The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
Banguermādū; the two forms may represent the same one of the
Arabic script.
[2237] or Gūī, from the context clearly the Gumti. Jarrett
gives Godi as a name of the Gumti; Gūī and Godī may be the
same word in the Arabic script.
[2238] Some MSS. read that there was not much pain.
[2239] I take this to be the Kali-Sarda-Chauka affluent of the
Gogra and not its Sarju or Saru one. To so take it seems
warranted by the context; there could be no need for the fords
on the Sarju to be examined, and its position is not suitable.
[2240] Unfortunately no record of the hunting-expedition
survives.
[2241] One historian, Aḥmad-i-yādgār states in his
_Tārīkh-i-salāṯīn-i-afāghina_ that Bābur went to Lāhor
immediately after his capture of Chandīrī, and on his return
journey to Āgra suppressed in the Panj-āb a rising of the
Mundāhar (or, Mandhar) Rājpūts. His date is discredited by
Bābur's existing narrative of 934 AH. as also by the absence
in 935 AH. of allusion to either episode. My husband who has
considered the matter, advises me that the Lāhor visit may
have been made in 936 or early in 937 AH. [These are a period
of which the record is lost or, less probably, was not
written.]
[2242] Elph. MS. f. 262; I. O. 215 f. 207b and 217 f. 234_b_;
_Mems._ p. 382. Here the Elphinstone MS. recommences after a
_lacuna_ extending from Ḥai. MS. f. 312_b_.
[2243] _See_ Appendix S:—_Concerning the dating of_ 935 AH.
[2244] `Askarī was now about 12 years old. He was succeeded in
Multān by his elder brother Kāmrān, transferred from Qandahār
[Index; JRAS. 1908 p. 829 para. (1)]. This transfer, it is
safe to say, was due to Bābur's resolve to keep Kābul in his
own hands, a resolve which his letters to Humāyūn (f. 348), to
Kāmrān (f. 359), and to Khwāja Kalān (f. 359) attest, as well
as do the movements of his family at this time. What would
make the stronger government of Kāmrān seem now more "for the
good of Multān" than that of the child `Askarī are the Bīlūchī
incursions, mentioned somewhat later (f. 355_b_) as having
then occurred more than once.
[2245] This will be his own house in the
Garden-of-eight-paradises, the Chār-bāgh begun in 932 AH.
(August 1526 AD.).
[2246] To this name Khwānd-amīr adds Aḥmadu'l-ḥaqīrī, perhaps
a pen-name; he also quotes verses of Shihāb's
(_Ḥabību's-siyar_ lith. ed. iii, 350).
[2247] Khwānd-amīr's account of his going into Hindūstān is
that he left his "dear home" (Herāt) for Qandahār in
mid-Shawwāl 933 AH. (mid-July 1527 AD.); that on Jumāda I.
10th 934 AH. (Feb. 1st 1528 AD.) he set out from Qandahār on
the hazardous journey into Hindūstān; and that owing to the
distance, heat, setting-in of the Rains, and breadth of rapid
rivers, he was seven months on the way. He mentions no
fellow-travellers, but he gives as the day of his arrival in
Āgra the one on which Bābur says he presented himself at
Court. (For an account of annoyances and misfortunes to which
he was subjected under Aūzbeg rule in Herāt _see Journal des
Savans_, July 1843, pp. 389, 393, Quatremère's art.)
[2248] Concerning Gūālīār _see_ Cunningham's _Archeological
Survey Reports_ vol. ii; Louis Rousselet's _L'Inde des Rajas_;
Lepel Griffin's _Famous Monuments of Central India_,
especially for its photographs; _Gazetteer of India_; Luard's
_Gazetteer of Gwalior_, text and photographs; _Travels of
Peter Mundy_, Hakluyt Society ed. R. C. Temple, ii, 61,
especially for its picture of the fort and note (p. 62)
enumerating early writers on Gūālīār. Of Persian books there
is Jalāl _Ḥiṣārī's Tārīkh-i-Gwālīāwar_ (B.M. Add. 16,859) and
Hirāman's (B.M. Add. 16,709) unacknowledged version of it,
which is of the B.M. MSS. the more legible.
