The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
_m:lchār_ is found in MSS. where the meaning is that of T.
_būljār_. It is not in any dictionary I have seen; Mr. Irvine
found it "obscure" and surmised it to mean "approach by
trenches", but this does not suit its uses in the _Bābur-nāma_
of a military post, and a rendezvous. This surmise,
containing, as it does, a notion of protection, links _m:ljār_
in sense with Ar. _malja'_. The word needs expert
consideration, in order to decide whether it is to be received
into dictionaries, or to be rejected because explicable as the
outcome of unfamiliarity in Persian scribes with T. _būljār_
or, _more Persico_ with narrowed vowels, _bŭljăr_. Shaw in his
Vocabulary enters _būljāq_ (_būljār_?), "a station for troops,
a rendezvous, see _malja'_," thus indicating, it would seem,
that he was aware of difficulty about _m:ljār_ and _būljāq_
(_būljār_?). There appears no doubt of the existence of a
Turkī word _būljār_ with the meanings Shaw gives to _būljāq_;
it could well be formed from the root _būl_, being, whence
follows, being in a place, posted. _Maljā_ has the meaning of
a standing-place, as well as those of a refuge and an asylum;
both meanings seem combined in the _m:ljār_ of f. 336_b_,
where for matchlockmen a _m:ljār_ was ordered "raised". (Cf.
Irvine's _Army of the Indian Moghuls_ p. 278.)
[2197] _yāghdā_; Pers. trs. _sar-āshīb_. Bābur's remark seems
to show that for effect his mortar needed to be higher than
its object. Presumably it stood on the table-land north of the
citadel.
[2198] _shātū._ It may be noted that this word, common in
accounts of Bābur's sieges, may explain one our friend the
late Mr. William Irvine left undecided (_l.c._ p. 278), _viz._
_shāṯūr_. On p. 281 he states that _nardubān_ is the name of a
scaling-ladder and that Bābur mentions scaling ladders more
than once. Bābur mentions them however always as _shātū_.
Perhaps _shāṯūr_ which, as Mr. Irvine says, seems to be made
of the trunks of trees and to be a siege appliance, is really
_shātū u_ ... (ladder and ...) as in the passage under note
and on f. 216_b_, some other name of an appliance following.
[2199] The word here preceding _tūra_ has puzzled scribes and
translators. I have seen the following variants in
MSS.;—_nūkrī_ or _tūkrī_, _b:krī_ or _y:krī_, _būkrī_ or
_yūkrī_, _būkrāī_ or _yūkrāī_, in each of which the _k_ may
stand for _g_. Various suggestions might be made as to what
the word is, but all involve reading the Persian enclitic _ī_
(forming the adjective) instead of Turkī _līk_. Two roots,
_tīg_ and _yūg_, afford plausible explanations of the unknown
word; appliances suiting the case and able to bear names
formed from one or other of these roots are _wheeled
mantelet_, and _head-strike_ (P. _sar-kob_). That the word is
difficult is shewn not only by the variants I have quoted, but
by Erskine's reading _naukarī tūra_, "to serve the _tūras_," a
requisite not specified earlier by Bābur, and by de
Courteille's paraphrase, _tout ce qui est nécessaire aux
touras_.
[2200] Sl. Nāṣiru'd-dīn was the Khīljī ruler of Mālwā from 906
to 916 A.H. (1500-1510 AD.).
[2201] He was a Rājpūt who had been prime-minister of Sl.
Maḥmūd II. _Khīljī_ (son of Nāṣīru'd-dīn) and had rebelled.
Bābur (like some other writers) spells his name Mindnī,
perhaps as he heard it spoken.
[2202] Presumably the one in the United Provinces. For
Shamsābād in Gūālīār _see_ Luard _l.c._ i, 286.
[2203] _chīqtī_; Pers. trs. _bar āmad_ and, also in some MSS.
