The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
Désmaisons' trs. p. 216]; _Akbar-nāma_, H. B.'s trs. i, 270.)
A here-useful slip of reference is made by the translator of
the _Akbar-nāma_ (_l.c._ n. 3) to the Fragment (_Mémoires_ ii,
456) instead of to the _Bābur-nāma_ translation (_Mémoires_
ii, 381). The utility of the slip lies in its accompanying
comment that de C.'s translation is in closer agreement with
the _Akbar-nāma_ than with Bābur's words. Thus the
_Akbar-nāma_ passage is brought into comparison with what it
is now safe to regard as its off-shoot, through Turkī and
French, in the Fragment. When the above comment on their
resemblance was made, we were less assured than now as to the
genesis of the Fragment (Index _s.n._ Fragment).
[2431] Hind-āl's guardian (G. B.'s _Humāyūn-nāma_ trs. p. 106,
n. 1).
[2432] Nothing more about Humāyūn's expedition is found in the
B. N.; he left Badakhshān a few months later and arrived in
Āgra, after his mother (f. 380_b_), at a date in August of
which the record is wanting.
[2433] under 6 m. from Āgra. Gul-badan (f. 16) records a visit
to the garden, during which her father said he was weary of
sovereignty. Cf. f. 331_b_, p. 589 n. 2.
[2434] _kūrnīsh kīlkān kīshīlār._
[2435] MSS. vary or are indecisive as to the omitted word. I
am unable to fill the gap. Erskine has "_Sir Māwineh_ (or
hair-twist)" (p. 399), De Courteille, _Sir-mouïneh_ (ii, 382).
_Mūīna_ means ermine, sable and other fine fur
(_Shamsu'l-lūghāt_, p 274, col. 1).
[2436] His brother Ḥaẓrat Makhdūmī Nūrā (Khwāja Khāwand
Maḥmūd) is much celebrated by Ḥaidar Mīrzā, and Bābur
describes his own visit in the words he uses of the visit of
an inferior to himself. Cf. _Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_ trs. pp. 395,
478; _Akbar-nāma_ trs., i, 356, 360.
[2437] No record survives of the arrival of this envoy or of
why he was later in coming than his brother who was at Bābur's
entertainment. Cf. f. 361_b_.
[2438] Presumably this refers to the appliances mentioned on
f. 350_b_.
[2439] f. 332, n. 3.
[2440] _zarbaft m:l:k._ Amongst gold stuffs imported into
Hindūstān, Abū'l-faẓl mentions _mīlak_ which may be Bābur's
cloth. It came from Turkistān (A.-i-A. Blochmann, p. 92 and
n.).
[2441] A _tang_ is a small silver coin of the value of about a
penny (Erskine).
[2442] _tānglāsī_, lit. at its dawning. It is not always clear
whether _tānglāsī_ means, Anglicé, next dawn or day, which
here would be Monday, or whether it stands for the dawn
(daylight) of the Muḥammadan day which had begun at 6 p. m. on
the previous evening, here Sunday. When Bābur records, _e.g._
a late audience, _tānglāsī_, following, will stand for the
daylight of the day of audience. The point is of some
importance as bearing on discrepancies of days, as these are
stated in MSS., with European calendars; it is conspicuously
so in Bābur's diary sections.
[2443] _risālat ṯarīqī bīla_; their special mission may have
been to work for peace (f. 359_b_, n. 1).
[2444] He may well be Kāmrān's father-in-law Sl. `Alī Mīrzā
T̤aghāī _Begchīk_.
[2445] _nīmcha u takband._ The _tak-band_ is a silk or woollen
girdle fastening with a "hook and eye" (Steingass), perhaps
with a buckle.
[2446] This description is that of the contents of the
"_Rāmpūr Dīwān_"; the _tarjuma_ being the _Wālidiyyah-risāla_
(f. 361 and n.). What is said here shows that four copies went
to Kābul or further north. Cf. Appendix Q.
[2447] _Sar-khaṯ_ may mean "copies" set for Kāmrān to imitate.
[2448] _bīr pahr yāwūshūb aīdī_; I.O. 215 f. 221, _qarīb yak
pās roz būd_.
[2449] _ākhar_, a word which may reveal a bad start and
uncertainty as to when and where to halt.
