The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
of Humāyūn's about his delay; it has been expunged from the
text but is still fairly legible:—"The time fixed was after
`Āshūrā (10th Muḥarram, a voluntary fast); although we arrived
after the next-following 10th (_`āshūr_, _i.e._ of Ṣafar), the
delay had been necessary. The purpose of the letters (Bābur's)
was to get information; (in reply) it was represented that the
equipment of the army of Badakhshān caused delay. If this
slave (Humāyūn), trusting to his [father's] kindness, caused
further delay, he has been sorry."
Bābur's march from the Bāgh-i-wafā was delayed about a month;
Humāyūn started late from Badakhshān; his force may have
needed some stay in Kābul for completion of equipment; his
personal share of blame for which he counted on his father's
forgiveness, is likely to have been connected with his
mother's presence in Kābul.
Humāyūn's note is quoted in Turkī by one MS. of the Persian
text (B.M. W.-i-B. 16,623 f. 128); and from certain
indications in Muḥammad _Shīrāzī_'s lithograph (p. 163),
appears to be in his archetype the Udaipūr Codex; but it is
not with all MSS. of the Persian text _e.g._ not with I.O. 217
and 218. A portion of it is in Kehr's MS. (p. 1086).
[1577] Bird's-dome [f. 145_b_, n.] or The pair (_qūsh_) of
domes.
[1578] _gūn khūd kīch būlūb aīdī_; a little joke perhaps at
the lateness both of the day and the army.
[1579] Shaikh Zain's maternal-uncle.
[1580] Shaikh Zain's useful detail that this man's pen-name
was Sharaf distinguishes him from Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ the author of
the _Shaibānī-nāma_.
[1581] _gosha_, angle (_cf._ _gosha-i-kār_, limits of work).
Parodies were to be made, having the same metre, rhyme, and
refrain as the model couplet.
[1582] I am unable to attach sense to Bābur's second line;
what is wanted is an illustration of two incompatible things.
Bābur's reflections [_infra_] condemned his verse. Shaikh Zain
describes the whole episode of the verse-making on the raft,
and goes on with, "He (Bābur) excised this choice couplet from
the pages of his Acts (_Wāqi`āt_) with the knife of censure,
and scratched it out from the tablets of his noble heart with
the finger-nails of repentance. I shall now give an account of
this spiritual matter" (_i.e._ the repentance), "by presenting
the recantations of his Solomon-like Majesty in his very own
words, which are weightier than any from the lips of Aesop."
Shaikh Zain next quotes the Turkī passage here translated in
_b. Mention of the Mubīn_.
[1583] The _Mubīn_ (_q.v._ Index) is mentioned again and
quoted on f. 351_b_. In both places its name escaped the
notice of Erskine and de Courteille, who here took it for
_mīn_, I, and on f. 351_b_ omitted it, matters of which the
obvious cause is that both translators were less familiar with
the poem than it is now easy to be. There is amplest textual
warrant for reading _Mubīn_ in both the places indicated
above; its reinstatement gives to the English and French
translations what they have needed, namely, the clinch of a
definite stimulus and date of repentance, which was the
influence of the Mubīn in 928 AH. (1521-2 AD.). The whole
passage about the peccant verse and its fruit of contrition
should be read with others that express the same regret for
broken law and may all have been added to the diary at the
same time, probably in 935 AH. (1529 AD.). They will be found
grouped in the Index _s.n._ Bābur.
[1584] _mūndīn būrūn_, by which I understand, as the
grammatical construction will warrant, _before writing the
Mubīn_. To read the words as referring to the peccant verse,
is to take the clinch off the whole passage.
[1585] _i.e._ of the _Qorān_ on which the _Mubīn_ is based.
[1586] Dropping down-stream, with wine and good company, he
entirely forgot his good resolutions.
[1587] This appears to refer to the good thoughts embodied in
the _Mubīn_.
