The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
darkening leather (Yule's H.J.).
[1890] I surmise that what I have placed between asterisks
here belongs to the next-following plant, the oleander. For
though the branches of the _jāsūn_ grow vertically, the bush
is a dense mass upon one stout trunk, or stout short stem. The
words placed in parenthesis above are not with the Ḥaidarabad
but are with the Elphinstone Codex. There would seem to have
been a scribe's skip from one "rose" to the other. As has been
shewn repeatedly, this part of the Bābur-nāma has been much
annotated; in the Elph. Codex, where only most of the notes
are preserved, some are entered by the scribe pell-mell into
Bābur's text. The present instance may be a case of a marginal
note, added to the text in a wrong place.
[1891] The peduncle supporting the plume of medial petals is
clearly seen only when the flower opens first. The plumed
Hibiscus is found in florists' catalogues described as
"double".
[1892] This Anglo-Indians call also rose-bay. A Persian name
appears to be _zahr-giyāh_, poison-grass, which makes it the
more probable that the doubtful passage in the previous
description of the _jāsūn_ belongs to the rod-like oleander,
known as the poison-grass. The oleander is common in
river-beds over much country known to Bābur, outside India.
[1893] Roxburgh gives a full and interesting account of this
tree.
[1894] Here the Elph. Codex, only, has the (seeming) note, "An
'Arab calls it _kāẕī_" (or _kāwī_). This fills out Steingass'
part-explanation of _kāwī_, "the blossom of the fragrant
palm-tree, _armāṯ_" (p. 1010), and of _armāṯ_, "a kind of
date-tree with a fragrant blossom" (p. 39), by making _armāṯ_
and _kāwī_ seem to be the _Pandanus_ and its flower.
[1895] _Calamus scriptorius_ (Vullers ii, 607. H. B.).
Abū'l-faẓl compares the leaves to _jawārī_, the great millet
(Forbes); Blochmann (A. A. p. 83) translates _jawārī_ by
_maize_ (_juwārā_, Forbes).
[1896] T. _aīrkāk-qūmūsh_, a name Scully enters unexplained.
Under _qūmūsh_ (reed) he enters _Arundo madagascarensis_;
Bābur's comparison will be with some Transoxanian _Arundo_ or
_Calamus_, presumably.
[1897] _Champa_ seems to have been Bābur's word (Elph. and
Ḥai. MSS.), but is the (B.) name for _Michelia champaka_; the
Pers. translation corrects it by (B.) _chambelī_, (_yāsman_,
jasmine).
[1898] Here, "outside India" will be meant, where Hindū rules
do not prevail.
[1899] _Hind aīlārī-nīng ibtidā-sī hilāl aīlār-nīng
istiqbāl-dīn dūr._ The use here of _istiqbāl_, welcome,
attracts attention; does it allude to the universal welcome of
lighter nights? or is it reminiscent of Muḥammadan welcome to
the Moon's crescent in Shawwāl?
[1900] For an exact statement of the intercalary months _vide_
Cunningham's _Indian Eras_, p. 91. In my next sentence
(_supra_) the parenthesis-marks indicate blanks left on the
page of the Ḥai. MS. as though waiting for information. These
and other similar blanks make for the opinion that the Ḥai.
Codex is a direct copy of Bābur's draft manuscript.
[1901] The sextuple division (_r̤itu_) of the year is referred
to on f. 284, where the Signs Crab and Lion are called the
season of the true Rains.
[1902] Bābur appears not to have entered either the Hindī or
the Persian names of the week:—the Ḥai. MS. has a blank space;
the Elph. MS. had the Persian names only, and Hindī ones have
been written in above these; Kehr has the Persian ones only;
Ilminsky has added the Hindī ones. (The spelling of the Hindī
names, in my translation, is copied from Forbes' Dictionary.)
[1903] The Ḥai. MS. writes _garī_ and _garīāl_. The word now
stands for the hour of 60 minutes.
[1904] _i.e._ gong-men. The name is applied also to an
alligator _Lacertus gangeticus_ (Forbes).