_namī bar āmad_; Mems. p. 376, "averse to conciliation";
_Méms._ ii, 329, "_s'élevèrent contre cette proposition_." So
far I have not found Bābur using the verb _chīqmāq_
metaphorically. It is his frequent verb to express "getting
away", "going out of a fort". It would be a short step in
metaphor to understand here that Medinī's men "got out of it",
_i.e._ what Bābur offered. They may have left the fort also;
if so, it would be through dissent.
[2204] f. 332.
[2205] I.O. 217, f. 231, inserts here what seems a gloss, "_Tā
īn jā Farsī farmūda_" (_gufta_, said). As Bābur enters his
speech in Persian, it is manifest that he used Persian to
conceal the bad news.
[2206] The _Illustrated London News_ of July 10th, 1915 (on
which day this note is written), has an àpropos picture of an
ancient fortress-gun, with its stone-ammunition, taken by the
Allies in a Dardanelles fort.
[2207] The _dū-tahī_ is the _āb-duzd_, water-thief, of f. 67.
Its position can be surmised from Cunningham's Plan [Appendix
R].
[2208] For Bābur's use of hand (_qūl_) as a military term
_see_ f. 209.
[2209] His full designation would be Shāh Muḥammad _yūz-begī_.
[2210] This will be flight from the ramparts to other places
in the fort.
[2211] Bābur's account of the siege of Chandīrī is incomplete,
inasmuch as it says nothing of the general massacre of pagans
he has mentioned on f. 272. Khẉāfī Khān records the massacre,
saying, that after the fort was surrendered, as was done on
condition of safety for the garrison, from 3 to 4000 pagans
were put to death by Bābur's troops on account of hostility
shewn during the evacuation of the fort. The time assigned to
the massacre is previous to the _jūhar_ of 1000 women and
children and the self-slaughter of men in Medinī Rāo's house,
in which he himself died. It is not easy to fit the two
accounts in; this might be done, however, by supposing that a
folio of Bābur's MS. was lost, as others seem lost at the end
of the narrative of this year's events (_q.v._). The lost
folio would tell of the surrender, one clearly affecting the
mass of Rājpūt followers and not the chiefs who stood for
victory or death and who may have made sacrifice to honour
after hearing of the surrender. Bābur's narrative in this part
certainly reads less consecutive than is usual with him;
something preceding his account of the _jūhar_ would improve
it, and would serve another purpose also, since mention of the
surrender would fix a term ending the now too short time of
under one hour he assigns as the duration of the fighting. If
a surrender had been mentioned, it would be clear that his "2
or 3 _garīs_" included the attacking and taking of the
_dū-tahī_ and down to the retreat of the Rājpūts from the
walls. On this Bābur's narrative of the unavailing sacrifice
of the chiefs would follow in due order. Khẉāfī Khān is more
circumstantial than Firishta who says nothing of surrender or
massacre, but states that 6000 men were killed fighting.
Khẉāfī Khān's authorities may throw light on the matter, which
so far does not hang well together in any narrative, Bābur's,
Firishta's, or Khẉāfī Khān's. One would like to know what led
such a large body of Rājpūts to surrender so quickly; had they
been all through in favour of accepting terms? One wonders,
again, why from 3 to 4000 Rājpūts did not put up a better
resistance to massacre. Perhaps their assailants were Turks,
stubborn fighters down to 1915 AD.
[2212] For suggestion about the brevity of this period, _see_
last note.
[2213] Clearly, without Bābur's taking part in the fighting.
[2214] These words by _abjad_ make 934. The Ḥai. MS.
mistakenly writes _Būd Chandīrī_ in the first line of the
quatrain instead of _Būd chandī_. Khẉāfī Khān quotes the
quatrain with slight variants.
[2215] _Chandīrī ṯaurī wilāyat_ (_dā_?) _wāqī` būlūb tūr_,
which seems to need _dā_, in, because the fort, and not the
country, is described. Or there may be an omission _e.g._ of a
second sentence about the walled-town (fort).
