The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
known. The choice here of "town-rabble" for retaliatory death
supports the account of Ḥ.S. ii.
[343] "It was the end of September or beginning of October"
(Erskine).
[344] _awī u kīpa yīrlār._ _Awī_ is likely to represent
_kibitkas_. For _kīpa yīr_, _see_ Zenker p. 782.
[345] Interesting reference may be made, amongst the many
books on Samarkand, to Sharafu'd-dīn `Alī _Yazdī's
Z̤afar-nāma_ Bib. Ind. ed. i, 300, 781, 799, 800 and ii, 6,
194, 596 etc.; to Ruy Gonzalves di Clavijo's _Embassy to
Tīmūr_ (Markham) cap. vi and vii; to Ujfalvy's _Turkistan_ ii,
79 and Madame Ujfalvy's _De Paris à Samarcande_ p. 161,—these
two containing a plan of the town; to Schuyler's _Turkistan_;
to Kostenko's _Turkistan Gazetteer_ i, 345; to Réclus, vi, 270
and plan; and to a beautiful work of the St. Petersburg
Archæological Society, _Les Mosquées de Samarcande_, of which
the B.M. has a copy.
[346] This statement is confused in the Elp. and Ḥai. MSS. The
second appears to give, by abjad, lat. 40° 6" and long. 99'.
Mr. Erskine (p. 48) gives lat. 39' 57" and long. 99' 16",
noting that this is according to Ūlūgh Beg's Tables and that
the long. is calculated from Ferro. The Ency. Br. of 1910-11
gives lat. 39' 39" and long. 66' 45".
[347] The enigmatical cognomen, Protected Town, is of early
date; it is used _i.a._ by Ibn Batūta in the 14th. century.
Bābur's tense refers it to the past. The town had frequently
changed hands in historic times before he wrote. The name may
be due to immunity from damage to the buildings in the town.
Even Chīngīz Khān's capture (1222 AD.) left the place
well-preserved and its lands cultivated, but it inflicted
great loss of men. _Cf._ Schuyler i, 236 and his authorities,
especially Bretschneider.
[348] Here is a good example of Bābur's caution in narrative.
He does not affirm that Samarkand became Musalmān, or
(_infra_) that Quṣam ibn `Abbās went, or that Alexander
founded but in each case uses the presumptive past tense,
resp. _būlghān dūr_, _bārghān dūr_, _bīnā qīlghān dūr_, thus
showing that he repeats what may be inferred or presumed and
not what he himself asserts.
[349] _i.e._ of Muḥammad. See Z̤.N. ii, 193.
[350] _i.e._ Fat Village. His text misleading him, Mr. Erskine
makes here the useful irrelevant note that Persians and Arabs
call the place Samar-qand and Turks, Samar-kand, the former
using _qaf_ (q), the latter _kaf_ (k). Both the Elph. and the
Ḥai. MSS. write Samarqand.
For use of the name Fat Village, _see_ Clavijo (Markham p.
170), Simesquinte, and Bretschneider's _Mediæval Geography_
pp. 61, 64, 66 and 163.
[351] _qadam._ Kostenko (i, 344) gives 9 m. as the
circumference of the old walls and 1-2/3m. as that of the
citadel. _See_ Mde. Ujfalvy p. 175 for a picture of the walls.
[352] _Ma`lūm aīmās kīm mūncha paidā būlmīsh būlghāī_; an
idiomatic phrase.
[353] d. 333 AH. (944 AD.). _See_ D'Herbélot art. Mātridī p.
572.
[354] _See_ D'Herbélot art. Aschair p. 124.
[355] Abū `Abdu'l-lāh bin Ismā`īlu'l-jausī b. 194 AH. d. 256
AH. (810-870 AD.). _See_ D'Herbélot art. Bokhārī p. 191, art.
Giorag p. 373, and art. Ṣāḥiḥu'l-bokhārī p. 722. He passed a
short period, only, of his life in Khartank, a suburb of
Samarkand.
[356] _Cf._ f. 3b and n. 1.
[357] This though 2475 ft. above the sea is only some 300 ft.
above Samarkand. It is the Chūpān-ātā (Father of Shepherds) of
maps and on it Tīmūr built a shrine to the local patron of
shepherds. The Zar-afshān, or rather, its Qarā-sū arm, flows
from the east of the Little Hill and turns round it to flow
west. Bābur uses the name _Kohik Water_ loosely; _e.g._ for
the whole Zar-afshān when he speaks (_infra_) of cutting off
the Dar-i-gham canal but for its southern arm only, the
Qarā-sū in several places, and once, for the Dar-i-gham canal.
