The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
lxxxiii).
[2275] Cunningham (p. 350) says this was originally a
_bāra-dūrī_, a twelve-doored open hall, and must have been
light. His "originally" points to the view that the hall had
been altered before Bābur saw it but as it was only about 10
years old at that time, it was in its first form, presumably.
Perhaps Bābur saw it in a bad light. The dimensions Cunningham
gives of it suggest that the high dome must have been
frequently ill-lighted.
[2276] The word _tālār_, having various applications, is not
easy to match with a single English word, nor can one be sure
in all cases what it means, a platform, a hall, or _etc._ To
find an equivalent for its diminutive _tālār-ghina_ is still
more difficult. Raḥīm-dād's _tālār_-ette will have stood on
the flat centre of the dome, raised on four pillars or perhaps
with its roof only so-raised; one is sure there would be a
roof as protection against sun or moon. It may be noted that
the dome is not visible outside from below, but is hidden by
the continuation upwards of walls which form a mean-looking
parallelogram of masonry.
[2277] _T. tūr yūl._ Concerning this hidden road _see_
Cunningham p. 350 and Plate lxxxvii.
[2278] _bāghcha._ The context shews that the garden was for
flowers. For Bābur's distinctions between _bāghcha_, _bāgh_
and _baghāt_, _see_ Index _s.nn._
[2279] _shaft-ālū_ _i.e._ the rosy colour of peach-flowers,
perhaps lip-red (Steingass). Bābur's contrast seems to be
between those red oleanders of Hindūstān that are rosy-red,
and the deep red ones he found in Gūālīār.
[2280] _kul_, any large sheet of water, natural or artificial
(Bābur). This one will be the Sūraj-kund (Sun-tank).
[2281] This is the Telī Mandīr, or Telingana Mandīr (Luard).
Cf. Cunningham, p. 356 and Luard p. 227 for accounts of it;
and _G. of I._ _s.n._ Telīagarhi for Telī Rājas.
[2282] This is a large outwork reached from the Gate of the
same name. Bābur may have gone there specially to see the
Gūjarī Mandīr said by Cunningham to have been built by
Mān-sing's Gūjar wife Mṛiga-nayāna (fawn-eyed). Cf. Cunningham
p. 351 and, for other work done by the same Queen, in the s.
e. corner of the fort, p. 344; Luard p. 226. In this place
"construction" would serve to translate _`imārat_ (f. 340 n.).
[2283] _āb-duzd_, a word conveying the notion of a stealthy
taking of the water. The walls at the mouth of Urwā were built
by Altamsh for the protection of its water for the fort. The
date Bābur mentions (a few lines further) is presumably that
of their erection.
[2284] Cunningham, who gives 57 ft. as the height of this
statue, says Bābur estimated it at 20 _gaz_, or 40 ft., but
this is not so. Bābur's word is not _gaz_ a measure of 24
fingers-breadth, but _qārī_, the length from the tip of the
shoulder to the fingers-ends; it is about 33 inches, not less,
I understand. Thus stated in _qārīs_ Bābur's estimate of the
height comes very near Cunningham's, being a good 55 ft. to 57
ft. (I may note that I have usually translated _qārī_ by
"yard", as the yard is its nearest English equivalent. The
Pers. trs. of the B. N. translates by _gaz_, possibly a larger
_gaz_ than that of 24 fingers-breadth _i.e._ inches.)
[2285] The statues were not broken up by Bābur's agents; they
were mutilated; their heads were restored with coloured
plaster by the Jains (Cunningham p. 365; Luard p. 228).
[2286] _rozan_ [or, _aūz:n_] ... _tafarruj qīlīb_. Neither
Cunningham nor Luard mentions this window, perhaps because
Erskine does not; nor is this name of a Gate found. It might
be that of the Dhonda-paur (Cunningham, p. 339). The 1st Pers.
trs. [I.O. 215 f. 210] omits the word _rozan_ (or, _auz:n_);
the 2nd [I.O. 217 f. 236b] renders it by _jā'ī_, place.
