The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
[1692] The _Tārīkh-i-sher-shāhī_ tells a good deal about the
man who bore this title, and also about others who found
themselves now in difficulty between Ibrāhīm's tyranny and
Bābur's advance (E. & D. iv, 301).
[1693] Gūālīār was taken from Bikramājīt in 1518 AD.
[1694] _i.e._ from the Deccan of which `Alāu'u'd-dīn is said
to have been the first Muḥammadan invader. An account of this
diamond, identified as the Koh-i-nūr, is given in _Hobson
Jobson_ but its full history is not told by Yule or by
Streeter's _Great Diamonds of the World_, neither mentioning
the presentation of the diamond by Humāyūn to Taḥmāsp of which
Abū'l-faẓl writes, dwelling on its overplus of payment for all
that Humāyūn in exile received from his Persian host
(_Akbar-nāma_ trs. i, 349 and note; _Asiatic Quarterly
Review_, April 1899 H. Beveridge's art. _Bābur's diamond_;
_was it the Koh-i-nūr?_).
[1695] 320 _ratīs_ (Erskine). The _ratī_ is 2.171 Troy grains,
or in picturesque primitive equivalents, is 8 grains of rice,
or 64 mustard seeds, or 512 poppy-seeds,—uncertain weights
which Akbar fixed in cat's-eye stones.
[1696] Bābur's plurals allow the supposition that the three
men's lives were spared. Malik Dād served him thenceforth.
[1697] Erskine estimated these as _dams_ and worth about
£1750, but this may be an underestimate (_H. of I._ i, App.
E.).
[1698] "These begs of his" (or hers) may be the three written
of above.
[1699] These will include cousins and his half-brothers
Jahāngīr and Nāṣir as opposing before he took action in 925
AH. (1519 AD.). The time between 910 AH. and 925 AH. at which
he would most desire Hindūstān is after 920 AH. in which year
he returned defeated from Transoxiana.
[1700] _kīchīk karīm_, which here seems to make contrast
between the ruling birth of members of his own family and the
lower birth of even great begs still with him. Where the
phrase occurs on f. 295, Erskine renders it by "down to the
dregs", and de Courteille (ii, 235) by "_de toutes les
bouches_" but neither translation appears to me to suit
Bābur's uses of the term, inasmuch as both seem to go too low
(cf. f. 270_b_).
[1701] _aīūrūshūb_, Pers. trs. _chaspīda_, stuck to.
[1702] The first expedition is fixed by the preceding passage
as in 925 AH. which was indeed the first time a passage of the
Indus is recorded. Three others are found recorded, those of
926, 930 and 932 AH. Perhaps the fifth was not led by Bābur in
person, and may be that of his troops accompanying `Ālam Khān
in 931 AH. But he may count into the set of five, the one made
in 910 AH. which he himself meant to cross the Indus. Various
opinions are found expressed by European writers as to the
dates of the five.
[1703] Muḥammad died 632 AD. (11 AH.).
[1704] Tramontana, n. of Hindū-kush. For particulars about the
dynasties mentioned by Bābur see Stanley Lane-Poole's
_Muḥammadan Dynasties_.
[1705] Maḥmūd of Ghaznī, a Turk by race, d. 1030 AD. (421
AH.).
[1706] known as Muḥ. _Ghūrī_, d. 1206 AD. (602 AH.).
[1707] _sūrūbtūrlār_, lit. drove them like sheep (cf. f.
154b).
[1708] _khūd_, itself, not Bābur's only Hibernianism.
[1709] "This is an excellent history of the Musalmān world
down to the time of Sl. Nāṣir of Dihlī A.D. 1252. It was
written by Abū `Umar Minḥāj al Jūrjānī. See Stewart's
catalogue of Tipoo's Library, p. 7" (Erskine). It has been
translated by Raverty.
[1710] _bargustwān-wār_; Erskine, cataphract horse.
[1711] The numerous instances of the word _pādshāh_ in this
part of the _Bābur-nāma_ imply no such distinction as attaches
to the title Emperor by which it is frequently translated
(Index _s.n._ _pādshāh_).
