The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
_Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_ trs., p. 302 and n. and p. 466 and note.
[2809] It is not likely to be one heard current in Hindūstān,
any more than is Bābur's Ar. _bū-qalamūn_ as a name of a bird
(Index _s.n._); both seem to be "book-words" and may be traced
or known as he uses them in some ancient dictionary or book of
travels originating outside Hindūstān.
[2810] My note 6 on p. 421 shows my earlier difficulties, due
to not knowing (when writing it) that _kabg-ī-darī_ represents
the snow-cock in the Western Himālayas.
[2811] By over-sight mention of this note was omitted from my
article on the Elphinstone Codex (JRAS. 1907, p. 131).
[2812] Speede's _Indian Hand-book_ (i, 212) published in 1841
AD. thus writes, "It is a curious circumstance that the finest
and most esteemed fruit are produced from the roots below the
surface of the ground, and are betrayed by the cracking of the
earth above them, and the effluvia issuing from the fissure; a
high price is given by rich natives for fruit so produced."
[2813] In the margin of the Elphinstone Codex opposite the
beginning of the note are the words, "This is a marginal note
of Humāyūn Pādshāh's."
[2814] Every Emperor of Hindūstān has an epithet given him
after his death to distinguish him, and prevent the necessity
of repeating his name too familiarly. Thus _Firdaus-makān_
(dweller-in-paradise) is Bābur's; Humāyūn's is
_Jannat-ashi-yānī_, he whose nest is in Heaven; Muḥammad
Shāh's _Firdaus-āramgāh_, he whose place of rest is Paradise;
_etc._ (Erskine).
[2815] Here Mr. Erskine notes, "Literally, _nectar-fruit_,
probably the mandarin orange, by the natives called _nāringī_.
The name _amrat_, or pear, in India is applied to the guava or
_Psidium pyriferum_—(_Spondias mangifera_, Hort. Ben.—D.
Wallich)."... Mr. E. notes also that the note on the
_amrit-phal_ "is not found in either of the Persian
translations".
[2816] _chūchūmān_, Pers. trs. _shīrīni bī maza_, perhaps
flat, sweet without relish. Bābur does not use the word, nor
have I traced it in a dictionary.
[2817] _chūchūk_, savoury, nice-tasting, not acid (Shaw).
[2818] _chūchūk nāranj āndāq (?) maṯ`ūn aīdī kīm har kīm-nī
shīrīn-kārlīghī bī masa qīlkāndī, nāranj-sū'ī dīk tūr dīrlār
aīdī._
[2819] The _lemu_ may be _Citrus limona_, which has abundant
juice of a mild acid flavour.
[2820] The _kāmila_ and _samṯara_ are the real oranges
(_kauṅlā_ and _sangtāra_), which are now (_cir._ 1816 AD.)
common all over India. Dr. Hunter conjectures that the
_sangtāra_ may take its name from Cintra, in Portugal. This
early mention of it by Bābur and Humāyūn may be considered as
subversive of that supposition. (This description of the
_samṯara_, vague as it is, applies closer to the _Citrus
decumana_ or _pampelmus_, than to any other.—D.
Wallich.)—Erskine.
[2821] Humāyūn writes of this fruit as though it were not the
_sang-tara_ described by his father on f. 287 (p. 511 and
note).
[2822] M. de Courteille translated _jama`_ in a general sense
by _totalit.'_ instead of in its Indian technical one of
revenue (as here) or of assessment. Hence Professor Dowson's
"totality" (iv, 262 n.).
[2823] The B.M. has a third copy, Or. 5879, which my husband
estimates as of little importance.
[2824] Sir G. A. Grierson, writing in the _Indian Antiquary_
(July 1885, p. 187), makes certain changes in Ajodhya Prasad's
list of the Brahman rulers of Tirhut, on grounds he states.
[2825] Index _s.n._ Bābur's letters. The passage Shaikh Zain
quotes is found in Or. 1999, f. 65_b_, Add. 26,202, f. 66_b_,
Or. 5879, f. 79_b_.
[2826] Cf. Index _in loco_ for references to Bābur's metrical
work, and for the Facsimile, JASB. 1910, Extra Number.