[2249] Perhaps this stands for Gwālīāwar, the form seeming to
be used by Jalāl _Ḥiṣārī_, and having good traditional support
(Cunningham p. 373 and Luard p. 228).
[2250] _tūshlānīb_, _i.e._ they took rest and food together at
mid-day.
[2251] This seems to be the conjoined Gambhīr and Bāngānga
which is crossed by the Āgra-Dhūlpūr road (_G. of I._ Atlas,
Sheet 34).
[2252] _aīchtūq_, the plural of which shews that more than one
partook of the powders (_safūf_).
[2253] T. _tālqān_, Hindī _sattu_ (Shaw). M. de Courteille's
variant translation may be due to his reading for _tālqān_,
_tālghāq_, _flot_, _agitation_ (his Dict. _s.n._) and _yīl_,
wind, for _bīla_, with.
[2254] in 933 AH. f. 330_b_.
[2255] "Each beaked promontory" (Lycidas). Our name
"Selsey-bill" is an English instance of Bābur's (not
infrequent) _tūmshūq_, beak, bill of a bird.
[2256] No order about this Chār-bāgh is in existing annals of
934 AH. Such order is likely to have been given after Bābur's
return from his operations against the Afghāns, in his account
of which the annals of 934 AH. break off.
[2257] The fort-hill at the northern end is 300 ft. high, at
the southern end, 274 ft.; its length from north to south is
1-3/4 m.; its breadth varies from 600 ft. opposite the main
entrance (Hātī-pūl) to 2,800 ft. in the middle opposite the
great temple (Sās-bhao). Cf. Cunningham p. 330 and Appendix R,
_in loco_, for his Plan of Gūālīār.
[2258] This Arabic plural may have been prompted by the
greatness and distinction of Mān-sing's constructions. Cf.
Index _s.nn._ _begāt_ and _bāghāt_.
[2259] A translation point concerning the (Arabic) word
_`imārat_ is that the words "palace", "_palais_", and
"residence" used for it respectively by Erskine, de
Courteille, and, previous to the Hindūstān Section, by myself,
are too limited in meaning to serve for Bābur's uses of it in
Hindūstān; and this (1) because he uses it throughout his
writings for buildings under palatial rank (_e.g._ those of
high and low in Chandīrī); (2) because he uses it in Hindūstān
for non-residential buildings (_e.g._ for the Bādalgarh
outwork, f. 341_b_, and a Hindū temple _ib._); and (3) because
he uses it for the word "building" in the term building-stone,
f. 335_b_ and f. 339_b_. _Building_ is the comprehensive word
under which all his uses of it group. For labouring this point
a truism pleads my excuse, namely, that a man's vocabulary
being characteristic of himself, for a translator to increase
or diminish it is to intrude on his personality, and this the
more when an autobiography is concerned. Hence my search here
(as elsewhere) for an English grouping word is part of an
endeavour to restrict the vocabulary of my translation to the
limits of my author's.
[2260] Jalāl _Ḥiṣārī_ describes "Khwāja Raḥīm-dād" as a
paternal-nephew of Mahdī Khwāja. Neither man has been
introduced by Bābur, as it is his rule to introduce when he
first mentions a person of importance, by particulars of
family, _etc._ Both men became disloyal in 935 AH. (1529 AD.)
as will be found referred to by Bābur. Jalāl _Ḥiṣārī_
supplements Bābur's brief account of their misconduct and
Shaikh Muḥammad _Ghaus̤'_ mediation in 936 AH. For knowledge
of his contribution I am indebted to my husband's perusal of
the _Tārīkh-i-Gwālīāwar_.
[2261] Erskine notes that Indians and Persians regard
moonshine as cold but this only faintly expresses the
wide-spread fear of moon-stroke expressed in the Psalm (121 v.