[1712] d. 1500 AD. (905 AH.).
[1713] d. 1388 AD. (790 AH.).
[1714] The ancestor mentioned appears to be Naṣrat Shāh, a
grandson of Fīrūz Shāh _Tūghlūq_ (S. L. Poole p. 300 and
Beale, 298).
[1715] His family belonged to the Rājpūt sept of Tānk, and had
become Muḥammadan in the person of Sadharān the first ruler of
Gujrāt (Crooke's _Tribes and Castes; Mirāt-i-sikandarī_,
Bayley p. 67 and n.).
[1716] S. L.-Poole p. 316-7.
[1717] Mandāū (Mandū) was the capital of Malwā.
[1718] Stanley Lane-Poole shews (p. 311) a dynasty of three
Ghūrīs interposed between the death of Fīrūz Shāh in 790 AH.
and the accession in 839 AH. of the first Khiljī ruler of
Gujrāt Maḥmūd Shāh.
[1719] He reigned from 1518 to 1532 AD. (925 to 939 AH.
S.L.-P. p. 308) and had to wife a daughter of Ibrāhīm _Lūdī_
(_Riyaẓu's-salāṯīn_). His dynasty was known as the
Ḥusain-shāhī, after his father.
[1720] "Strange as this custom may seem, a similar one
prevailed down to a very late period in Malabar. There was a
jubilee every 12 years in the Samorin's country, and any-one
who succeeded in forcing his way through the Samorin's guards
and slew him, reigned in his stead. 'A jubilee is proclaimed
throughout his dominions at the end of 12 years, and a tent is
pitched for him in a spacious plain, and a great feast is
celebrated for 10 or 12 days with mirth and jollity, guns
firing night and day, so, at the end of the feast, any four of
the guests that have a mind to gain a throne by a desperate
action in fighting their way through 30 or 40,000 of his
guards, and kill the Samorin in his tent, he that kills him,
succeeds him in his empire.' See Hamilton's _New Account of
the East Indies_ vol. i. p. 309. The attempt was made in 1695,
and again a very few years ago, but without success" (Erskine
p. 311).
The custom Bābur writes of—it is one dealt with at length in
Frazer's _Golden Bough_—would appear from Blochmann's
_Geography and History of Bengal_ (JASB 1873 p. 286) to have
been practised by the Habshī rulers of Bengal of whom he
quotes Faria y Souza as saying, "They observe no rule of
inheritance from father to son, but even slaves sometimes
obtain it by killing their master, and whoever holds it three
days, they look upon as established by divine providence. Thus
it fell out that in 40 years space they had 13 kings
successively."
[1721] No doubt this represents Vijāyanagar in the Deccan.
[1722] This date places the composition of the _Description of
Hindustan_ in agreement with Shaikh Zain's statement that it
was in writing in 935 AH.
[1723] Are they the Khas of Nepal and Sikkim? (G. of I.).
[1724] Here Erskine notes that the Persian (trs.) adds, "_mīr_
signifying a hill, and _kas_ being the name of the natives of
the hill-country." This may not support the name _kas_ as
correct but may be merely an explanation of Bābur's meaning.
It is not in I.O. 217 f. 189 or in Muḥ. _Shīrāzī_'s
lithographed _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_ p. 190.
[1725] Either yak or the tassels of the yak. See Appendix M.
[1726] My husband tells me that Bābur's authority for this
interpretation of Sawālak may be the _Z̤afar-nāma_ (Bib. Ind.
ed. ii, 149).
[1727] _i.e._ the countries of Hindūstān.
[1728] so pointed, carefully, in the Ḥai. MS. Mr. Erskine
notes of these rivers that they are the Indus, Hydaspes,
Ascesines, Hydraotes, Hesudrus and Hyphasis.
[1729] _Āyīn-i-akbarī_, Jarrett 279.
[1730] _pārcha pārcha_, _kīchīkrāk kīchīkrāk_, _āndā mūndā_,
_tāshlīq tāqghīna_. The Gazetteer of India (1907 i, 1) puts
into scientific words, what Bābur here describes, the ruin of
a great former range.