[2827] Monday, Rabi` II. 15th 935 AH.—Dec. 27th 1528 AD. At
this date Bābur had just returned from Dhūlpūr to Āgra (f.
354, p. 635, where in note 1 for Thursday read Monday).
[2828] Owing to a scribe's "skip" from one _yībārīldī_ (was
sent) to another at the end of the next sentence, the passage
is not in the Ḥai. MS. It is not well given in my translation
(f. 357_b_, p. 642); what stands above is a closer rendering
of the full Turkī, _Humāyūngha tarjuma_ [_u_?] _nī-kīm
Hindūstāngha kīlkānī aītqān ash'ārnī yībārīldī_ (Ilminsky p.
462, 1. 4 fr. ft., where however there appears a slight
clerical error).
[2829] Hesitation about accepting the colophon as
unquestionably applying to the whole contents of the
manuscript is due to its position of close association with
one section only of the three in the manuscript (cf. _post_ p.
lx).
[2830] Plate XI, and p. 15 (mid-page) of the Facsimile
booklet.—The Facsimile does not show the whole of the marginal
quatrain, obviously because for the last page of the
manuscript a larger photographic plate was needed than for the
rest. With Dr. Ross' concurrence a photograph in which the
defect is made good, accompanies this Appendix.
[2831] The second section ends on Plate XVII, and p. 21 of the
Facsimile booklet.
[2832] Needless to say that whatever the history of the
manuscript, its value as preserving poems of which no other
copy is known publicly, is untouched. This value would be
great without the marginal entries on the last page; it finds
confirmation in the identity of many of the shorter poems with
counterparts in the _Bābur-nāma_.
[2833] Another autograph of Shāh-i-jahān's is included in the
translation volume (p. xiii) of Gul-badan Begam's
_Humāyūn-nāma_. It surprises one who works habitually on
historical writings more nearly contemporary with Bābur, in
which he is spoken of as _Firdaus-makānī_ or as _Gītī-sitānī
Firdaus-makānī_ and not by the name used during his life, to
find Shāh-i-jahān giving him the two styles (cf. _Jahāngīr's
Memoirs_ trs. ii, 5). Those familiar with the writings of
Shāh-i-jahān's biographers will know whether this is usual at
that date. There would seem no doubt as to the identity of _ān
Ḥaẓrat._—The words _ān ḥaẓrat_ by which Shāh-i-jahān refers to
Bābur are used also in the epitaph placed by Jahāngīr at
Bābur's tomb (Trs. Note p. 710-711).
[2834] The Qāẓī's rapid acquirement of the _mufradāt_ of the
script allows the inference that few letters only and those of
a well-known script were varied.—_Mufradāt_ was translated by
Erskine, de Courteille and myself (f. 357_b_) as alphabet but
reconsideration by the light of more recent information about
the _Bāburī-khat̤t̤_ leads me to think this is wrong because
"alphabet" includes every letter.—On f. 357b three items of
the _Bāburī-khat̤t̤_ are specified as despatched with the
Hindūstān poems, _viz._ _mufradāt_, _qita`lār_ and
_sar-i-khat̤t̤_. Of these the first went to Hind-āl, the third
to Kāmrān, and no recipient is named for the second; all
translators have sent the _qita`lār_ to Hind-āl but I now
think this wrong and that a name has been omitted, probably
Humāyūn's.
[2835] f. 144_b_, p. 228, n. 3. Another interesting matter
missing from the _Bābur-nāma_ by the gap between 914 and 925
AH. is the despatch of an embassy to Czar Vassili III. in
Moscow, mentioned in Schuyler's _Turkistan_ ii, 394, Appendix
IV, Grigorief's _Russian Policy in Central Asia._ The mission
went after "Sulṯān Bābur" had established himself in Kābul; as
Bābur does not write of it before his narrative breaks off
abruptly in 914 AH. it will have gone after that date.
