The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
first obligatory prayer. Much seems to happen before the sun
got up high!
[1535] Koh-i-nūr, Rocky-mountains (?). _See_ Appendix F, _On
the name Dara-i-nūr_.
[1536] Steingass gives _būza_ as made of rice, millet, or
barley.
[1537] Is this connected with Arabic _kīmiyā'_, alchemy,
chemistry?
[1538] Turkī, a whirlpool; but perhaps the name of an office
from _aīgar_, a saddle.
[1539] The river on which the rafts were used was the Kūnār,
from Chītrāl.
[1540] An uncertain name. I have an impression that these
waters are medicinal, but I cannot trace where I found the
information. The visit paid to them, and the arrangement made
for bathing set them apart. The name of the place may convey
this speciality.
[1541] _panāhī_, the word used for the hiding-places of
bird-catchers on f. 140.
[1542] This will be the basis of the details about fishing
given on f. 143 and f. 143_b_. The statement that particulars
have been given allows the inference that the diary was
annotated after the _Description of Kābul_, in which the
particulars are, was written.
[1543] _qānlīqlār._ This right of private revenge which forms
part of the law of most rude nations, exists in a mitigated
form under the Muhammadan law. The criminal is condemned by
the judge, but is delivered up to the relations of the person
murdered, to be ransomed or put to death as they think fit
(Erskine).
[1544] Here the text breaks off and a _lacuna_ separates the
diary of 11 months length which ends the Kābul section of the
_Bābur-nāma_ writings, from the annals of 932 AH. which begin
the Hindūstān section. There seems no reason why the diary
should have been discontinued.
[1545] Jan. 2nd 1520 to Nov. 17th 1525 AD. (Ṣafar 926 to Ṣafar
1st 932 AH.).
[1546] Index _s.nn._ Bāgh-i-ṣafā and B.N. _lacunae_.
[1547] Nominally Balkh seems to have been a Ṣafawī possession;
but it is made to seem closely dependent on Bābur by his
receipt from Muḥammad-i-zamān in it of _taṣadduq_ (money for
alms), and by his action connected with it (_q.v._).
[1548] _Tārīkh-i-sind_, Malet's trs. p. 77 and _in loco_, p.
365.
[1549] A chronogram given by Badāyūnī decides the vexed
question of the date of Sikandar _Lūdī's_
death—_Jannātu'l-firdūs nazlā_ = 923 (Bib. Ind. ed. i, 322,
Ranking trs. p. 425 n. 6). Erskine supported 924 AH. (i, 407),
partly relying on an entry in Bābur's diary (f. 226_b_) _s.d._
Rabī`u'l-awwal 1st 925 AH. (March 3rd 1519 AD.) which states
that on that day Mullā Murshid was sent to Ibrāhīm whose
father _Sikandar had died five or six months before_.
Against this is the circumstance that the entry about Mullā
Murshid is, perhaps entirely, certainly partly, of later entry
than what precedes and what follows it in the diary. This can
be seen on examination; it is a passage such as the diary
section shews in other places, added to the daily record and
giving this the character of a draft waiting for revision and
rewriting (fol. 216_b_ n.).
(To save difficulty to those who may refer to the L. & E.
_Memoirs_ on the point, I mention that the whole passage about
Mullā Murshid is displaced in that book and that the date
March 3rd is omitted.)
[1550] Shāl (the local name of English Quetta) was taken by
Ẕū'l-nūn in 884 AH. (1479 AD.); Sīwīstān Shāh Beg took, in
second capture, about 917 AH. (1511 AD.), from a colony of
Barlās Turks under Pīr Walī _Barlās_.
[1551] Was the attack made in reprisal for Shāh Beg's further
aggression on the Barlās lands and Bābur's hereditary
subjects? Had these appealed to the head of their tribe?
[1552] Le Messurier writes (_l.c._ p. 224) that at Old
Qandahār "many stone balls lay about, some with a diameter of
18 inches, others of 4 or 5, chiselled out of limestone. These
were said to have been used in sieges in the times of the
Arabs and propelled from a machine called _manjanic_ a sort of
balista or catapult." Meantime perhaps they served Bābur!
