The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
[2521] _tūr hawālīk_; _Mems._ p. 406, violence of the wind;
_Méms_. ii, 398, _une température très agréable_.
[2522] _yūrtgha kīlīb_, an incomplete sentence.
[2523] _ārāl bār aīkāndūr_, phrasing implying uncertainty;
there may have been an island, or such a peninsula as a
narrow-mouthed bend of a river forms, or a spit or bluff
projecting into the river. The word _ārāl_ represents
_Aīkī-sū-ārāsī_, _Miyān-dū-āb_, _Entre-eaux_,
Twixt-two-streams, Mesopotamia.
[2524] _qūl_; Pers. trss. _dast andākhtan_ and _dast_.
Presumably the 33 strokes carried the swimmer across the deep
channel, or the Ganges was crossed higher than Pīāg.
[2525] The above account of Bābur's first swim across the
Ganges which is entered under date Jumāda II. 27th, 935 AH.
(March 8th, 1529 AD.), appears misplaced, since he mentions
under date Rajab 25th, 935 AH. (April 4th, 1529 AD. f.
366_b_), that he had swum the Ganges at Baksara (Buxar) a year
before, _i.e._ on or close to Rajab 25th, 934 AH. (April 15th,
1528 AD.). Nothing in his writings shews that he was near Pīāg
(Allāhābād) in 934 AH.; nothing indisputably connects the
swimming episode with the "Tuesday" below which it now stands;
there is no help given by dates. One supposes Bābur would take
his first chance to swim the Ganges; this was offered at
Qanauj (f. 336), but nothing in the short record of that time
touches the topic. The next chance would be after he was in
Aūd, when, by an unascertained route, perhaps down the Ghogrā,
he made his way to Baksara where he says (f. 366_b_) he swam
the river. Taking into consideration the various testimony
noted, [Index _s.n._ swimming] there seems warrant for
supposing that this swimming passage is a survival of the
missing record of 934 AH. (f. 339). Cf. f. 377_b_, p. 680 and
n. 2 for another surmised survival of 934 AH.
[2526] "Friday" here stands for Anglicé, Thursday after 6
p.m.; this, only, suiting Bābur's next explicit date Sha`bān
1st, Saturday.
[2527] The march, beginning on the Jumna, is now along the
united rivers.
[2528] _ẓarb-zanlīk arābalār._ Here the carts are those
carrying the guns.
[2529] From the particulars Bābur gives about the Tūs (Tons)
and Karmā-nāśā, it would seem that he had not passed them
last year, an inference supported by what is known of his
route in that year:—He came from Gūālīār to the Kanār-passage
(f. 336), there crossed the Jumna and went direct to Qanauj
(f. 335), above Qanauj bridged the Ganges, went on to
Bangarmāu (f. 338), crossed the Gūmtī and went to near the
junction of the Ghogrā and Sardā (f. 338_b_). The next
indication of his route is that he is at Baksara, but whether
he reached it by water down the Ghogrā, as his meeting with
Muḥ. Ma`rūf _Farmūlī_ suggests (f. 377), or by land, nothing
shews. From Baksara (f. 366) he went up-stream to Chausa (f.
365_b_), on perhaps to Sayyidpūr, 2m. from the mouth of the
Gūmtī, and there left the Ganges for Jūnpūr (f. 365). I have
found nothing about his return route to Āgra; it seems
improbable that he would go so far south as to near Pīāg; a
more northerly and direct road to Fatḥpūr and Sarāī Bāburpūr
may have been taken.—Concerning Bābur's acts in 934 AH. the
following item, (met with since I was working on 934 AH.),
continues his statement (f. 338_b_) that he spent a few days
near Aūd (Ajōdhya) to settle its affairs. The _D.G. of
Fyzābāa_ (H. E. Nevill) p. 173 says "In 1528 AD. Bābur came to
Ajōdhya (Aūd) and halted a week. He destroyed the ancient
temple" (marking the birth-place of Rāma) "and on its site
built a mosque, still known as Bābur's Mosque.... It has two
inscriptions, one on the outside, one on the pulpit; both are
in Persian; and bear the date 935 _AH._" This date may be that
of the completion of the building.—(_Corrigendum_:—On f. 339
n. 1, I have too narrowly restricted the use of the name
Sarjū. Bābur used it to describe what the maps of Arrowsmith
and Johnson shew, and not only what the _Gazetteer of India_
map of the United Provinces does. It applies to the Sardā (f.