[1731] Here _āqār-sūlār_ might safely be replaced by
"irrigation channels" (Index _s.n._).
[1732] The verb here is _tāshmāq_; it also expresses to carry
like ants (f. 220), presumably from each person's carrying a
pitcher or a stone at a time, and repeatedly.
[1733] "This" notes Erskine (p. 315) "is the _wulsa_ or
_walsa_, so well described by Colonel Wilks in his Historical
Sketches vol. i. p. 309, note 'On the approach of an hostile
army, the unfortunate inhabitants of India bury under ground
their most cumbrous effects, and each individual, man, woman,
and child above six years of age (the infant children being
carried by their mothers), with a load of grain proportioned
to their strength, issue from their beloved homes, and take
the direction of a country (if such can be found,) exempt from
the miseries of war; sometimes of a strong fortress, but more
generally of the most unfrequented hills and woods, where they
prolong a miserable existence until the departure of the
enemy, and if this should be protracted beyond the time for
which they have provided food, a large portion necessarily
dies of hunger.' See the note itself. The Historical Sketches
should be read by every-one who desires to have an accurate
idea of the South of India. It is to be regretted that we do
not possess the history of any other part of India, written
with the same knowledge or research."
"The word _wulsa_ or _walsa_ is Dravidian. Telugu has
_valasa_, 'emigration, flight, or removing from home for fear
of a hostile army.' Kanarese has _valasĕ_, _ŏlasĕ_, and
_ŏlisĕ_, 'flight, a removing from home for fear of a hostile
army.' Tamil has _valasei_, 'flying for fear, removing
hastily.' The word is an interesting one. I feel pretty sure
it is not Aryan, but Dravidian; and yet it stands alone in
Dravidian, with nothing that I can find in the way of a root
or affinities to explain its etymology. Possibly it may be a
borrowed word in Dravidian. Malayalam has no corresponding
word. Can it have been borrowed from Kolarian or other
primitive Indian speech?" (Letter to H. Beveridge from Mr. F.
E. Pargiter, 8th August, 1914.)
_Wulsa_ seems to be a derivative from Sanscrit _ūlvash_, and
to answer to Persian _wairānī_ and Turkī _būzūghlūghī_.
[1734] _lalmī_, which in Afghānī (Pushtū) signifies grown
without irrigation.
[1735] "The improvement of Hindūstān since Bābur's time must
be prodigious. The wild elephant is now confined to the
forests under Hemāla, and to the Ghats of Malabar. A wild
elephant near Karrah, Mānikpūr, or Kālpī, is a thing, at the
present day (1826 AD.), totally unknown. May not their
familiar existence in these countries down to Bābur's days, be
considered rather hostile to the accounts given of the
superabundant population of Hindūstān in remote times?"
(Erskine).
[1736] _dīwān._ I.O. 217 f. 190b, _dar dīwān fīl jawāb
mīgūīnd_; Mems. p. 316. They account to the government for the
elephants they take; _Méms._ ii, 188, _Les habitants payent
l'impôt avec le produit de leur chasse_. Though de
Courteille's reading probably states the fact, Erskine's
includes de C.'s and more, inasmuch as it covers all captures
and these might reach to a surplusage over the imposts.
[1737] Pers. trs. _gaz_=24 inches. _Il est bon de rappeler que
le mot turk qārī, que la version persane rend par gaz, désigne
proprement l'espace compris entre le haut de l'épaule jusqu'au
bout des doigts_ (de Courteille, ii, 189 note). The _qārī_
like one of its equivalents, the ell (Zenker), is a variable
measure; it seems to approach more nearly to a yard than to a
_gaz_ of 24 inches. See _Memoirs of Jahāngīr_ (R. & B. pp. 18,
141 and notes) for the heights of elephants, and for
discussion of some measures.
[1738] _khūd_, itself.
[1739] _i.e._ pelt; as Erskine notes, its skin is scattered
with small hairs. Details such as this one stir the question,