[1905] There is some confusion in the text here, the Ḥai. MS.
reading _birinj-dīn tīshī_(?) _nīma qūīūbtūrlār_—the Elph. MS.
(f. 240_b_) _biring-dīn bīr yāssī nīma qūīūbtūrlār_. The
Persian translation, being based on the text of the
Elphinstone Codex reads _az biring yak chīz pahnī rekhta and_.
The word _tīshī_ of the Ḥai. MS. may represent _tasht_ plate
or _yāssī_, broad; against the latter however there is the
sentence that follows and gives the size.
[1906] Here again the wording of the Ḥai. MS. is not clear;
the sense however is obvious. Concerning the clepsydra _vide_
A. A. Jarrett, ii, 15 and notes; Smith's _Dictionary of
Antiquities_; Yule's H.J. _s.n._ Ghurry.
[1907] The table is:—60 _bipals_ = 1 _pal_; 60 _pals_ = 1
_g'harī_ (24 m.); 60 _g'harī_ or 8 _pahr_ = one _dīn-rāt_
(nycthemeron).
[1908] Qorān, cap. CXII, which is a declaration of God's
unity.
[1909] The (S.) _ratī_ = 8 rice-grains (Eng. 8 barley-corns);
the (S.) _māsha_ is a kidney-bean; the (P.) _tānk_ is about 2
oz.; the (Ar.) _miṣqāl_ is equal to 40 _ratīs_; the (S.)
_tūla_ is about 145 oz.; the (S.) _ser_ is of various values
(Wilson's _Glossary_ and Yule's H. J.).
[1910] There being 40 Bengāl _sers_ to the _man_, Bābur's word
_mānbān_ seems to be another name for the _man_ or _maund_. I
have not found _mānbān_ or _mīnāsā_. At first sight _mānbān_
might be taken, in the Ḥai. MS. for (T.) _bātmān_, a weight of
13 or 15 lbs., but this does not suit. Cf. f. 167 note to
_bātmān_ and f. 173_b_ (where, however, in the note f. 157
requires correction to f. 167). For Bābur's table of measures
the Pers. trs. has 40 _sers_ = 1 _man_; 12 _mans_ = 1 _mānī_;
100 _mānī_ they call _mīnāsa_ (217, f. 201_b_, l. 8).
[1911] Presumably these are caste-names.
[1912] The words in parenthesis appear to be omitted from the
text; to add them brings Bābur's remark into agreement with
others on what he several times makes note of, _viz._ the
absence not only of irrigation-channels but of those which
convey "running-waters" to houses and gardens. Such he writes
of in Farghāna; such are a well-known charm _e.g._ in Madeira,
where the swift current of clear water flowing through the
streets, turns into private precincts by side-runlets.
[1913] The Ḥai. MS. writes _lungūtā-dīk_, like a lungūtā,
which better agrees with Bābur's usual phrasing. _Lung_ is
Persian for a cloth passed between the loins, is an equivalent
of S. _dhoti_. Bābur's use of it (_infra_) for the woman's
(P.) _chaddar_ or (S.) _sārī_ does not suit the Dictionary
definition of its meaning.
[1914] When Erskine published the Memoirs in 1826 AD. he
estimated this sum at 1-1/2 millions Sterling, but when he
published his _History of India_ in 1854, he had made further
research into the problem of Indian money values, and judged
then that Bābur's revenue was £4,212,000.
[1915] Erskine here notes that the promised details had not
been preserved, but in 1854 AD. he had found them in a
"paraphrase of part of Bābur", manifestly in Shaikh Zain's
work. He entered and discussed them and some matters of
money-values in Appendices D. and E. of his _History of
India_, vol. I. Ilminsky found them in Kehr's Codex (C. ii,
230). The scribe of the Elph. MS. has entered the revenues of
three _sarkārs_ only, with his usual quotation marks
indicating something extraneous or doubtful. The Ḥai. MS. has
them in contents precisely as I have entered them above, but
with a scattered mode of setting down. They are in Persian,
presumably as they were rendered to Bābur by some Indian
official. This official statement will have been with Bābur's
own papers; it will have been copied by Shaikh Zain into his
own paraphrase. It differs slightly in Erskine's and again, in
de Courteille's versions. I regret that I am incompetent to
throw any light upon the question of its values and that I
must leave some uncertain names to those more expert than
myself. Cf. Erskine's Appendices _l.c._ and Thomas' _Revenue
resources of the Mughal Empire_. For a few comments _see_ App.
