The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
[745] An allusion, presumably, to the renouncement of wine
made by Bābur and some of his followers in 933 AH. (1527 AD.
f. 312). He may have had `Umar _Khayyām's_ quatrain in mind,
"Wine's power is known to wine-bibbers alone" (Whinfield's 2nd
ed. 1901, No. 164).
[746] _pūstīn_, usually of sheep-skin. For the wide range of
temperature at Kābul in 24 hours, _see_ Ency. Brtt. art.
Afghānistān. The winters also vary much in severity (Burnes,
p. 273).
[747] Index _s.n._ As he fought at Kānwāha, he will have been
buried after March 1527 AD.; this entry therefore will have
been made later. The Curriers'-gate is the later Lahor-gate
(Masson, ii, 259).
[748] Index _s.n._
[749] For lists of the Hindū-kush passes _see_ Leech's Report
VII; Yule's _Introductory Essay_ to Wood's _Journey_ 2nd ed.;
PRGS 1879, Markham's art. p. 121.
The highest _cols_ on the passes here enumerated by Bābur
are,—Khawāk 11,640 ft.—T̤ūl, height not known,—Pārandī 15,984
ft.—Bāj-gāh (Toll-place) 12,000 ft.—Walīān (Saints) 15,100
ft.—Chahār-dār (Four-doors) 18,900 ft. and Shibr-tū 9800 ft.
In considering the labour of their ascent and descent, the
general high level, north and south of them, should be borne
in mind; _e.g._ Chārikār (Chār-yak-kār) stands 5200 ft. and
Kābul itself at 5780 ft. above the sea.
[750] _i.e._ the hollow, long, and small-bāzār roads
respectively. Panjhīr is explained by Hindūs to be Panj-sher,
the five lion-sons of Pandu (Masson, iii, 168).
[751] Shibr is a Hazāra district between the head of the
Ghūr-bund valley and Bāmīān. It does not seem to be correct to
omit the _tū_ from the name of the pass. Persian _tū_, turn,
twist (syn. _pīch_) occurs in other names of local passes; to
read it here as a _turn_ agrees with what is said of Shibr-tū
pass as not crossing but turning the Hindū-kush (Cunningham).
Lord uses the same wording about the Ḥājī-ghāt (var. -kāk
etc.) traverse of the same spur, which "turns the extremity of
the Hindū-kush". _See_ Cunningham's _Ancient Geography_, i,
25; Lord's _Ghūr-bund_ (JASB 1838 p. 528), Masson, iii, 169
and Leech's _Report_ VII.
[752] Perhaps through Jālmīsh into Saighān.
[753] _i.e._ they are closed.
[754] It was unknown in Mr. Erskine's day (Mems. p. 140).
Several of the routes in Raverty's _Notes_ (p. 92 etc.) allow
it to be located as on the Īrī-āb, near to or identical with
Bāghzān, 35 _kurohs_ (70 m.) s.s.e. of Kābul.
[755] Farmūl, about the situation of which Mr. Erskine was in
doubt, is now marked in maps, Ūrghūn being its principal
village.
[756] 15 miles below Atak (Erskine). Mr. Erskine notes that he
found no warrant, previous to Abū'l-faẓl's, for calling the
Indus the Nīl-āb, and that to find one would solve an ancient
geographical difficulty. This difficulty, my husband suggests,
was Alexander's supposition that the Indus was the Nile. In
books grouping round the _Bābur-nāma_, the name Nīl-āb is not
applied to the Indus, but to the ferry-station on that river,
said to owe its name to a spring of azure water on its eastern
side. (Cf. Afẓal Khān _Khattak_, R.'s _Notes_ p. 447.)
I find the name Nīl-āb applied to the Kābul-river:—1. to its
Arghandī affluent (Cunningham, p. 17, Map); 2. through its
boatman class, the Nīl-ābīs of Lālpūra, Jalālābād and Kūnār
(G. of I. 1907, art. Kābul); 3. inferentially to it as a
tributary of the Indus (D'Herbélot); 4. to it near its
confluence with the grey, silt-laden Indus, as blue by
contrast (Sayyid Ghulām-i-muḥammad, R.'s _Notes_ p. 34). (For
Nīl-āb (Naulibis?) in Ghūr-bund _see_ Cunningham, p. 32 and
Masson, iii, 169.)