_See_ f. 49b and Kostenko i. 192.
[358] _rūd._ The Zar-afshān has a very rapid current. _See_
Kostenko i, 196, and for the canal, i, 174. The name
Dar-i-gham is used also for a musical note having charm to
witch away grief; and also for a town noted for its wines.
[359] What this represents can only be guessed; perhaps 150 to
200 miles. Abū'l-fidā (Reinaud ii, 213) quotes Ibn Haukal as
saying that from Bukhārā up to "Bottam" (this seems to be
where the Zar-afshān emerges into the open land) is eight
days' journey through an unbroken tangle of verdure and
gardens.
[360] _See_ Schuyler i, 286 on the apportionment of water to
Samarkand and Bukhārā.
[361] It is still grown in the Samarkand region, and in Mr.
Erskine's time a grape of the same name was cultivated in
Aurangābād of the Deccan.
[362] _i.e._ _Shāhrukhī_, Tīmūr's grandson, through Shāhrukh.
It may be noted here that Bābur never gives Tīmūr any other
title than Beg and that he styles all Tīmūrids, Mīrzā
(Mīr-born).
[363] Mr. Erskine here points out the contradiction between
the statements (i) of Ibn Haukal, writing, in 367 AH. (977
AD.), of Samarkand as having a citadel (_ark_), an outer-fort
(_qūrghān_) and Gates in both circumvallations; and (2) of
Sharafu'd-dīn _Yazdī_ (Z̤.N.) who mentions that when, in
Tīmūr's day, the Getes besieged Samarkand, it had neither
walls nor gates. _See_ Ouseley's Ibn Haukal p. 253; Z̤.N. Bib.
Ind. ed. i, 109 and Pétis de la Croix's Z̤.N. (_Histoire de
Tīmūr Beg_) i, 91.
[364] Here still lies the Ascension Stone, the _Gūk-tāsh_, a
block of greyish white marble. Concerning the date of the
erection of the building and meaning of its name, _see_ _e.g._
Pétis de la Croix's _Histoire de Chīngīz Khān_ p. 171; Mems.
p. 40 note; and Schuyler _s.n._
[365] This seems to be the Bībī Khānīm Mosque. The author of
_Les Mosquées de Samarcande_ states that Tīmūr built Bībī
Khānīm and the Gūr-i-amīr (Amīr's tomb); decorated
Shāh-i-zinda and set up the Chūpān-ātā shrine. _Cf._ f. 46 and
note to Jahāngīr Mīrzā, as to the Gūr-i-amīr.
[366] Cap. II. Quoting from Sale's _Qur'ān_ (i, 24) the verse
is, "And Ibrāhīm and Ismā`īl raised the foundations of the
house, saying, 'Lord! accept it from us, for Thou art he who
hearest and knowest; Lord! make us also resigned to Thee, and
show us Thy holy ceremonies, and be turned to us, for Thou art
easy to be reconciled, and merciful.'"
[367] or, _buland_, Garden of the Height or High Garden. The
Turkī texts have what can be read as _buldī_ but the Z̤.N.
both when describing it (ii, 194) and elsewhere (_e.g._ ii,
596) writes _buland_. _Buldī_ may be a clerical error for
_bulandī_, the height, a name agreeing with the position of
the garden.
[368] In the Heart-expanding Garden, the Spanish Ambassadors
had their first interview with Tīmūr. _See_ Clavijo (Markham
p. 130). Also the Z̤.N. ii, 6 for an account of its
construction.
[369] Judging from the location of the gardens and of Bābur's
camps, this appears to be the Avenue mentioned on f. 39b and
f. 40.
[370] _See_ _infra_ f. 48 and note.
[371] The Plane-tree Garden. This seems to be Clavijo's
_Bayginar_, laid out shortly before he saw it (Markham p.
136).
[372] The citadel of Samarkand stands high; from it the ground
slopes west and south; on these sides therefore gardens
outside the walls would lie markedly below the outer-fort
(_tāsh-qūrghān_). Here as elsewhere the second W.-i-B. reads
_stone_ for _outer_ (_Cf._ index _s.n._ _tāsh_). For the
making of the North garden _see_ Z̤.N. i, 799.
