The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
[1801] _Sypheotis bengalensis_ and _S. aurita_, which are both
smaller than _Otis houbara_ (_tūghdīrī_). In Hindustan _S.
aurita_ is known as _līkh_ which name is the nearest approach
I have found to Bābur's [_lūja_] _lūkha_.
[1802] Jerdon mentions (ii, 615) that this bird is common in
Afghānistān and there called _dugdaor_ (_tūghdār_,
_tūghdīrī_).
[1803] _Cf._ Appendix B, since I wrote which, further
information has made it fairly safe to say that the Hindūstān
_bāghrī-qarā_ is _Pterocles exustus_, the common sand-grouse
and that the one of f. 49b is _Pterocles arenarius_, the
larger or black-bellied sand-grouse. _P. exustus_ is said by
Yule (H. J. _s.n._ Rock-pigeon) to have been miscalled
rock-pigeon by Anglo-Indians, perhaps because its flight
resembles the pigeon's. This accounts for Erskine's rendering
(p. 321) _bāghrī-qarā_ here by rock-pigeon.
[1804] _Leptoptilus dubius_, Hind. _hargīlā_. Hindūstānīs call
it _pīr-i-dīng_ (Erskine) and _peda dhauk_ (Blanford), both
names referring, perhaps, to its pouch. It is the adjutant of
Anglo-India. Cf. f. 235.
[1805] only when young (Blanford, ii, 188).
[1806] Elph. MS. _mank:sā_ or _mankīā_; Ḥai. MS. _m:nk_.
Haughton's _Bengali Dictionary_ gives two forms of the name
_mānek-jur_ and _mānak-yoī_. It is _Dissura episcopus_, the
white-necked stork (Blanford iv, 370, who gives _manik-jor_
amongst its Indian names). Jerdon classes it (ii, 737) as
_Ciconia leucocephala_. It is the beefsteak bird of
Anglo-India.
[1807] _Ciconia nigra_ (Blanford, iv, 369).
[1808] Under the Hindūstānī form, _būza_, of Persian _buzak_
the birds Bābur mentions as _buzak_ can be identified. The
large one is _Inocotis papillosus_, _būza_, _kāla būza_, black
curlew, king-curlew. The bird it equals in size is a buzzard,
Turkī _sār_ (not Persian _sār_, starling). The king-curlew has
a large white patch on the inner lesser and marginal coverts
of its wings (Blanford, iv, 303). This agrees with Bābur's
statement about the wings of the large _buzak_. Its length is
27 inches, while the starling's is 9-1/2 inches.
[1809] _Ibis melanocephala_, the white ibis, Pers. _safed
buzak_, Bengali _sabut būza_. It is 30 inches long.
[1810] Perhaps, _Plegadis falcinellus_, the glossy ibis, which
in most parts of India is a winter visitor. Its length is 25
inches.
[1811] Erskine suggests that this is _Platalea leucorodia_,
the _chamach-būza_, spoon-bill. It is 33 inches long.
[1812] _Anas poecilorhyncha._ The Ḥai. MS. writes _gharm-pāī_,
and this is the Indian name given by Blanford (iv, 437).
[1813] _Anas boschas._ Dr. Ross notes (No. 147), from the
_Sanglākh_, that _sūna_ is the drake, _būrchīn_, the duck and
that it is common in China to call a certain variety of bird
by the combined sex-names. Something like this is shewn by the
uses of _būghā_ and _marāl_ _q.v._ Index.
[1814] _Centropus rufipennis_, the common coucal (Yule's H.J.
_s.n._ Crow-pheasant); H. _makokhā_, _Cuculus castaneus_
(Buchanan, quoted by Forbes).
[1815] _Pteropus edwardsii_, the flying-fox. The inclusion of
the bat here amongst birds, may be a clerical accident, since
on f. 136 a flying-fox is not written of as a bird.
[1816] Bābur here uses what is both the Kābul and Andijān name
for the magpie, Ar. _`aqqa_ (Oates, i, 31 and Scully's Voc),
instead of T. _sāghizghān_ or P. _dam-sīcha_ (tail-wagger).