Manifestly the Gate was opened by Bābur, but, presumably, not
precisely at the time of his visit. I am inclined to
understand that _rozan_ ... _tafarruj karda_ means enjoying
the window formerly used by Muḥammadan rulers. If _aūz:n_ be
the right reading, its sense is obscure.
[2287] This will have occurred in the latter half of 934 AH.
of which no record is now known.
[2288] He is mentioned under the name Asūk Mal _Rājpūt_, as a
servant of Rānā Sangā by the _Mirāt-i-sikandarī_, lith. ed. p.
161. In Bayley's Translation p. 273 he is called Awāsūk,
manifestly by clerical error, the sentence being _az
jānib-i-au Asūk Mal Rājpūt dar ān (qila`) būda_....
[2289] _ātā-līk, aūghūl-līk_, _i.e._ he spoke to the son as a
father, to the mother as a son.
[2290] The _Mirāt-i-sikandarī_ (lith. ed. p. 234, Bayley's
trs. p. 372) confirms Bābur's statement that the precious
things were at Bikramājīt's disposition. Perhaps they had been
in his mother's charge during her husband's life. They were
given later to Bahādur Shāh of Gujrāt.
[2291] The Telī Mandīr has not a cupola but a waggon-roof of
South Indian style, whence it may be that it has the southern
name Telingana, suggested by Col. Luard.
[2292] See Luard's Photo. No. 139 and P. Mundy's sketch of the
fort p. 62.
[2293] This will be the Ghargarāj-gate which looks south
though it is not at the south end of the fort-hill where there
is only a postern approached by a flight of stone steps
(Cunningham p. 332).
[2294] The garden will have been on the lower ground at the
foot of the ramp and not near the Hātī-pūl itself where the
scarp is precipitous.
[2295] _Mūndīn kīchīkrāq ātlānīlghān aīkāndūr._ This may imply
that the distance mentioned to Bābur was found by him an
over-estimate. Perhaps the fall was on the Mūrar-river.
[2296] Rope (Shaw); _corde qui sert à attacher le bagage sur
les chameaux_ (de Courteille); a thread of 20 cubits long for
weaving (Steingass); I have the impression that an _arghamchī_
is a horse's tether.
[2297] For information about this opponent of Bābur in the
battle of Kānwa, _see_ the _Asiatic Review_, Nov. 1915, II.
Beveridge's art. _Silhadī, and the Mirāt-i-sikandarī_.
[2298] Colonel Luard has suggested to us that the Bābur-nāma
word Sūkhjana may stand for Salwai or Sukhalhari, the names of
two villages near Gūālīār.
[2299] Presumably of night, 6-9 p.m., of Saturday Muḥ.
18th-Oct. 2nd.
[2300] f. 330_b_ and f. 339_b_.
[2301] Between the last explicit date in the text, _viz._
Sunday, Muḥ. 19th, and the one next following, _viz._
Saturday, Ṣafar 3rd, the diary of six days is wanting. The gap
seems to be between the unfinished account of doings in
Dhūlpūr and the incomplete one of those of the Monday of the
party. For one of the intermediate days Bābur had made an
appointment, when in Gūālīār (f. 343), with the envoys of
Bikramājīt, the trysting-day being Muḥ. 23rd (_i.e._ 9 days
after Muḥ. 14th). Bābur is likely to have gone to Bīāna as
planned; that envoys met him there may be surmised from the
circumstance that when negociations with Bikramājīt were
renewed in Āgra (f. 345), two sets of envoys were present, a
"former" one and a "later" one, and this although all envoys
had been dismissed from Gūālīār. The "former" ones will have
been those who went to Bīāna, were not given leave there, but
were brought on to Āgra; the "later" ones may have come to
Āgra direct from Ranthaṃbhor. It suits all round to take it
that pages have been lost on which was the record of the end
of the Dhūlpūr visit, of the journey to the, as yet unseen,
fort of Bīāna, of tryst kept by the envoys, of other doings in
Bīāna where, judging from the time taken to reach Sīkrī, it
may be that the _ma`jūn_ party was held.