[2216] This is the "Kirat-sagar" of Cunningham's Plan of
Chandīrī; it is mentioned under this name by Luard (_l.c._ i,
210). "Kirat" represents Kirtī or Kirit Sīngh who ruled in
Gūālīār from 1455 to 1479 AD., there also making a tank
(Luard, _l.c._ i, 232).
[2217] For illustrative photographs _see_ Luard, _l.c._ vol.
i, part iv.
[2218] I have taken this sentence to apply to the location of
the tanks, but with some doubt; they are on the table-land.
[2219] Bābur appears to have written Betwī, this form being in
MSS. I have read the name to be that of the river Betwa which
is at a considerable distance from the fort. But some writers
dispraise its waters where Bābur praises.
[2220] T. _qīā_ means a slope or slant; here it may describe
tilted _strata_, such as would provide slabs for roofing and
split easily for building purposes. (_See_ next note.)
[2221] _`imārat qīlmāq munāsib_. This has been read to mean
that the _qīālar_ provide good sites (Mems. & _Méms._), but
position, distance from the protection of the fort, and the
merit of local stone for building incline me to read the words
quoted above as referring to the convenient lie of the stone
for building purposes. (_See_ preceding note.)
[2222] _Chandīrī-dā judai (jady)-nīng irtiqā`ī yīgīrma-bīsh
darja dūr_; Erskine, p. 378, Chanderi is situated in the 25th
degree of N. latitude; de Courteille, ii, 334, _La hauteur du
Capricorne à Tchanderi est de 25 degrées_. The latitude of
Chandīrī, it may be noted, is 24° 43'. It does not appear to
me indisputable that what Bābur says here is a statement of
latitude. The word _judai_ (or _jady_) means both Pole-star
and the Sign Capricorn. M. de Courteille translates the quoted
sentence as I have done, but with Capricorn for Pole-star. My
acquaintance with such expressions in French does not allow me
to know whether his words are a statement of latitude. It
occurs to me against this being so, that Bābur uses other
words when he gives the latitude of Samarkand (f. 44_b_); and
also that he has shewn attention to the Pole-star as a guide
on a journey (f. 203, where he uses the more common word
_Quṯb_). Perhaps he notes its lower altitude when he is far
south, in the way he noted the first rise of Canopus to his
view (f. 125).
[2223] Mallū Khān was a noble of Mālwā, who became ruler of
Mālwā in 1532 or 1533 AD. [?], under the style of Qādir Shāh.
[2224] _i.e._ paid direct to the royal treasury.
[2225] This is the one concerning which bad news reached Bābur
just before Chandīrī was taken.
[2226] This presumably is the place offered to Medinī Rāo (f.
333_b_), and Bikramājīt (f. 343).
[2227] Obviously for the bridge.
[2228] _m:ljār_ (_see_ f. 333 n.). Here the word would mean
befittingly a protected standing-place, a refuge, such as
matchlockmen used (f. 217 and Index _s.n._ _arāba_).
[2229] _sīghīrūrdī_, a vowel-variant, perhaps, of
_sūghūrūrdī_.
[2230] f. 331_b_. This passage shews that Bābur's mortars were
few.
[2231] _nufūr qūl-lār-dīn ham karka bīla rah rawā kīshī u āt
aītīlār_, a difficult sentence.
[2232] _Afghānlār kūprūk bāghlāmāq-nī istib`ād qīlīb tamaskhur
qīlūrlār aīkāndūr._ The ridicule will have been at slow
progress, not at the bridge-making itself, since
pontoon-bridges were common (Irvine's _Army of the Indian
Moghuls_).
[2233] _tūīlāb_; Pers. trs. _uftān u khezān_, limping, or
falling and rising, a translation raising doubt, because such
a mode of progression could hardly have allowed escape from
pursuers.
[2234] Anglicé, on Friday night.
[2235] According to the Persian calendar, New-year's-day is
that on which the Sun enters Aries.
[2236] so-spelled in the Ḥai. MS.; by de Courteille