The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
[212] Bābur's anecdote about Jānī Beg well illustrates his
caution as a narrator. He appears to tell it as one who
knowing the point of a story, leads up to it. He does not
affirm that Jānī Beg's habits were strange or that the envoy
was an athlete but that both things must have been (_īkān
dūr_) from what he had heard or to suit the point of the
anecdote. Nor does he affirm as of his own knowledge that
Aūzbegs calls a strong man (his _zor kīshī_) a _būkuh_ (bull)
but says it is so understood (_dīr īmīsh_).
[213] _Cf._ f. 170.
[214] The points of a _tīpūchāq_ are variously stated. If the
root notion of the name be movement (_tīp_), Erskine's
observation, that these horses are taught special paces, is to
the point. To the verb _tīprāmāq_ dictionaries assign the
meaning of _movement with agitation of mind_, an explanation
fully illustrated in the B.N. The verb describes fittingly the
dainty, nervous action of some trained horses. Other meanings
assigned to _tūpūchāq_ are roadster, round-bodied and swift.
[215] _Cf._ f. 37b.
[216] _Cf._ f. 6b and note.
[217] _mashaf kitābat qīlūr īdī._
[218] _Cf._ f. 36 and Ḥ.S. ii. 271.
[219] _sīnkīlīsī ham mūndā īdī._
[220] _khāna-wādalār_, _viz._ the Chaghatāī, the Tīmūrid in
two Mīrān-shāhī branches, `Alī's and Bābur's and the Bāī-qarā
in Harāt.
[221] _aūghlāqchī_ _i.e._ player at _kūk-būrā_. Concerning the
game, _see_ Shaw's Vocabulary; Schuyler i, 268; Kostenko iii,
82; Von Schwarz _s.n. baiga_.
[222] Ẕū'l-ḥijja 910 AH.-May 1505 AD. _Cf._ f. 154. This
statement helps to define what Bābur reckoned his expeditions
into Hindūstān.
[223] Aīkū (Ayāgū)-tīmūr _Tarkhān Arghūn_ d. _circa_ 793
AH.-1391 AD. He was a friend of Tīmūr. _See_ Z̤.N. i, 525 etc.
[224] _āndāq ikhlāq u aṯawārī yūq īdī kīm dīsā būlghāī._ The
_Shāh-nāma_ cap. xviii, describes him as a spoiled child and
man of pleasure, caring only for eating, drinking and hunting.
The _Shaibānī-nāma_ narrates his various affairs.
[225] _i.e._, _cutlass_, a parallel sobriquet to _qīlīch_,
sword. If it be correct to translate by "cutlass," the
nickname may have prompted Bābur's brief following comment,
_mardāna īkān dūr_, _i.e._ Qulī Muḥ. must have been brave
because known as the Cutlass. A common variant in MSS. from
_Būghdā_ is Bāghdād; Bāghdād was first written in the Ḥai. MS.
but is corrected by the scribe to _būghdā_.
[226] So pointed in the Ḥai. MS. I surmise it a clan-name.
[227] _i.e._ to offer him the succession. The mountain road
taken from Aūrā-tīpā would be by Āb-burdan, Sara-tāq and the
Kām Rūd defile.
[228] _īrīldī._ The departure can hardly have been open
because Aḥmad's begs favoured Maḥmūd; Malik-i-Muḥammad's party
would be likely to slip away in small companies.
[229] This well-known Green, Grey or Blue palace or
halting-place was within the citadel of Samarkand. _Cf._ f.
37. It served as a prison from which return was not expected.
[230] _Cf._ f. 27. He married a full-sister of Bāī-sunghar.
[231] _Gulistān_ Part I. Story 27. For "steaming up," _see_
Tennyson's Lotus-eaters Choric song, canto 8 (H.B.).
[232] Elph. MS. f. 16b; First W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 19; Second
W.-i-B. I.O. 217 f. 15b; Memoirs p. 27.
[233] He was a _Dūghlāt_, uncle by marriage of Ḥaidar Mīrzā
and now holding Khost for Maḥmūd. _See_ T.R. s.n. for his
claim on Aīsān-daulat's gratitude.
[234] _tāsh qūrghān dā chīqār dā._ Here (as _e.g._ f. 110b l.
9) the Second W.-i-B. translates _tāsh_ as though it meant
_stone_ instead of outer. _Cf._ f. 47 for an adjectival use of
_tāsh_, stone, with the preposition (_tāsh_) _din_. The places
contrasted here are the citadel (_ark_) and the walled-town
(_qūrghān_). The _chīqār_ (exit) is the fortified Gate-house
of the mud circumvallation. _Cf._ f. 46 for another example of
_chīqār_.