[1553] "Just then came a letter from Badakhshān saying, 'Mīrzā
Khān is dead; Mīrzā Sulaimān (his son) is young; the Aūzbegs
are near; take thought for this kingdom lest (which God
forbid) Badakhshān should be lost.' Mīrzā Sulaimān's mother
(Sulṯān-nigār Khānīm) had brought him to Kābul" (Gul-badan's
H. N. f. 8).
[1554] _infra_ and Appendix J.
[1555] E. & D.'s _History of India_, i. 312.
[1556] For accounts of the _Mubīn_, _Akbar-nāma_ Bib. Ind. ed.
i. 118, trs. H. Beveridge i. 278 note, Badāyūnī _ib._ i, 343,
trs. Ranking p. 450, Sprenger ZDMG. 1862, Teufel _ib._ 1883.
The _Akbar-nāma_ account appears in Turkī in the "Fragments"
associated with Kehr's transcript of the B.N. (JRAS. 1908, p.
76, A. S. B.'s art. _Bābur-nāma_). Bābur mentions the _Mubīn_
(f. 252_b_, f. 351_b_).
[1557] JRAS. 1901, _Persian MSS. in Indian Libraries_
(description of the Rāmpūr _Dīwān_); AQR. 1911, _Bābur's
Dīwān_ (_i.e._ the Rāmpūr _Dīwān_); and _Some verses of the
Emperor Bābur_ (the _Abūshqa_ quotations).
For Dr. E. D. Ross' Reproduction and account of the Rāmpūr
_Dīwān_, JASB. 1910.
[1558] "After him (Ibrāhīm) was Bābur King of Dihlī, who owed
his place to the Pathāns," writes the Afghān poet Khūsh-ḥāl
_Khattak_ (Afghān Poets of the XVII century, C. E. Biddulph,
p. 58).
[1559] The translation only has been available (E. & D.'s H.
of I., vol. 1).
[1560] The marriage is said to have been Kāmrān's (E. & D.'s
trs.).
[1561] Erskine calculated that `Ālam Khān was now well over 70
years of age (H. of I. i, 421 n.).
[1562] A. N. trs. H. Beveridge, i, 239.
[1563] The following old English reference to Isma`il's
appearance may be quoted as found in a corner somewhat
out-of-the-way from Oriental matters. In his essay on beauty
Lord Bacon writes when arguing against the theory that beauty
is usually not associated with highmindedness, "But this holds
not always; for Augustus Cæsar, Titus Vespasianus, Philip le
Bel of France, Edward the Fourth of England, Alcibiades of
Athens, Isma`il the Sophy (Ṣafawī) of Persia, were all high
and great spirits, and yet the most beautiful men of their
times."
[1564] Cf. _s.a._ 928 AH. for discussion of the year of death.
[1565] Elph. MS. f. 205_b_; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 199_b_ omits
the year's events on the ground that Shaikh Zain has
translated them; I.O. 217 f. 174; Mems. p. 290; Kehr's Codex
p. 1084.
A considerable amount of reliable textual material for
revising the Hindūstān section of the English translation of
the _Bābur-nāma_ is wanting through loss of pages from the
Elphinstone Codex; in one instance no less than an equivalent
of 36 folios of the Ḥaidarābād Codex are missing (f. 356 _et
seq._), but to set against this loss there is the valuable
_per contra_ that Kehr's manuscript throughout the section
becomes of substantial value, losing its Persified character
and approximating closely to the true text of the Elphinstone
and Ḥaidarābād Codices. Collateral help in revision is given
by the works specified (_in loco_ p. 428) as serving to fill
the gap existing in Bābur's narrative previous to 932 AH. and
this notably by those described by Elliot and Dowson. Of these
last, special help in supplementary details is given for 932
AH. and part of 933 AH. by Shaikh Zain [_Khawāfi_]'s
_T̤abaqāt-i-bāburī_, which is a highly rhetorical paraphrase
of Bābur's narrative, requiring familiarity with ornate
Persian to understand. For all my references to it, I am
indebted to my husband. It may be mentioned as an interesting
circumstance that the B.M. possesses in Or. 1999 a copy of
this work which was transcribed in 998 AH. by one of
Khwānd-amīr's grandsons and, judging from its date, presumably
for Abū'l-faẓl's use in the _Akbar-nāma_.