[757] By one of two routes perhaps,—either by the
Khaibar-Nīngnahār-Jagdālīk road, or along the north bank of
the Kābul-river, through Goshṭa to the crossing where, in
1879, the 10th Hussars met with disaster. _See_ _S.A. War_,
Map 2 and p. 63; Leech's _Reports_ II and IV (Fords of the
Indus); and R.'s _Notes_ p. 44.
[758] Hāru, Leech's Harroon, apparently, 10 m. above Atak. The
text might be read to mean that both rivers were forded near
their confluence, but, finding no warrant for supposing the
Kābul-river fordable below Jalālābād, I have guided the
translation accordingly; this may be wrong and may conceal a
change in the river.
[759] Known also as Dhān-kot and as Mu`az̤z̤am-nagar
(_Ma`āṣiru'l-`umrā_ i, 249 and A.N. trs. H.B. index _s.n._
Dhān-kot). It was on the east bank of the Indus, probably near
modern Kālā-bāgh, and was washed away not before 956 AH. (1549
AD. H. Beveridge).
[760] Chaupāra seems, from f. 148b, to be the Chapari of
Survey Map 1889. Bābur's _Dasht_ is modern Dāman.
[761] _aīmāq_, used usually of Mughūls, I think. It may be
noted that Lieutenant Leech compiled a vocabulary of the
tongue of the Mughūl Aīmāq in Qandahār and Harāt (JASB 1838,
p. 785).
[762] The _Āyīn-i-akbarī_ account of Kābul both uses and
supplements the _Bābur-nāma_.
[763] _viz._ `Alī-shang, Alangār and Mandrāwar (the Lamghānāt
proper), Nīngnahār (with its _bulūk_, Kāma),
Kūnār-with-Nūr-gal, (and the two _bulūks_ of Nūr-valley and
Chaghān-sarāī).
[764] _See_ Appendix E, _On Nagarahāra_.
[765] The name Adīnapūr is held to be descended from ancient
Udyānapūra (Garden-town); its ancestral form however was
applied to Nagarahāra, apparently, in the Bārān-Sūrkh-rūd
_dū-āb_, and not to Bābur's _dārogha's_ seat. The Sūrkh-rūd's
deltaic mouth was a land of gardens; when Masson visited
Adīnapūr he went from Bālā-bāgh (High-garden); this appears to
stand where Bābur locates his Bāgh-i-wafā, but he was shown a
garden he took to be this one of Bābur's, a mile higher up the
Sūrkh-rūd. A later ruler made the Chār-bāgh of maps. It may be
mentioned that Bālā-bāgh has become in some maps Rozābād
(Garden-town). _See_ Masson, i, 182 and iii, 186; R.'s
_Notes_; and Wilson's _Ariana Antiqua_, Masson's art.
[766] One of these _tangī_ is now a literary asset in Mr.
Kipling's _My Lord the Elephant_. Bābur's 13 y. represent some
82 miles; on f. 137b the Kābul-Ghaznī road of 14 y. represents
some 85; in each case the _yīghāch_ works out at over six
miles (Index _s.n._ _yīghāch_ and Vigne, p. 454). Sayyid
Ghulām-i-muḥammad traces this route minutely (R.'s _Notes_ pp.
57, 59).
[767] Masson was shewn "Chaghatai castles", attributed to
Bābur (iii, 174).
[768] Dark-turn, perhaps, as in Shibr-tū, Jāl-tū, _etc._ (f.
130b and note to Shibr-tū).
[769] f. 145 where the change is described in identical words,
as seen south of the Jagdālīk-pass. The Bādām-chashma pass
appears to be a traverse of the eastern rampart of the
Tīzīn-valley.
[770] Appendix E, _On Nagarahāra_.
[771] No record exists of the actual laying-out of the garden;
the work may have been put in hand during the Mahmand
expedition of 914 AH. (f. 216); the name given to it suggests
a gathering there of loyalists when the stress was over of the
bad Mughūl rebellion of that year (f. 216b where the narrative
breaks off abruptly in 914 AH. and is followed by a gap down
to 925 AH.-1519 AD.).
[772] No annals of 930 AH. are known to exist; from Ṣafar 926
AH. to 932 AH. (Jan. 1520-Nov. 1525 AD.) there is a lacuna.
Accounts of the expedition are given by Khāfī Khān, i, 47 and
Firishta, lith. ed. p. 202.