[235] Elph. Ḥai. Kehr's MSS., _ānīng bīla bār kīshi bār
beglārnī tūtūrūldī_. This idiom recurs on f. 76b l. 8. A
palimpsest entry in the Elph. MS. produces the statement that
when Ḥasan fled, his begs returned to Andijān.
[236] Ḥai. MS. _awī mūnkūzī_, underlined by _sāgh-i-gāū_,
cows' thatched house. [_T. mūnkūz_, lit. horn, means also
cattle.] Elph. MS., _awī mūnkūsh_, underlined by _dar jā'ī
khwāb alfakhta_, sleeping place. [T. _mūnkūsh_, retired.]
[237] The first _qāchār_ of this pun has been explained as
_gurez-gāh_, _sharm-gāh_, hinder parts, _fuite_ and _vertèbre
inférieur_. The Ḥ.S. (ii, 273 l. 3 fr. ft.) says the wound was
in a vital (_maqattal_) part.
[238] From Niẕāmī's _Khusrau u Shirīn_, Lahore lith. ed. p.
137 l. 8. It is quoted also in the A.N. Bib. Ind. ed. ii, 207
(H.B. ii, 321). (H.B.).
[239] _See_ Hughes _Dictionary of Islām s.nn._ Eating and
Food.
[240] _Cf._ f. 6b and note. If `Umar Shaikh were Maḥmūd's
full-brother, his name might well appear here.
[241] _i.e._ "Not a farthing, not a half-penny."
[242] Here the Mems. enters a statement, not found in the
Turkī text, that Maḥmūd's dress was elegant and fashionable.
[243] _n:h:l:m._ My husband has cleared up a mistake (Mems. p.
28 and _Méms._ i, 54) of supposing this to be the name of an
animal. It is explained in the A.N. (i, 255. H.B. i, 496) as a
Badakhshī equivalent of _tasqāwal_; _tasqāwal_ var.
_tāshqāwal_, is explained by the _Farhang-i-aẕfarī_, a
Turkī-Persian Dict. seen in the Mullā Fīroz Library of Bombay,
to mean _rāh band kunanda_, the stopping of the road. _Cf._
J.R.A.S. 1900 p. 137.
[244] _i.e._ "a collection of poems in the alphabetical order
of the various end rhymes." (Steingass.)
[245] At this battle Daulat-shāh was present. _Cf._ Browne's
D.S. for Astarābād p. 523 and for Andikhūd p. 532. For this
and all other references to D.S. and Ḥ.S. I am indebted to my
husband.
[246] The following dates will help out Bābur's brief
narrative. Maḥmūd _æt._ 7, was given Astarābād in 864 AH.
(1459-60 AD.); it was lost to Ḥusain at Jauz-wilāyat and
Maḥmūd went into Khurāsān in 865 AH.; he was restored by his
father in 866 AH.; on his father's death (873 AH.-1469 AD.) he
fled to Harāt, thence to Samarkand and from there was taken to
Ḥiṣār _æt._ 16. _Cf._ D'Herbélot _s.n._ Abū-sa`ad; Ḥ.S. i,
209; Browne's D.S. p. 522.
[247] Presumably the "Hindūstān the Less" of Clavijo (Markham
p. 3 and p. 113), approx. Qaṃbar-`alī's districts. Clavijo
includes Tīrmīẕ under the name.
[248] Perhaps a Ṣufī term,—longing for the absent friend. For
particulars about this man _see_ Ḥ.S. ii, 235 and Browne's
D.S. p. 533.
[249] Here in the Ḥai. MS. is one of several blank spaces,
waiting for information presumably not known to Bābur when
writing. The space will have been in the archetype of the Ḥai.
MS. and it makes for the opinion that the Ḥai. MS. is a direct
copy of Bābur's own. This space is not left in the Elph. MS.
but that MS. is known from its scribe's note (f. 198) down to
f. 198 (Ḥai. MS. f. 243b) to have been copied from "other
writings" and only subsequent to its f. 198 from Bābur's own.
_Cf._ JRAS 1906 p. 88 and 1907 p. 143.
[250] The T.R. (p. 330) supplies this name.
[251] _Cf._ f. 35b. This was a betrothal only, the marriage
being made in 903 AH. _Cf._ Ḥ.S. ii, 260 and Gul-badan's H.N.
f. 24b.
[252] Kehr's MS. supplies Aī (Moon) as her name but it has no
authority. The Elph. MS. has what may be _lā nām_, no name, on
its margin and over _tūrūtūnchī_ (4th.) its usual sign of what
is problematical.
