The Bābur-nāma

710

Some 9 m. north of Kābul on the road to Āq-sarāī.

711

The Ḥai. MS. (only) writes First Rabī but the Second better suits the near approach of winter.

712

Elph. MS. fol. 97; W. – i-B. I.O. 215 f. 102b and 217 f. 85; Mems. p. 136. Useful books of the early 19th century, many of them referring to the Bābur-nāma, are Conolly’s Travels, Wood’s Journey, Elphinstone’s Caubul, Burnes’ Cabool, Masson’s Narrative, Lord’s and Leech’s articles in JASB 1838 and in Burnes’ Reports (India Office Library), Broadfoot’s Report in RGS Supp. Papers vol. I.

713

f. 1b where Farghāna is said to be on the limit of cultivation.

714

f. 131b. To find these tūmāns here classed with what was not part of Kābul suggest a clerical omission of “beyond” or “east of” (Lamghānāt). It may be more correct to write Lāmghānāt, since the first syllable may be lām, fort. The modern form Laghmān is not used in the Bābur-nāma, nor, it may be added is Paghmān for Pamghān.

715

It will be observed that Bābur limits the name Afghānistān to the countries inhabited by Afghān tribesmen; they are chiefly those south of the road from Kābul to Pashāwar (Erskine). See Vigne, p. 102, for a boundary between the Afghāns and Khurāsān.

716

Al-birūnī’s Indika writes of both Turk and Hindū-shāhī Kings of Kābul. See Raverty’s Notes p. 62 and Stein’s Shāhī Kings of Kābul. The mountain is 7592 ft. above the sea, some 1800 ft. therefore above the town.

717

The Kābul-river enters the Chār-dih plain by the Dih-i-yaq‘ūb narrows, and leaves it by those of Dūrrīn. Cf. S.A. War, Plan p. 288 and Plan of action at Chār-āsiyā (Four-mills), the second shewing an off-take which may be Wais Ātāka’s canal. See Vigne, p. 163 and Raverty’s Notes pp. 69 and 689.

718

This, the Bālā-jūī (upper-canal) was a four-mill stream and in Masson’s time, as now, supplied water to the gardens round Bābur’s tomb. Masson found in Kābul honoured descendants of Wais Ātāka (ii, 240).

719

But for a, perhaps negligible, shortening of its first vowel, this form of the name would describe the normal end of an irrigation canal, a little pool, but other forms with other meanings are open to choice, e. g. small hamlet (Pers. kul), or some compound containing Pers. gul, a rose, in its plain or metaphorical senses. Jarrett’s Āyīn-i-akbarī writes Gul-kīnah, little rose (?). Masson (ii, 236) mentions a similar pleasure-resort, Sanjī-tāq.

720

The original ode, with which the parody agrees in rhyme and refrain, is in the Dīwān, s.l. Dāl (Brockhaus ed. 1854, i, 62 and lith. ed. p. 96). See Wilberforce Clarke’s literal translation i, 286 (H. B.). A marginal note to the Ḥaidarābād Codex gives what appears to be a variant of one of the rhymes of the parody.

721

aūlūgh kūl; some 3 m. round in Erskine’s time; mapped as a swamp in S.A. War p. 288.

722

A marginal note to the Ḥai. Codex explains this name to be an abbreviation of Khwāja Shamsū’d-dīn Jān-bāz (or Jahān-bāz; Masson, ii, 279 and iii, 93).

723

i. e. the place made holy by an impress of saintly foot-steps.

724

Two eagles or, Two poles, used for punishment. Vigne’s illustration (p. 161) clearly shows the spur and the detached rock. Erskine (p. 137 n.) says that ‘Uqābain seems to be the hill, known in his day as ‘Āshiqān-i-‘ārifān, which connects with Bābur Bādshāh. See Raverty’s Notes p. 68.

725

During most of the year this wind rushes through the Hindū-kush (Parwān) – pass; it checks the migration of the birds (f. 142), and it may be the cause of the deposit of the Running-sands (Burnes, p. 158). Cf. Wood, p. 124.

726

He was Badī‘u’z-zamān’s Ṣadr before serving Bābur; he died in 918 AH. (1512 AD.), in the battle of Kūl-i-malik where ‘Ubaidu’l-lāh Aūzbeg defeated Bābur. He may be identical with Mīr Ḥusain the Riddler of f. 181, but seems not to be Mullā Muḥ. Badakhshī, also a Riddler, because the Ḥabību’s-siyār (ii, 343 and 344) gives this man a separate notice. Those interested in enigmas can find one made by T̤ālib on the name Yaḥya (Ḥ.S. ii, 344). Sharafu’d-dīn ‘Alī Yazdī, the author of the Z̤afar-nāma, wrote a book about a novel kind of these puzzles (T.R. p. 84).

727

The original couplet is as follows: —

Bakhūr dar arg-i Kābul mai, bagardān kāsa pāy dar pāy,

Kah ham koh ast, u ham daryā, u ham shahr ast, u ham ṣaḥrā'.