[1817] The Pers. trs. writes _sāndūlāch mamūlā_, _mamūlā_
being Arabic for wag-tail. De Courteille's Dictionary
describes the _sāndūlāch_ as small and having a long tail, the
cock-bird green, the hen, yellow. The wag-tail suiting this in
colouring is _Motacilla borealis_ (Oates, ii, 294; syn.
_Budytes viridis_, the green wag-tail); this, as a migrant,
serves to compare with the Indian "little bird", which seems
likely to be a red-start.
[1818] This word may represent Scully's _kirich_ and be the
Turkī name for a swift, perhaps _Cypselus affinis_.
[1819] This name is taken from its cry during the breeding
season (Yule's H.J. _s.n._ Koel).
[1820] Bābur's distinction between the three crocodiles he
mentions seems to be that of names he heard, _shīr-ābī_,
_siyāh-sār_, and _ghaṛīāl_.
[1821] In this passage my husband finds the explanation of two
somewhat vague statements of later date, one made by
Abū'l-faẓl (A. A. Blochmann, p. 65) that Akbar called the
_kīlās_ (cherry) the _shāh-ālū_ (king-plum), the other by
Jahāngīr that this change was made because _kīlās_ means
lizard (_Jahāngīr's Memoirs_, R. & B. i, 116). What Akbar did
is shewn by Bābur; it was to reject the _Persian_ name
_kīlās_, cherry, because it closely resembled _Turkī gīlās_,
lizard. There is a lizard _Stellio Lehmanni_ of Transoxiana
with which Bābur may well have compared the crocodile's
appearance (Schuyler's _Turkistān_, i, 383). Akbar in
Hindūstān may have had _Varanus salvator_ (6 ft. long) in
mind, if indeed he had not the great lizard, _al lagarto_, the
alligator itself in his thought. The name _kīlās_ evidently
was banished only from the Court circle, since it is still
current in Kashmīr (Blochmann _l.c._ p. 616); and Speede (p.
201) gives _keeras_, cherry, as used in India.
[1822] This name as now used, is that of the purely
fish-eating crocodile. [In the Turkī text Bābur's account of
the _ghaṛīāl_ follows that of the porpoise; but it is grouped
here with those of the two other crocodiles.]
[1823] As the Ḥai. MS. and also I.O. 216 f. 137 (Pers. trs.)
write _kalah_ (_galah_)-fish, this may be a large cray-fish.
One called by a name approximating to _galah_-fish is found in
Malāyan waters, _viz._ the _galah_-prawn (_hūdang_) (cf.
Bengālī _gūla-chingrī_, _gūla_-prawn, Haughton). _Galah_ and
_gūla_ may express lament made when the fish is caught
(Haughton pp. 931, 933, 952); or if _kalah_ be read, this may
express scolding. Two good MSS. of the _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_
(Pers. trs.) write _kaka_; and their word cannot but have
weight. Erskine reproduces _kaka_ but offers no explanation of
it, a failure betokening difficulty in his obtaining one. My
husband suggests that _kaka_ may represent a stuttering sound,
doing so on the analogy of Vullers' explanation of the
word,—_Vir ridiculus et facetus qui simul balbutiat_; and also
he inclines to take the fish to be a crab (_kakra_). Possibly
_kaka_ is a popular or vulgar name for a cray-fish or a crab.
Whether the sound is lament, scolding, or stuttering the
fisherman knows! Shaikh Zain enlarges Bābur's notice of this
fish; he says the bones are prolonged (_bar āwarda_) from the
ears, that these it agitates at time of capture, making a
noise like the word _kaka_ by which it is known, that it is
two _wajab_ (18 in.) long, its flesh surprisingly tasty, and
that it is very active, leaping a _gaz_ (_cir._ a yard) out of
the water when the fisherman's net is set to take it. For
information about the Malāyan fish, I am indebted to Mr. Cecil
Wray.
[1824] T. _qiyünlīghī_, presumably referring to spines or
difficult bones; T. _qīn_, however, means a scabbard [Shaw].
[1825] One of the common frogs is a small one which, when
alarmed, jumps along the surface of the water (G. of I. i,
273).
[1826] _Anb_ and _anbah_ (pronounced _aṃb_ and _aṃbah_) are
now less commonly used names than _ām_. It is an interesting
comment on Bābur's words that Abū'l-faẓl spells _anb_, letter
by letter, and says that the _b_ is quiescent (_Āyīn_ 28; for
the origin of the word mango, _vide_ Yule's H.J. _s.n._).