339) as Bābur uses it when writing of the fords.)
[2530] Here the lacuna of the Ḥai. Codex ends.
[2531] Perhaps, where there is now the railway station of
"Nulibai" (I.S. Map). The direct road on which the army moved,
avoids the windings of the river.
[2532] This has been read as T. _kīnt_, P. _dih_, Eng. village
and Fr. _village_.
[2533] "Nankunpur" lying to the north of Puhari
railway-station suits the distance measured on maps.
[2534] These will be the women-travellers.
[2535] Perhaps jungle tracts lying in the curves of the river.
[2536] _jīrga_, which here stands for the beaters' incurving
line, witness the exit of the buffalo at the end. Cf. f.
367_b_ for a _jīrga_ of boats.
[2537] _aūzūn aūzāgh_, many miles and many hours?
[2538] Bulloa? (I.S. Map).
[2539] Anglicé, Sunday after 6 p.m.
[2540] _`alufa u qunal_ (f. 359_b_).
[2541] than the Ganges perhaps; or narrowish compared with
other rivers, _e.g._ Ganges, Ghogrā, and Jūn.
[2542] _yīl-tūrgī yūrt_, by which is meant, I think, close to
the same day a year back, and not an indefinite reference to
some time in the past year.
[2543] Maps make the starting-place likely to be Sayyidpūr.
[2544] re-named Zamānīa, after Akbar's officer `Alī-qulī Khān
Khān-i-zamān, and now the head-quarters of the Zamānīa
_pargana_ of Ghāzīpūr. Madan-Benāres was in Akbar's _sarkār_
of Ghāzīpūr. (It was not identified by E. or by de C.) Cf.
_D.G. of Ghāzīpūr_.
[2545] In the earlier part of the Ḥai. Codex this Afghān
tribal-name is written Nūḥānī, but in this latter portion a
different scribe occasionally writes it Lūḥānī (Index _s.n._).
[2546] _`arza-dāsht_, _i.e._ phrased as from one of lower
station to a superior.
[2547] His letter may have announced his and his mother Dūdū
Bībī's approach (f. 368-9).
[2548] Naṣīr Khān had been an amīr of Sl. Sikandar _Lūdī_.
Sher Khān _Sūr_ married his widow "Guhar Kusāīn", bringing him
a large dowry (A.N. trs. p. 327; and _Tārīkh-i-sher-shāhi_, E.
& D.'s _History of India_ iv, 346).
[2549] He started from Chaparghatta (f. 361_b_, p. 650 n. 1).
[2550] _yīl-tūrgī yūrt._
[2551] "This must have been the Eclipse of the 10th of May
1528 AD.; a fast is enjoined on the day of an eclipse"
(Erskine).
[2552] Karmā-nā['s]ā means loss of the merit acquired by good
works.
[2553] The I.S. Map marks a main road leading to the mouth of
the Karmā-nā['s]ā and no other leading to the river for a
considerable distance up-stream.
[2554] Perhaps "Thora-nadee" (I.S. Map).
[2555] Anglicé, Sunday after 6 p.m.
[2556] _aūtkān yīl._
[2557] Perhaps the _dū-āba_ between the Ganges and
"Thora-nadee".