[1588] This appears to contrast with the "sublime realities"
of the _Qorān_.
[1589] In view of the interest of the passage, and because
this verse is not in the Rāmpūr _Dīwān_, as are many contained
in the Hindūstān section, the Turkī original is quoted. My
translation differs from those of Mr. Erskine and M. de
Courteille; all three are tentative of a somewhat difficult
verse.
_Nī qīlā mīn sīnīng bīla āī tīl?
Jihatīng dīn mīnīng aīchīm qān dūr.
Nīcha yakhshī dīsāng bū hazl aīla shi`r
Bīrī-sī faḥash ū bīrī yālghān dūr.
Gar dīsāng kūīmā mīn, bū jazm bīla
Jalāu'īngnī bū `arṣa dīn yān dūr._
[1590] The Qorān puts these sayings into the mouths of Adam
and Eve.
[1591] Ḥai. MS. _tīndūrūb_; Ilminsky, p. 327, _yāndūrūb_;
W.-i-B. I.O. 217, f. 175, _sard sākhta_.
[1592] Of `Alī-masjid the _Second Afghān War_ (official
account) has a picture which might be taken from Bābur's camp.
[1593] Shaikh Zain's list of the drinking-days (f. 252 note)
explains why sometimes Bābur says he preferred _ma`jūn_. In
the instances I have noticed, he does this on a drinking-day;
the preference will be therefore for a confection over wine.
December 9th was a Saturday and drinking-day; on it he
mentions the preference; Tuesday Nov. 21st was a drinking day,
and he states that he ate _ma`jūn_.
[1594] presumably the _karg-khāna_ of f. 222_b_,
rhinoceros-home in both places. A similar name applies to a
tract in the Rawalpindi District,—Bābur-khāna, Tiger-home,
which is linked to the tradition of Buddha's self-sacrifice to
appease the hunger of seven tiger-cubs. [In this Bābur-khāna
is the town Kacha-kot from which Bābur always names the river
Hārū.]
[1595] This is the first time on an outward march that Bābur
has crossed the Indus by boat; hitherto he has used the ford
above Attock, once however specifying that men on foot were
put over on rafts.
[1596] f. 253.
[1597] In my Translator's Note (p. 428), attention was drawn
to the circumstance that Bābur always writes Daulat Khān
_Yūsuf-khail_, and not Daulat Khān _Lūdī_. In doing this, he
uses the family- or clan-name instead of the tribal one,
_Lūdī_.
[1598] _i.e._ day by day.
[1599] _daryā_, which Bābur's precise use of words _e.g._ of
_daryā_, _rūd_, and _sū_, allows to apply here to the Indus
only.
[1600] Presumably this was near Parhāla, which stands, where
the Sūhān river quits the hills, at the eastern entrance of a
wild and rocky gorge a mile in length. It will have been up
this gorge that Bābur approached Parhāla in 925 AH.
(Rawalpindi Gazetteer p. 11).
[1601] _i.e._ here, bed of a mountain-stream.
[1602] The Elphinstone Codex here preserves the following
note, the authorship of which is attested by the scribe's
remark that it is copied from the handwriting of Humāyūn
Pādshāh:—As my honoured father writes, we did not know until
we occupied Hindūstān (932 AH.), but afterwards did know, that
ice does form here and there if there come a colder year. This
was markedly so in the year I conquered Gujrāt (942 AH.-1535
AD.) when it was so cold for two or three days between Bhūlpūr
and Guālīār that the waters were frozen over a hand's
thickness.
[1603] This is a Kakar (Gakkhar) clan, known also as
Baragowah, of which the location in Jahāngīr Pādshāh's time
was from Rohtās to Hātya, _i.e._ about where Bābur encamped
(_Memoirs of Jahāngīr_, Rogers and Beveridge, p. 97; E. and D.
vi, 309; Provincial Gazetteers of Rawalpindi and Jihlam, p. 64
and p. 97 respectively).