[2836] I quote from the Véliaminof-Zernov edition (p. 287)
from which de Courteille's plan of work involved extract only;
he translates the couplet, giving to _khat̤t̤_ the
double-meanings of script and down of youth (_Dictionnaire
Turque_ _s.n._ _sīghnāqī_). The _Sanglākh_ (p. 252) _s.n._
_sīghnāq_ has the following as Bābur's:—
_Chū balai khat̤t̤ī naṣīb'ng būlmāsa Bābur nī tang?
Bare khat̤t̤ almanṣūr khat̤t̤ sighnāqī mū dūr?_
[2837] Gibb's _History of Ottoman Poetry_ i, 113 and ii, 137.
[2838] Réclus' _L'Asie Russe_ p. 238.
[2839] On this same _taḥrīr qīldīm_ may perhaps rest the
opinion that the Rāmpūr MS. is autograph.
[2840] I have found no further mention of the tract; it may be
noted however that whereas Bābur calls his _Treatise on
Prosody_ (written in 931 AH.) the _`Arūẓ_, Abū'l-faẓl writes
of a _Mufaṣṣal_, a suitable name for 504 details of
transposition.
[2841] _Tūzūk-i-jahāngīr_ lith. ed. p. 149; and _Memoirs of
jahāngīr_ trs. i, 304. [In both books the passage requires
amending.]
[2842] Rāmpūr MS. Facsimile Plate XIV and p. 16, verse 3;
_Akbar-nāma_ trs. i, 279, and lith. ed. p. 91.
[2843] Cf. Index _s.n._ Dalmau and Bangarmau for the
termination in double _ū_.
[2844] Dr. Ilminsky says of the Leyden & Erskine _Memoirs of
Bābur_ that it was a constant and indispensable help.
[2845] My examination of Kehr's Codex has been made
practicable by the courtesy of the Russian Foreign Office in
lending it for my use, under the charge of the Librarian of
the India Office, Dr. F. W. Thomas.—It should be observed that
in this Codex the Hindūstān Section contains the purely Turkī
text found in the Ḥaidarābād Codex (cf. JRAS. 1908, p. 78).
[2846] It may indicate that the List was not copied by Bābur
but lay loose with his papers, that it is not with the
Elphinstone Codex, and is not with the `Abdu'r-raḥīm Persian
translation made from a manuscript of that same annotated
line.
[2847] Cf. _in loco_ p. 656, n. 3.
[2848] A few slight changes in the turn of expressions have
been made for clearness sake.
[2849] Index _s.n._ Mīr Bāqī of Tāshkīnt. Perhaps a better
epithet for _sa`ādạt-nishān_ than "good-hearted" would be one
implying his good fortune in being designated to build a
mosque on the site of the ancient Hindū temple.
[2850] There is a play here on Bāqī's name; perhaps a good
wish is expressed for his prosperity together with one for the
long permanence of the sacred building _khair_ (_khairat_).
[2851] Presumably the order for building the mosque was given
during Bābur's stay in Aūd (Ajodhya) in 934 AH. at which time
he would be impressed by the dignity and sanctity of the
ancient Hindū shrine it (at least in part) displaced, and like
the obedient follower of Muḥammad he was in intolerance of
another Faith, would regard the substitution of a temple by a
mosque as dutiful and worthy.—The mosque was finished in 935
AH. but no mention of its completion is in the _Bābur-nāma_.
The diary for 935 AH. has many minor _lacunæ_; that of the
year 934 AH. has lost much matter, breaking off before where
the account of Aūd might be looked for.
[2852] The meaning of this couplet is incomplete without the
couplet that followed it and is (now) not legible.
[2853] Firishta gives a different reason for Bābur's sobriquet
of _qalandar_, namely, that he kept for himself none of the
treasure he acquired in Hindūstān (Lith. ed. p. 206).
[2854] Jahāngīr who encamped in the Shahr-ārā-garden in Ṣafar
1016 AH. (May 1607 AD.) says it was made by Bābur's aunt,
Abū-sa`īd's daughter Shahr-bānū (Rogers and Beveridge's
_Memoirs of Jahāngīr_ i, 106).
[2855] A _jalau-khāna_ might be where horse-head-gear, bridles
and reins are kept, but _Āyīn_ 60 (A.-i-A.) suggests there may
be another interpretation.
[2856] She was a daughter of Hind-āl, was a grand-daughter