Like part of the Kābul section, the Hindūstān one is in
diary-form, but it is still more heavily surcharged with
matter entered at a date later than the diary. It departs from
the style of the preceding diary by an occasional lapse into
courtly phrase and by exchange of some Turkī words for Arabic
and Persian ones, doubtless found current in Hind, _e.g._
_fauj_, _dīra_, _manzil_, _khail-khāna_.
[1566] This is the Logar affluent of the Bārān-water
(Kābul-river). Masson describes this haltingplace (iii, 174).
[1567] _muḥaqqar saughāt u bīlāk or tīlāk._ A small verbal
point arises about _bīlāk_ (or _tīlāk_). _Bīlāk_ is said by
Quatremère to mean a gift (N. et E. xiv, 119 n.) but here
_muḥaqqar saughāt_ expresses gift. Another meaning can be
assigned to _bīlāk_ here, [one had also by _tīlāk_,] _viz._
that of word-of-mouth news or communication, sometimes
supplementing written communication, possibly secret
instructions, possibly small domestic details. In _bīlāk_, a
gift, the root may be _bīl_, the act of knowing, in _tīlāk_ it
is _tīl_, the act of speaking [whence _tīl_, the tongue, and
_tīl tūtmāk_, to get news]. In the sentence noted, either word
would suit for a verbal communication. Returning to _bīlāk_ as
a gift, it may express the _nuance_ of English _token_, the
maker-known of friendship, affection and so-on. This
differentiates _bīlāk_ from _saughāt_, used in its frequent
sense of ceremonial and diplomatic presents of value and
importance.
[1568] With Sa`īd at this time were two Khānīms Sulṯān-nigār
and Daulat-sulṯān who were Bābur's maternal-aunts. Erskine
suggested Khūb-nigār, but she had died in 907 AH. (f. 96).
[1569] Humāyūn's non-arrival would be the main cause of delay.
Apparently he should have joined before the Kābul force left
that town.
[1570] The halt would be at Būt-khāk, the last station before
the Adīnapūr road takes to the hills.
[1571] Discussing the value of coins mentioned by Bābur,
Erskine says in his _History of India_ (vol. i, Appendix E.)
which was published in 1854 AD. that he had come to think his
estimates of the value of the coins was set too low in the
_Memoirs_ (published in 1826 AD.). This sum of 20,000
_shāhrukhīs_ he put at £1000. Cf. E. Thomas' _Pathan Kings of
Dihli and Resources of the Mughal Empire_.
[1572] One of Masson's interesting details seems to fit the
next stage of Bābur's march (iii, 179). It is that after
leaving Būt-khāk, the road passes what in the thirties of the
19th Century, was locally known as Bābur Pādshāh's Stone-heap
(cairn) and believed piled in obedience to Bābur's order that
each man in his army should drop a stone on it in passing. No
time for raising such a monument could be fitter than that of
the fifth expedition into Hindūstān when a climax of
opportunity allowed hope of success.
[1573] _rezāndalīk._ This Erskine translates, both here and on
ff. 253, 254, by _defluxion_, but de Courteille by _rhume de
cerveau_. Shaikh Zain supports de Courteille by writing, not
_rezāndalīk_, but _nuzla_, catarrh. De Courteille, in
illustration of his reading of the word, quotes Burnes'
account of an affection common in the Panj-āb and there called
_nuzla_, which is a running at the nostrils, that wastes the
brain and stamina of the body and ends fatally (_Travels in
Bukhara_ ed. 1839, ii, 41).
[1574] Tramontana, north of Hindū-kush.
[1575] Shaikh Zain says that the drinking days were Saturday,
Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
[1576] The Elph. Codex (f. 208_b_) contains the following note