[1604] _āndīn aūtūb_, a reference perhaps to going out beyond
the corn-lands, perhaps to attempt for more than provisions.
[1605] _qūsh-āt_, a led horse to ride in change.
[1606] According to Shaikh Zain it was in this year that Bābur
made Buhlūlpūr a royal domain (B.M. Add. 26,202 f. 16), but
this does not agree with Bābur's explanation that he visited
the place because it was _khalṣa_. Its name suggests that it
had belonged to Buhlūl _Lūdī_; Bābur may have taken it in 930
AH. when he captured Sīālkot. It never received the population
of Sīālkot, as Bābur had planned it should do because
pond-water was drunk in the latter town and was a source of
disease. The words in which Bābur describes its situation are
those he uses of Akhsī (f. 4_b_); not improbably a resemblance
inclined his liking towards Buhlūlpūr. (It may be noted that
this Buhlūlpūr is mentioned in the _Āyīn-i-akbarī_ and marked
on large maps, but is not found in the G. of I. 1907.)
[1607] Both names are thus spelled in the _Bābur-nāma_. In
view of the inclination of Turkī to long vowels, Bābur's short
one in Jat may be worth consideration since modern usage of
Jat and Jāt varies. Mr. Crooke writes the full vowel, and
mentions that Jāts are Hindūs, Sikhs, and Muḥammadans (_Tribes
and Castes of the North-western Provinces and Oude_, iii, 38).
On this point and on the orthography of the name, Erskine's
note (_Memoirs_ p. 294) is as follows: "The Jets or Jats are
the Muḥammadan peasantry of the Panj-āb, the bank of the
Indus, Sīwīstān _etc._ and must not be confounded with the
Jāts, a powerful Hindū tribe to the west of the Jamna, about
Agra _etc._ and which occupies a subordinate position in the
country of the Rājpūts."
[1608] The following section contains a later addition to the
diary summarizing the action of `Ālam Khān before and after
Bābur heard of the defeat from the trader he mentions. It
refutes an opinion found here and there in European writings
that Bābur used and threw over `Ālam Khān. It and Bābur's
further narrative shew that `Ālam Khān had little valid
backing in Hindūstān, that he contributed nothing to Bābur's
success, and that no abstention by Bābur from attack on
Ibrāhīm would have set `Ālam Khān on the throne of Dihlī. It
and other records, Bābur's and those of Afghān chroniclers,
allow it to be said that if `Ālam Khān had been strong enough
to accomplish his share of the compact that he should take and
should rule Dihlī, Bābur would have kept to his share, namely,
would have maintained supremacy in the Panj-āb. He advanced
against Ibrāhīm only when `Ālam Khān had totally failed in
arms and in securing adherence.
[1609] This objurgation on over-rapid marching looks like the
echo of complaint made to Bābur by men of his own whom he had
given to `Ālam Khān in Kābul.
[1610] Maḥmūd himself may have inherited his father's title
Khān-i-jahān but a little further on he is specifically
mentioned as the son of Khān-i-jahān, presumably because his
father had been a more notable man than he was. Of his tribe
it may be noted that the Ḥaidarābād MS. uniformly writes
Nuḥānī and not Luḥānī as is usual in European writings, and
that it does so even when, as on f. 149_b_, the word is
applied to a trader. Concerning the tribe, family, or caste
_vide_ G. of I. _s.n._ Lohānas and Crooke _l.c._ _s.n._
Pathān, para. 21.
[1611] _i.e._ west of Dihlī territory, the Panj-āb.
[1612] He was of the Farmul family of which Bābur says (f.
139_b_) that it was in high favour in Hindūstān under the
Afghāns and of which the author of the _Wāqi`āt-i-mushtāqī_
says that it held half the lands of Dihlī in _jāgīr_ (E. and
D. iv, 547).
[1613] Presumably he could not cut off supplies.
[1614] The only word similar to this that I have found is one