[373] Tīmūr's eldest son, d. 805 AH. (1402 AD.), before his
father, therefore. Bābur's wording suggests that in his day,
the Gūr-i-amīr was known as the Madrāsa. _See_ as to the
buildings Z̤.N. i, 713 and ii, 492, 595, 597, 705; Clavijo
(Markham p. 164 and p. 166); and _Les Mosquées de Samarcande_.
[374] Hindūstān would make a better climax here than Samarkand
does.
[375] These appear to be pictures or ornamentations of carved
wood. Redhouse describes _islīmī_ as a special kind of
ornamentation in curved lines, similar to Chinese methods.
[376] _i.e._ the Black Stone (_ka'ba_) at Makkah to which
Musalmāns turn in prayer.
[377] As ancient observatories were themselves the instruments
of astronomical observation, Bābur's wording is correct.
Aūlūgh Beg's great quadrant was 180 ft. high; Abū-muḥammad
_Khujandī's_ sextant had a radius of 58 ft. Jā'ī Singh made
similar great instruments in Jā'īpūr, Dihlī has others. _Cf._
Greaves Misc. Works i, 50; Mems. p. 51 note; _Āiyīn-i-akbarī_
(Jarrett) ii, 5 and note; Murray's Hand-book to Bengal p. 331;
Indian Gazetteer xiii, 400.
[378] b. 597 AH. d. 672 AH. (1201-1274 AD.). _See_
D'Herbélot's art. Naṣīr-i-dīn p. 662; Abū'l-fidā (Reinaud,
Introduction i, cxxxviii) and Beale's Biographical Dict.
_s.n._
[379] a grandson of Chīngīz Khān, d. 663 AH. (1265 AD.). The
cognomen _Aīl-khānī_ (_Īl-khānī_) may mean Khān of the Tribe.
[380] Ḥarūnu'r-rashīd's second son; d. 218 AH. (833 AD.).
[381] Mr. Erskine notes that this remark would seem to fix the
date at which Bābur wrote it as 934 AH. (1527 AD.), that being
the 1584th. year of the era of Vikramāditya, and therefore at
three years before Bābur's death. (The Vikramāditya era began
57 BC.)
[382] _Cf._ index _s.n._ _tāsh_.
[383] This remark may refer to the 34 miles between the town
and the quarries of its building stone. _See_ f. 49 and note
to Aītmāk Pass.
[384] Steingass, any support for the back in sitting, a low
wall in front of a house. _See_ Vullers p. 148 and
_Burhān-i-qāṯi`_; p. 119. Perhaps a _dado_.
[385] _beg u begāt, bāgh u bāghcha._
[386] Four Gardens, a quadrilateral garden, laid out in four
plots. The use of the name has now been extended for any
well-arranged, large garden, especially one belonging to a
ruler (Erskine).
[387] As two of the trees mentioned here are large, it may be
right to translate _nārwān_, not by pomegranate, but as the
hard-wood elm, Madame Ujfalvy's '_karagatche_' (p. 168 and p.
222). The name _qarā-yīghāch_ (_karagatch_), dark tree, is
given to trees other than this elm on account of their deep
shadow.
[388] Now a common plan indeed! _See_ Schuyler i, 173.
[389] _juwāz-i-kaghazlār_ (_nīng_) _sū'ī_, _i.e._ the water of
the paper-(pulping)-mortars. Owing to the omission from some
MSS. of the word _sū_, water, _juwāz_ has been mistaken for a
kind of paper. _See_ Mems. p. 52 and _Méms_. i, 102; A.Q.R.
July 1910, p. 2, art. Paper-mills of Samarkand (H.B.); and
Madame Ujfalvy p. 188. Kostenko, it is to be noted, does not
include paper in his list (i, 346) of modern manufactures of
Samarkand.
[390] Mine of mud or clay. My husband has given me support for
reading _gil_, and not _gul_, rose;—(1) In two good MSS. of
the W.-i-B. the word is pointed with _kasra_, _i.e._ as for
_gil_, clay; and (2) when describing a feast held in the
garden by Tīmūr, the Z̤.N. says the mud-mine became a
rose-mine, _shuda Kān-i-gil Kān-i-gul_. [Mr. Erskine refers
here to Pétis de la Croix's _Histoire de Tīmūr Beg_ (_i.e._
Z̤.N.) i, 96 and ii, 133 and 421.]
[391] _qūrūgh._ Vullers, classing the word as Arabic, Zenker,
classing it as Eastern Turkī, and Erskine (p. 42 n.) explain
this as land reserved for the summer encampment of princes.
Shaw (Voc. p. 155), deriving it from _qūrūmāq_, to frighten,