[1827] A corresponding diminutive would be fairling.
[1828] The variants, entered in parenthesis, are found in the
Bib. Ind. ed. of the _Āyīn-i-akbarī_ p. 75 and in a (bazar)
copy of the _Qurānu's-sā`dain_ in my husband's possession. As
Amīr Khusrau was a poet of Hindūstān, either _khẉash_
(_khẉesh_) [our own] or _mā_ [our] would suit his meaning. The
couplet is, literally:—
Our fairling, [_i.e._ mango] beauty-maker of the garden,
Fairest fruit of Hindūstān.
[1829] Daulat Khān _Yūsuf-khail Lūdī_ in 929 AH. sent Bābur a
gift of mangoes preserved in honey (_in loco_ p. 440).
[1830] I have learned nothing more definite about the word
_kārdī_ than that it is the name of a superior kind of peach
(_Ghiyās̤u'l-lughat_).
[1831] The preceding sentence is out of place in the Turkī
text; it may therefore be a marginal note, perhaps not made by
Bābur.
[1832] This sentence suggests that Bābur, writing in Āgra or
Fatḥpūr did not there see fine mango-trees.
[1833] See Yule's H.J. on the plantain, the banana of the
West.
[1834] This word is a descendant of Sanscrit _mocha_, and
parent of _musa_ the botanical name of the fruit (Yule).
[1835] Shaikh Effendī (Kunos), Zenker and de Courteille say of
this only that it is the name of a tree. Shaw gives a name
that approaches it, _ārman_, a grass, a weed; Scully explains
this as _Artemisia vulgaris_, wormwood, but Roxburgh gives no
_Artemisia_ having a leaf resembling the plantain's. Scully
has _arāmadān_, unexplained, which, like _amān-qarā_, may
refer to comfort in shade. Bābur's comparison will be with
something known in Transoxiana. Maize has general resemblance
with the plantain. So too have the names of the plants, since
_mocha_ and _mauz_ stand for the plantain and (Hindī) _mukā'ī_
for maize. These incidental resemblances bear, however
lightly, on the question considered in the Ency. Br. (art.
maize) whether maize was early in Asia or not; some writers
hold that it was; if Bābur's _amān-qarā_ were maize, maize
will have been familiar in Transoxiana in his day.
[1836] Abū'l-faẓl mentions that the plantain-tree bears no
second crop unless cut down to the stump.
[1837] Bābur was fortunate not to have met with a seed-bearing
plantain.
[1838] The ripe "dates" are called P. _tamar-i Hind_, whence
our tamarind, and _Tamarindus Indica_.
[1839] _Sophora alopecuroides_, a leguminous plant (Scully).
[1840] Abū'l-faẓl gives _galaundā_ as the name of the "fruit"
[_mewa_],—Forbes, as that of the fallen flower. Cf. Brandis p.
426 and Yule's H.J. _s.n._ Mohwa.
[1841] Bābur seems to say that spirit is extracted from both
the fresh and the dried flowers. The fresh ones are favourite
food with deer and jackals; they have a sweet spirituous
taste. Erskine notes that the spirit made from them was
well-known in Bombay by the name of Moura, or of Parsi-brandy,
and that the farm of it was a considerable article of revenue
(p. 325 n.). Roxburgh describes it as strong and intoxicating
(p. 411).
[1842] This is the name of a green, stoneless grape which when
dried, results in a raisin resembling the sultanas of Europe
(_Jahāngīr's Memoirs_ and Yule's H.J. _s.n._; Griffiths'
_Journal of Travel_ pp. 359, 388).
[1843] _Aūl_, lit. the _aūl_ of the flower. The Persian
translation renders _aūl_ by _bū_ which may allow both words
to be understood in their (root) sense of _being_, _i.e._
natural state. De Courteille translates by _quand la fleur est
fraîche_ (ii, 210); Erskine took _bū_ to mean smell (_Memoirs_
p. 325), but the _aūl_ it translates, does not seem to have
this meaning. For reading _aūl_ as "the natural state", there
is circumstantial support in the flower's being eaten raw
(Roxburgh). The annotator of the Elphinstone MS. [whose