[2450] This, and not Chandwār (f. 331_b_), appears the correct
form. Neither this place nor Ābāpūr is mentioned in the G. of
I.'s Index or shewn in the I.S. Map of 1900 (cf. f. 331_b_ n.
3). Chandawār lies s.w. of Fīrūzābād, and near a village
called Ṣufīpūr.
[2451] Anglicé, Wednesday after 6 p.m.
[2452] or life-guardsman, body-guard.
[2453] This higher title for T̤ahmāsp, which first appears
here in the B.N., may be an early slip in the Turkī text,
since it occurs in many MSS. and also because "Shāh-zāda"
reappears on f. 359.
[2454] Slash-face, _balafré_; perhaps Ibrāhīm _Begchīk_ (Index
_s.n._), but it is long since he was mentioned by Bābur, at
least by name. He may however have come, at this time of
reunion in Āgra, with Mīrzā Beg T̤aghāī (his uncle or
brother?), father-in-law of Kāmrān.
[2455] The army will have kept to the main road connecting the
larger towns mentioned and avoiding the ravine district of the
Jumna. What the boat-journey will have been between high banks
and round remarkable bends can be learned from the G. of I.
and Neave's _District Gazetteer of Mainpūrī_. Rāprī is on the
road from Fīrūzābād to the ferry for Bateswar, where a large
fair is held annually. (It is misplaced further east in the
I.S. Map of 1900.) There are two Fatḥpūrs, n. e. of Rāprī.
[2456] _aūlūgh tūghāīnīng tūbī._ Here it suits to take the
Turkī word _tūghāī_ to mean bend of a river, and as referring
to the one shaped (on the map) like a soda-water bottle, its
neck close to Rāprī. Bābur avoided it by taking boat below its
mouth.—In neither Persian translation has _tūghāī_ been read
to mean a bend of a river; the first has _az pāyān rūīa
Rāprī_, perhaps referring to the important ford (_pāyān_); the
second has _az zīr bulandī kalān Rāprī_, perhaps referring to
a height at the meeting of the bank of the ravine down which
the road to the ford comes, with the high bank of the river.
Three examples of _tūghāī_ or _tūqāī_ [a synonym given by
Dictionaries], can be seen in Abū'l-ghāzī's _Shajrat-i-Turk_,
Fraehn's imprint, pp. 106, 107, 119 (Désmaisons' trs. pp. 204,
205, 230). In each instance Désmaisons renders it by _coude_,
elbow, but one of the examples may need reconsideration, since
the word has the further meanings of wood, dense forest by the
side of a river (Vambéry), prairie (Zenker), and reedy plain
(Shaw).
[2457] Blochmann describes the apparatus for marking lines to
guide writing (A.-i-A. trs. p. 52 n. 5):—On a card of the size
of the page to be written on, two vertical lines are drawn
within an inch of the edges; along these lines small holes are
pierced at regular intervals, and through these a string is
laced backwards and forwards, care being taken that the
horizontal strings are parallel. Over the lines of string the
pages are placed and pressed down; the strings then mark the
paper sufficiently to guide the writing.
[2458] _tarkīb (nīng) khaṯī bīla tarjuma bīlīr aūchūn._ The
_Rāmpūr Dīwān_ may supply the explanation of the uncertain
words _tarkīb khaṯī_. The "translation" (_tarjuma_), mentioned
in the passage quoted above, is the _Wālidiyyah-risāla_, the
first item of the _Dīwān_, in which it is entered on crowded
pages, specially insufficient for the larger hand of the
chapter-headings. The number of lines per page is 13; Bābur
now fashions a line-marker for 11. He has already despatched 4
copies of the translation (f. 357_b_); he will have judged
them unsatisfactory; hence to give space for the mixture of
hands (_tarkīb khaṯī_), _i.e._ the smaller hand of the poem
and the larger of the headings, he makes an 11 line marker.
[2459] Perhaps Aḥrārī's in the _Wālidiyyah-risāla_, perhaps
those of Muḥammad. A quatrain in the _Rāmpūr Dīwān_ connects
with this admonishment [Plate xiv_a_, 2nd quatrain].
[2460] Jākhān (_G. of Mainpūrī_). The _G. of Etāwa_
(Drake-Brockman) p. 213, gives this as some 18 m. n.w. of
Etāwa and as lying amongst the ravines of the Jumna.