[2302] Anglicé, Tuesday after 6 p.m.
[2303] _aghaz aīchīb nīma yīb_, which words seem to imply the
breaking of a fast.
[2304] Doubtless the garden owes its name to the eight heavens
or paradises mentioned in the Qurān (Hughes' _Dictionary of
Islām_ _s.n._ Paradise). Bābur appears to have reached Āgra on
the 1st of Ṣafar; the 2nd may well have been spent on the home
affairs of a returned traveller.
[2305] The great, or elder trio were daughters of Sl.
Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā, Bābur's paternal-aunts therefore, of his
dutiful attendance on whom, Gul-badan writes.
[2306] "Lesser," _i.e._ younger in age, lower in rank as not
being the daughters of a sovereign Mīrzā, and held in less
honour because of a younger generation.
[2307] Gul-badan mentions the arrival in Hindūstān of a khānīm
of this name, who was a daughter of Sl. Maḥmūd Khān
_Chaghatāī_, Bābur's maternal-uncle; to this maternal
relationship the word _chīcha_ (mother) may refer. _Yīnkā_,
uncle's or elder brother's wife, has occurred before (ff. 192,
207), _chīcha_ not till now.
[2308] Cf. f. 344_b_ and n.5 concerning the surmised movements
of this set of envoys.
[2309] This promise was first proffered in Gūālīār (f.343).
[2310] These may be Bāī-qarā kinsfolk or Mīrān-shāhīs married
to them. No record of Shāh Qāsim's earlier mission is
preserved; presumably he was sent in 934 AH. and the record
will have been lost with much more of that year's. Khwānd-amīr
may well have had to do with this second mission, since he
could inform Bābur of the discomfort caused in Herī by the
near leaguer of `Ubaidu'l-lāh _Aūzbeg_.
[2311] _Albatta aūzūmīznī har nu` qīlīb tīgūrkūmīz dūr._ The
following versions of this sentence attest its
difficulty:—_Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_, 1st trs. I.O. 215 f. 212,
_albatta khūdrā ba har nū`ī ka bāshad dar ān khūb khẉāhīm
rasānad_; and 2nd trs. I.O. 217 f. 238_b_, _albatta dar har
nu` karda khūdrā mī rasānīm_; _Memoirs_ p. 388, "I would make
an effort and return in person to Kābul"; _Mémoires_ ii, 356,
_je ferais tous mes efforts pour pousser en avant_. I surmise,
as Pāyanda-i-ḥasan seems to have done (1st Pers. trs.
_supra_), that the passage alludes to Bābur's aims in
Hindūstān which he expects to touch in the coming spring. What
seems likely to be implied is what Erskine says and more,
_viz._ return to Kābul, renewal of conflict with the Aūzbeg
and release of Khurāsān kin through success. As is said by
Bābur immediately after this, T̤ahmāsp of Persia had defeated
`Ubaidu'l-lah _Aūzbeg_ before Bābur's letter was written.
[2312] _Sīmāb yīmāknī bunyād qīldīm_, a statement which would
be less abrupt if it followed a record of illness. Such a
record may have been made and lost.
[2313] The preliminaries to this now somewhat obscure section
will have been lost in the gap of 934 AH. They will have given
Bābur's instructions to Khwāja Dost-i-khāwand and have thrown
light on the unsatisfactory state of Kābul, concerning which a
good deal comes out later, particularly in Bābur's letter to
its Governor Khwāja Kalān. It may be right to suppose that
Kāmrān wanted Kābul and that he expected the Khwāja to bring
him an answer to his request for it, whether made by himself
or for him, through some-one, his mother perhaps, whom Bābur
now sent for to Hindūstān.
[2314] 934 AH.-August 26th 1528 AD.
[2315] The useful verb _tībrāmāk_ which connotes agitation of
mind with physical movement, will here indicate anxiety on the
Khwāja's part to fulfil his mission to Humāyūn.
[2316] Kāmrān's messenger seems to repeat his master's words,
using the courteous imperative of the 3rd person plural.
[2317] Though Bābur not infrequently writes of _e.g._ Bengalīs