[2558] _yīl-tūr ... Gang-sūī-dīn mīn dastak bīla aūtūb, ba`ẓī
āt, ba`ẓī tīwah mīnīb, kīlīb, sair qīlīlīb aīdī._ Some
uncertainty as to the meaning of the phrase _dastak bīla
aūtūb_ is caused by finding that while here de Courteille
agrees with Erskine in taking it to mean swimming, he varies
later (f. 373_b_) to _appuyés sur une pièce de bois_. Taking
the Persian translations of three passages about crossing
water into consideration (p. 655 after f. 363_b_, f. 366_b_
(here), f. 373_b_), and also the circumstances that E. and de
C. are once in agreement and that Erskine worked with the help
of Oriental _munshīs_, I incline to think that _dastak bīla_
does express swimming.—The question of its precise meaning
bears on one concerning Bābur's first swim across the Ganges
(p. 655, n. 3).—Perhaps I should say, however, that if the
sentence quoted at the head of this note stood alone, without
the extraneous circumstances supporting the reading of _dastak
bīla_ to mean swimming, I should incline to read it as stating
that Bābur went on foot through the water, feeling his footing
with a pole (_dastak_), and that his followers rode through
the ford after him. Nothing in the quoted passage suggests
that the horses and camels swam. But whether the Ganges was
fordable at Baksara in Bābur's time, is beyond surmise.
[2559] _faṣl soz_, which, manifestly, were to be laid before
the envoy's master. The articles are nowhere specified; one is
summarized merely on f. 365. The incomplete sentence of the
Turkī text (_supra_) needs their specification at this place,
and an explicit statement of them would have made clearer the
political relations of Bābur with Naṣrat Shāh.—A folio may
have been lost from Bābur's manuscript; it might have
specified the articles, and also have said something leading
to the next topic of the diary, now needing preliminaries,
_viz._ that of the Mīrzā's discontent with his new
appointment, a matter not mentioned earlier.
[2560] This suits Bābur's series, but Gladwin and Wüstenfeld
have 10th.
[2561] The first is near, the second on the direct road from
Buxar for Ārrah.
[2562] The Ḥai. MS. makes an elephant be posted as the sole
scout; others post a _sardār_, or post braves; none post man
and beast.
[2563] This should be 5th; perhaps the statement is confused
through the gifts being given late, Anglicé, on Tuesday 4th,
Islamicé on Wednesday night.
[2564] The Mīrzā's Tīmūrid birth and a desire in Bābur to give
high status to a representative he will have wished to leave
in Bihār when he himself went to his western dominions,
sufficiently explain the bestowal of this sign of sovereignty.
[2565] _jīrgā._ This instance of its use shews that Bābur had
in mind not a completed circle, but a line, or in sporting
parlance, not a hunting-circle but a beaters'-line. [Cf. f.
251, f. 364_b_ and _infra_ of the crocodile.] The word is used
also for a governing-circle, a tribal-council.
[2566] _aūlūgh_ (_kīma_). Does _aūlūgh_ (_aūlūq_, _ūlūq_)
connect with the "bulky Oolak or baggage-boat of Bengal"?
(_Hobson-Jobson_ _s.n._ Woolock, oolock).
[2567] De Courteille's reading of Ilminsky's "Bāburī" (p. 476)
as Bāīrī, old servant, hardly suits the age of the boat.
[2568] Bābur anticipated the custom followed _e.g._ by the
White Star and Cunard lines, when he gave his boats names
having the same terminal syllable; his is _āīsh_; on it he
makes the quip of the har _āīsh_ of the Farmāīsh.
[2569] As Vullers makes Ar. _ghurfat_ a synonym of
_chaukandī_, the Farmāīsh seems likely to have had a cabin,
open at the sides. De Courteille understood it to have a
rounded stern. [Cf. E. & D.'s _History of India_ v, 347, 503
n.; and Gul-badan's H. N. trs. p. 98, n. 2.]
[2570] _mīndīn rukhṣat āldī_; phrasing which bespeaks admitted
equality, that of Tīmūrid birth.
[2571] _i.e._ subjects of the Afghān ruler of Bengal; many
will have been Bihārīs and Pūrbiyas. Makhdūm-i-`ālam was
Naṣrat Shāh's Governor in Ḥājīpūr.
[2572] This might imply that the Afghāns had been prevented
from joining Maḥmūd Khān _Lūdī_ near the Son.
[2573] Sl. Muḥammad Shāh _Nūḥānī Afghān_, the former ruler of
Bihār, dead within a year. He had trained Farīd Khān _Sūr_ in
the management of government affairs; had given him, for
gallant encounter with a tiger, the title Sher Khān by which,
or its higher form Sher Shāh, history knows him, and had made
him his young son's "deputy", an office Sher Khān held after