6), "The Sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the Moon by
night."
[2262] _Agarcha lūk balūk u bī sīyāq._ Ilminsky [p. 441] has
_balūk balūk_ but without textual warrant and perhaps
following Erskine, as he says, speaking generally, that he has
done in case of need (Ilminsky's Preface). Both Erskine and de
Courteille, working, it must be remembered, without the help
of detailed modern descriptions and pictures, took the above
words to say that the buildings were scattered and without
symmetry, but they are not scattered and certainly Mān-sing's
has symmetry. I surmise that the words quoted above do not
refer to the buildings themselves but to the stones of which
they are made. T. _lūk_ means heavy, and T. _balūk_ [? block]
means a thing divided off, here a block of stone. Such blocks
might be _bī sīyāq_, _i.e._ irregular in size. To take the
words in this way does not contradict known circumstances, and
is verbally correct.
[2263] The Rājas' buildings Bābur could compare were Rāja
Karna (or Kirtī)'s [who ruled from 1454 to 1479 AD.], Rāja
Mān-sing's [1486 to 1516 AD.], and Rāja Bikramājīt's [1516 to
1526 AD. when he was killed at Panīpat].
[2264] The height of the eastern face is 100 ft. and of the
western 60 ft. The total length from north to south of the
outside wall is 300 ft.; the breadth of the residence from
east to west 160 ft. The 300 ft. of length appears to be that
of the residence and service-courtyard (Cunningham p. 347 and
Plate lxxxvii).
[2265] _kaj bīla āqārītīb._ There can be little doubt that a
white pediment would show up the coloured tiles of the upper
part of the palace-walls more than would pale red sandstone.
These tiles were so profuse as to name the building Chīt
Mandīr (Painted Mandīr). Guided by Bābur's statement,
Cunningham sought for and found plaster in crevices of carved
work; from which one surmises that the white coating approved
itself to successors of Mān-sing. [It may be noted that the
word Mandīr is in the same case for a translator as is
_`imārat_ (f. 339_b_ n.) since it requires a grouping word to
cover its uses for temple, palace, and less exalted
buildings.]
[2266] The lower two storeys are not only backed by solid
ground but, except near the Hātī-pūl, have the rise of ground
in front of them which led Bābur to say they were "even in a
pit" (_chūqūr_).
[2267] MSS. vary between _har_ and _bīr_, every and one, in
this sentence. It may be right to read _bīr_, and apply it
only to the eastern façade as that on which there were most
cupolas. There are fewer on the south side, which still stands
(Luard's photo. No. 37).
[2268] The ground rises steeply from this Gate to an inner
one, called Hawā-pūl from the rush of air (_hawā_) through it.
[2269] Cunningham says the riders were the Rāja and a driver.
Perhaps they were a mahout and his mate. The statue stood to
the left on exit (_chīqīsh_).
[2270] This window will have been close to the Gate where no
mound interferes with outlook.
[2271] Rooms opening on inner and open courts appear to form
the third story of the residence.
[2272] T. _chūqūr_, hollow, pit. This storey is dark and
unventilated, a condition due to small windows, absence of
through draught, and the adjacent mound. Cunningham comments
on its disadvantages.
[2273] _Agarcha Hindūstānī takalluflār qīlīb tūrlār walī bī
hawālīk-rāq yīrlār dūr._ Perhaps amongst the pains taken were
those demanded for _punkhas_. I regret that Erskine's
translation of this passage, so superior to my own in literary
merit, does not suit the Turkī original. He worked from the
Persian translation, and not only so, but with a less rigid
rule of translation than binds me when working on Bābur's
_ipsissima verba_ (_Mems._ p. 384; Cunningham p. 349; Luard p.
226).
[2274] The words _aūrtā dā_ make apt contrast between the
outside position of Mān-sing's buildings which helped to form
the fort-wall, and Bikramājīt's which were further in except
perhaps one wall of his courtyard (see Cunningham's Plate