[2461] f. 359_b_ allows some of the particulars to be known.
[2462] Mahdī may have come to invite Bābur to the luncheon he
served shortly afterwards. The Ḥai. MS. gives him the
honorific plural; either a second caller was with him or an
early scribe has made a slip, since Bābur never so-honours
Mahdī. This small point touches the larger one of how Bābur
regarded him, and this in connection with the singular story
Niẕāmu'd-dīn Aḥmad tells in his _T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_ about
Khalīfa's wish to supplant Humāyūn by Mahdī Khwāja (Index
_s.nn._).
[2463] _yīgītlārnī shokhlūqgha sāldūq_, perhaps set them to
make fun. Cf. f. 366, _yīgītlār bīr pāra shokhlūq qīldīlār_.
Muḥ. _Shīrāzī_ (p. 323 _foot_) makes the startling addition of
_dar āb_ (_andākhtīm_), _i.e._ he says that the royal party
flung the braves into the river.
[2464] The _Gazetteer of Etāwa_ (Drake-Brockman) p. 186,
_s.n._ Bāburpūr, writes of two village sites [which from their
position are Mūrī-and-Adūsa], as known by the name Sarāī
Bāburpūr from having been Bābur's halting-place. They are 24m.
to the s.e. of Etāwa, on the old road for Kālpī. Near the name
Bāburpūr in the Gazetteer Map there is Muhuri (Mūrī?); there
is little or no doubt that Sarāī Bāburpūr represents the
camping-ground Mūrī-and-Adūsa.
[2465] This connects with Kītīn-qarā's complaints of the
frontier-begs (f. 361), and with the talk of peace (f.
356_b_).
[2466] This injunction may connect with the desired peace; it
will have been prompted by at least a doubt in Bābur's mind as
to Kāmrān's behaviour perhaps _e.g._ in manifested dislike for
a Shīa`. Concerning the style Shāh-zāda _see_ f. 358, p. 643,
n. 1.
[2467] Kāmrān's mother Gul-rukh _Begchīk_ will have been of
the party who will have tried in Kābul to forward her son's
interests.
[2468] f. 348, p. 624, n. 2.
[2469] Kābul and Tramontana.
[2470] Presumably that of Shamsu'd-dīn Muḥammad's mission. One
of Bābur's couplets expresses longing for the fruits, and also
for the "running waters", of lands other than Hindūstān, with
conceits recalling those of his English contemporaries in
verse, as indeed do several others of his short poems (_Rāmpūr
Dīwān_ Plate xvii A.).
[2471] Ḥai. MS. _nā marbūṯlīghī_; so too the 2nd Pers. trs.
but the 1st writes _wairānī u karābī_ which suits the matter
of defence.
[2472] _qūrghān_, walled-town; from the _maẓbūt_ following,
the defences are meant.
[2473] _viz._ Governor Khwāja Kalān, on whose want of
dominance his sovereign makes good-natured reflection.
[2474] _`alūfa u qūnāl_; cf. 364_b_.
[2475] Following _aīlchī_ (envoys) there is in the Ḥai. MS.
and in I.O. 217 a doubtful word, _būmla_, _yūmla_; I.O. 215
(which contains a Persian trs. of the letter) is obscure,
Ilminsky changes the wording slightly; Erskine has a free
translation. Perhaps it is _yaumī_, daily, misplaced (_see_
above).
[2476] Perhaps, endow the Mosque so as to leave no right of
property in its revenues to their donor, here Bābur. Cf.
Hughes' _Dict. of Islām_ s.nn. _sharī`_, _masjid_ and _waqf_.
[2477] f. 139. Khwāja Kalān himself had taken from Hindūstān
the money for repairing this dam.
[2478] _sāpqūn ālīp_; the 2nd Pers. trs. as if from _sātqūn
ālīp_, _kharīda_, purchasing.
[2479] _naẕar-gāh_, perhaps, theatre, as showing the play
enacted at the ford. Cf. ff. 137, 236, 248_b_. Tūtūn-dara will
be Masson's Tūtām-dara. Erskine locates Tūtūn-dara some 8
_kos_ (16 m.) n. w. of Hūpīān (Ūpīān). Masson shews that it
was a charming place (_Journeys in Biluchistan, Afghanistan
and the Panj-āb_, vol. iii, cap. vi and vii).