[773] Presumably to his son, Humāyūn, then governor in
Badakhshān; Bukhārā also was under Bābur's rule.
[774] Here, _qārī_, yards. The dimensions 10 by 10, are those
enjoined for places of ablution.
[775] Presumably those of the _tūqūz-rūd_, _supra_. Cf.
Appendix E, _On Nagarahāra_.
[776] White-mountain; Pushtū, Spīn-ghur (or ghar).
[777] _i.e._ the Lamghānāt proper. The range is variously
named; in (Persian) Siyāh-koh (Black-mountain), which like
Turkī Qarā-tāgh may mean non-snowy; by Tājīks, Bāgh-i-ātāka
(Foster-father's garden); by Afghāns, Kanda-ghur, and by
Lamghānīs Koh-i-būlān,—Kanda and Būlān both being
ferry-stations below it (Masson, iii, 189; also the Times Nov.
20th 1912 for a cognate illustration of diverse naming).
[778] A comment made here by Mr. Erskine on changes of name is
still appropriate, but some seeming changes may well be due to
varied selection of land-marks. Of the three routes next
described in the text, one crosses as for Mandrāwar; the
second, as for `Alī-shang, a little below the outfall of the
Tīzīn-water; the third may take off from the route, between
Kābul and Tag-aū, marked in Col. Tanner's map (PRGS 1881 p.
180). Cf. R's Route 11; and for Aūlūgh-nūr, Appendix F, _On
the name Nūr_.
[779] The name of this pass has several variants. Its second
component, whatever its form, is usually taken to mean _pass_,
but to read it here as pass would be redundant, since Bābur
writes "pass (_kūtal_) of Bād-i-pīch". Pich occurs as a place
name both east (Pīch) and west (Pīchghān) of the _kūtal_, but
what would suit the bitter and even fatal winds of the pass
would be to read the name as Whirling-wind (_bād-i-pīch_).
Another explanation suggests itself from finding a
considerable number of pass-names such as Shibr-tū, Jāi-tū,
Qarā-tū, in which _tū_ is a synonym of _pīch_, turn, twist;
thus Bād-i-pīch may be the local form of Bād-tū, Windy-turn.
[780] _See_ Masson, iii, 197 and 289. Both in Pashāī and
Lamghānī, _lām_ means fort.
[781] _See_ Appendix F, _On the name Dara-i-nūr_.
[782] _ghair mukarrar._ Bābur may allude to the remarkable
change men have wrought in the valley-bottom (Appendix F, for
Col. Tanner's account of the valley).
[783] f. 154.
[784] _diospyrus lotus_, the European date-plum, supposed to
be one of the fruits eaten by the Lotophagi. It is purple, has
bloom and is of the size of a pigeon's egg or a cherry. See
Watts' _Economic Products of India_; Brandis' _Forest Trees_,
Illustrations; and Speede's _Indian Hand-book_.
[785] As in Lombardy, perhaps; in Luhūgur vines are clipped
into standards; in most other places in Afghānistān they are
planted in deep trenches and allowed to run over the
intervening ridges or over wooden framework. In the narrow
Khūlm-valley they are trained up poplars so as to secure them
the maximum of sun. _See_ Wood's _Report_ VI p. 27; Bellew's
_Afghānistān_ p. I75 and _Mems_. p. 142 note.
[786] Appendix G, _On the names of two Nūrī wines_.
[787] This practice Bābur viewed with disgust, the hog being
an impure animal according to Muḥammadan Law (Erskine).
[788] The _Khazīnatu'l-asfiyā_ (ii, 293) explains how it came
about that this saint, one honoured in Kashmīr, was buried in
Khutlān. He died in Hazāra (Paklī) and there the Paklī Sulṯān
wished to have him buried, but his disciples, for some
unspecified reason, wished to bury him in Khutlān. In order to
decide the matter they invited the Sultān to remove the bier
with the corpse upon it. It could not be stirred from its
place. When, however, a single one of the disciples tried to
move it, he alone was able to lift it, and to bear it away on
his head. Hence the burial in Khutlān. The death occurred in
786 AH. (1384 AD.). A point of interest in this legend is
that, like the one to follow, concerning dead women, it shews
belief in the living activities of the dead.
[789] The MSS. vary between 920 and 925 AH.—neither date seems