P.
[1916] Here the Turkī text resumes in the Ḥai. MS.
[1917] Elph. MS. f. 243_b_; W. i. B. I.O. 215 has not the
events of this year (as to which omission _vide_ note at the
beginning of 932 AH. f. 251_b_) and 217 f. 203; Mems. p. 334;
Ilminsky's imprint p. 380; _Méms._ ii, 232.
[1918] This should be 30th if Saturday was the day of the week
(Gladwin, Cunningham and Bābur's narrative of f. 269).
Saturday appears likely to be right; Bābur entered Āgra on
Thursday 28th; Friday would be used for the Congregational
Prayer and preliminaries inevitable before the distribution of
the treasure. The last day of Bābur's narrative 932 AH. is
Thursday Rajab 28th; he would not be likely to mistake between
Friday, the day of his first Congregational prayer in Āgra,
and Saturday. It must be kept in mind that the _Description of
Hindūstān_ is an interpolation here, and that it was written
in 935 AH., three years later than the incidents here
recorded. The date Rajab 29th may not be Bābur's own entry; or
if it be, may have been made after the interpolation of the
dividing mass of the _Description_ and made wrongly.
[1919] Erskine estimated these sums as "probably £56,700 to
Humāyūn; and the smaller ones as £8,100, £6,480, £5,670 and
£4,860 respectively; very large sums for the age". (_History
of India_, i. 440 n. and App. E.)
[1920] These will be his daughters. Gul-badan gives precise
details of the gifts to the family circle (_Humāyūn-nāma_ f.
10).
[1921] Some of these slaves were Sl. Ibrāhīm's dancing-girls
(Gul-badan, _ib._).
[1922] Ar. _ṣada_. Perhaps it was a station of a hundred men.
Varsak is in Badakhshān, on the water flowing to T̤āliqān from
the Khwāja Muḥammad range. Erskine read (p. 335) _ṣada Varsak_
as _ṣadūr rashk_, incentive to emulation; de C. (ii, 233)
translates _ṣada_ conjecturally by _circonscription_. Shaikh
Zain has Varsak and to the recipients of the gifts adds the
"Khwāstīs, people noted for their piety" (A. N. trs. H. B. i,
248 n.). The gift to Varsak may well have been made in
gratitude for hospitality received by Bābur in the time of
adversity after his loss of Samarkand and before his return to
Kābul in 920 AH.
[1923] _circa_ 10d. or 11d. Bābur left himself stripped so
bare by his far-flung largess that he was nick-named Qalandar
(Firishta).
[1924] Badāyūnī says of him (Bib. Ind. ed. i, 340) that he was
_kāfir kalīma-gū_, a pagan making the Muḥammadan Confession of
Faith, and that he had heard of him, in Akbar's time from
Bairām Khān-i-khānan, as kingly in appearance and poetic in
temperament. He was killed fighting for Rānā Sangā at Kānwaha.
[1925] This is his family name.
[1926] _i.e._ not acting with Ḥasan _Mīwātī_.
[1927] Gul-badan says that the Khwāja several times asked
leave on the ground that his constitution was not fitted for
the climate of Hindūstān; that His Majesty was not at all, at
all, willing for him to go, but gave way at length to his
importunity.
[1928] in Patiāla, about 25 miles s.w. of Aṃbāla.
[1929] Shaikh Zain, Gul-badan and Erskine write Nau-kār. It
was now that Khwāja Kalān conveyed money for the repair of the
great dam at Ghaznī (f. 139).
[1930] The friends did not meet again; that their friendship
weathered this storm is shewn by Bābur's letter of f. 359. The
_Abūshqa_ says the couplet was inscribed on a marble tablet
near the _Ḥauẓ-i-khāṣ_ at the time the Khwāja was in Dihlī