Translation (of the _Wālidiyyah-risāla_).[2829] Hence, if the
poems, including the Translation, became known as the _Hindūstān Poems_
or _Poems made in Hindūstān_, such title would be justified by their
author's words. Bābur does not call the Hindūstān poems a _dīwān_ even
when, as in the above quotation, he speaks of them apart from his
versified translation of the Tract. In what has come down to us of his
autobiography, he applies the name _Dīwān_ to poems of his own once
only, this in 925 AH. (f. 237_b_) when he records sending "my _dīwān_"
to Pūlād Sl. _Aūzbeg_.
_b. The contents of the Rāmpūr MS._
There are three separate items of composition in the manuscript, marked
as distinct from one another by having each its ornamented frontispiece,
each its scribe's sign (_mīm_) of Finis, each its division from its
neighbour by a space without entry. The first and second sections bear
also the official sign [_ṣaḥ[h.]_] that the copy has been inspected and
found correct.
(1) The first section consists of Bābur's metrical translation of Khwāja
`Ubaidu'l-lāh _Aḥrārī's Parental Tract_ (_Wālidiyyah-risāla_), his
prologue in which are his reasons for versifying the Tract and his
epilogue which gives thanks for accomplishing the task. It ends with the
date 935 (Ḥai. MS. f. 346). Below this are _mīm_ and _ṣaḥ[h.]_, the
latter twice; they are in the scribe's handwriting, and thus make
against supposing that Bābur wrote down this copy of the Tract or its
archetype from which the official _ṣaḥ[h.]_ will have been copied.
Moreover, spite of bearing two vouchers of being a correct copy, the
Translation is emended, in a larger script which may be that of the
writer of the marginal quatrain on the last page of the [Rāmpūr] MS. and
there attested by Shāh-i-jahān as Bābur's autograph entry. His also may
have been the now expunged writing on the half-page left empty of text
at the end of the Tract. Expunged though it be, fragments of words are
visible.[2830]
(2) The second section has in its frontispiece an inscription illegible
(to me) in the Facsimile. It opens with a _masnawī_ of 41 couplets which
is followed by a _ghazel_ and numerous poems in several measures, down
to a triad of rhymed couplets (_matla`_?), the whole answering to
descriptions of a _Dīwān_ without formal arrangement. After the last
couplet are _mīm_ and _ṣaḥ[h.]_ in the scribe's hand-writing, and a
blank quarter-page. Mistakes in this section have been left uncorrected,
which supports the view that its _ṣaḥ[h.]_ avouches the accuracy of its
archetype and not its own.[2831]
(3) The third section shows no inscription on its frontispiece. It opens
with the _masnawī_ of eight couplets, found also in the _Bābur-nāma_ (f.
312), one of earlier date than many of the poems in the second section.
It is followed by three _rubā`ī_ which complete the collection of poems
made in Hindūstān. A prose passage comes next, describing the
composition and transposition-in-metre of a couplet of 16 feet, with
examples in three measures, the last of which ends in l. 4 of the
photograph.—While fixing the date of this metrical game, Bābur
incidentally allows that of his _Treatise on Prosody_ to be inferred
from the following allusive words:—"When going to Saṃbhal (f. 330_b_) in
the year (933 AH.) after the conquest of Hindūstān (932 AH.), two years