[253] _See_ Ḥ.S. ii, 250. Here Pīr-i-Muḥammad _Aīlchī-būghā_
was drowned. _Cf._ f. 29.
[254] Chaghānīān is marked in Erskine's (Mems.) map as
somewhere about the head of (Fr. map 1904) the Ilyak Water, a
tributary of the Kāfir-nighān.
[255] _i.e._ when Bābur was writing in Hindūstān.
[256] For his family _see_ f. 55b note to Yār-`alī _Balāl_.
[257] _bā wujūd turklūk muhkam paidā kunanda īdī._
[258] Roebuck's _Oriental Proverbs_ (p. 232) explains the
_five_ of this phrase where _seven_ might be expected, by
saying that of this Seven days' world (qy. days of Creation)
one is for birth, another for death, and that thus five only
are left for man's brief life.
[259] The cognomen _Aīlchī-būghā_, taken with the bearer's
recorded strength of fist, may mean Strong man of Aīlchī (the
capital of Khutan). One of Tīmūr's commanders bore the name.
_Cf._ f. 21b for _būghū_ as _athlete_.
[260] Hazārāspī seems to be Mīr Pīr Darwesh Hazārāspī. With
his brother, Mīr `Alī, he had charge of Balkh. _See
Rauzatu'ṣ-ṣafā_ B.M. Add. 23506, f. 242b; Browne's D.S. p.
432. It may be right to understand a hand-to-hand fight
between Hazārāspī and Aīlchī-būghā. The affair was in 857 AH.
(1453 AD.).
[261] _yārāq sīz_, perhaps trusting to fisticuffs, perhaps
without mail. Bābur's summary has confused the facts. Muḥ.
Aīlchī-būghā was sent by Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā from Ḥiṣār with
1,000 men and did not issue out of Qūndūz. (Ḥ.S. ii, 251.) His
death occurred not before 895 AH.
[262] _See_ T.R. _s.nn._ Mīr Ayūb and Ayūb.
[263] This passage is made more clear by f. 120b and f. 125b.
[264] He is mentioned in _`Alī-sher Nawā'ī's
Majālis-i-nafā'is_; _see_ B.M. Add. 7875, f. 278 and Rieu's
Turkish Catalogue.
[265] ? full of splits or full handsome.
[266] This may have occurred after Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā's death
whose son Abā-bikr was. _Cf._ f. 28. If so, over-brevity has
obscured the statement.
[267] _mīnglīgh aīldīn dūr_, perhaps of those whose hereditary
Command was a Thousand, the head of a Mīng (Pers. Hazāra),
_i.e._ of the tenth of a _tūmān_.
[268] _qūrghān-nīng tāshīdā yāngī tām qūpārīb sālā dūr._ I
understand, that what was taken was a new circumvallation in
whole or in part. Such double walls are on record. _Cf._
Appendix A.
[269] _bahādurlūq aūlūsh_, an actual portion of food.
[270] _i.e._ either unmailed or actually naked.
[271] The old English noun _strike_ expresses the purpose of
the _sar-kob_. It is "an instrument for scraping off what
rises above the top" (Webster, whose example is grain in a
measure). The _sar-kob_ is an erection of earth or wood, as
high as the attacked walls, and it enabled besiegers to strike
off heads appearing above the ramparts.
[272] _i.e._ the dislocation due to `Umar Shaikh's death.
[273] _Cf._ f. 13. The Ḥ.S. (ii, 274) places his son, Mīr
Mughūl, in charge, but otherwise agrees with the B.N.
[274] _Cf._ Clavijo, Markham p. 132. Sir Charles Grandison
bent the knee on occasions but illustrated MSS. _e.g._ the
B.M. _Tawārīkh-i-guzīda Naṣrat-nāma_ show that Bābur would
kneel down on both knees. _Cf._ f. 123b for the fatigue of the
genuflection.
[275] I have translated _kūrūshūb_ thus because it appears to
me that here and in other places, stress is laid by Bābur upon
the mutual gaze as an episode of a ceremonious interview. The
verb _kūrūshmak_ is often rendered by the Persian translators
as _daryāftan_ and by the L. and E. Memoirs as _to embrace_. I
have not found in the B.N. warrant for translating it as _to
embrace_; _qūchūshmāq_ is Bābur's word for this (f. 103).
_Daryāftan_, taken as to grasp or see with the mind, to
understand, well expresses mutual gaze and its sequel of
mutual understanding. Sometimes of course, _kūrūsh_, the
interview does not imply _kūrūsh_, the silent looking in the