What T̤ālib’s words may be inferred to conceal is the opinion that like Badī‘u’z-zamān and like the meaning of his name, Kābul is the Wonder-of-the-world. (Cf. M. Garçin de Tassy’s Rhétorique [p. 165], for ces combinaisons énigmatiques.)

728

All MSS. do not mention Kāshghar.

729

Khīta (Cathay) is Northern China; Chīn (infra) is China; Rūm is Turkey and particularly the provinces near Trebizond (Erskine).

730

300 % to 400 % (Erskine).

731

Persian sinjid, Brandis, elæagnus hortensis; Erskine (Mems. p. 138) jujube, presumably the zizyphus jujuba of Speede, Supplement p. 86. Turkī yāngāq, walnut, has several variants, of which the most marked is yānghkāq. For a good account of Kābul fruits see Masson, ii, 230.

732

a kind of plum (?). It seems unlikely to be a cherry since Bābur does not mention cherries as good in his old dominions, and Firminger (p. 244) makes against it as introduced from India. Steingass explains alū-bālū by “sour-cherry, an armarylla”; if sour, is it the Morello cherry?

733

The sugar-cane was seen in abundance in Lan-po (Lamghān) by a Chinese pilgrim (Beale, p. 90); Bābur’s introduction of it may have been into his own garden only in Nīngnahār (f. 132b).

734

i. e. the seeds of pinus Gerardiana.

735

rawāshlār. The green leaf-stalks (chūkrī) of ribes rheum are taken into Kābul in mid-April from the Pamghān-hills; a week later they are followed by the blanched and tended rawāsh (Masson, ii, 7). See Gul-badan’s H.N. trs. p. 188, Vigne, p. 100 and 107, Masson, ii, 230, Conolly, i, 213.

736

a large green fruit, shaped something like a citron; also a large sort of cucumber (Erskine).

737

The ṣāḥibī, a grape praised by Bābur amongst Samarkandī fruits, grows in Koh-dāman; another well-known grape of Kābul is the long stoneless ḥusainī, brought by Afghān traders into Hindūstān in round, flat boxes of poplar wood (Vigne, p. 172).

738

An allusion, presumably, to the renouncement of wine made by Bābur and some of his followers in 933 AH. (1527 AD. f. 312). He may have had ‘Umar Khayyām’s quatrain in mind, “Wine’s power is known to wine-bibbers alone” (Whinfield’s 2nd ed. 1901, No. 164).

739

pūstīn, usually of sheep-skin. For the wide range of temperature at Kābul in 24 hours, see Ency. Brtt. art. Afghānistān. The winters also vary much in severity (Burnes, p. 273).

740

Index s. n. As he fought at Kānwāha, he will have been buried after March 1527 AD.; this entry therefore will have been made later. The Curriers'-gate is the later Lahor-gate (Masson, ii, 259).

741

Index s. n.

742

For lists of the Hindū-kush passes see Leech’s Report VII; Yule’s Introductory Essay to Wood’s Journey 2nd ed.; PRGS 1879, Markham’s art. p. 121.

The highest cols on the passes here enumerated by Bābur are, – Khawāk 11,640 ft. – T̤ūl, height not known, – Pārandī 15,984 ft. – Bāj-gāh (Toll-place) 12,000 ft. – Walīān (Saints) 15,100 ft. – Chahār-dār (Four-doors) 18,900 ft. and Shibr-tū 9800 ft. In considering the labour of their ascent and descent, the general high level, north and south of them, should be borne in mind; e. g. Chārikār (Chār-yak-kār) stands 5200 ft. and Kābul itself at 5780 ft. above the sea.

743

i. e. the hollow, long, and small-bāzār roads respectively. Panjhīr is explained by Hindūs to be Panj-sher, the five lion-sons of Pandu (Masson, iii, 168).

744

Shibr is a Hazāra district between the head of the Ghūr-bund valley and Bāmīān. It does not seem to be correct to omit the tū from the name of the pass. Persian tū, turn, twist (syn. pīch) occurs in other names of local passes; to read it here as a turn agrees with what is said of Shibr-tū pass as not crossing but turning the Hindū-kush (Cunningham). Lord uses the same wording about the Ḥājī-ghāt (var. – kāk etc.) traverse of the same spur, which “turns the extremity of the Hindū-kush”. See Cunningham’s Ancient Geography, i, 25; Lord’s Ghūr-bund (JASB 1838 p. 528), Masson, iii, 169 and Leech’s Report VII.

745

Perhaps through Jālmīsh into Saighān.

746

i. e. they are closed.

747

It was unknown in Mr. Erskine’s day (Mems. p. 140). Several of the routes in Raverty’s Notes (p. 92 etc.) allow it to be located as on the Īrī-āb, near to or identical with Bāghzān, 35 kurohs (70 m.) s.s.e. of Kābul.

748

Farmūl, about the situation of which Mr. Erskine was in doubt, is now marked in maps, Ūrghūn being its principal village.

749

15 miles below Atak (Erskine). Mr. Erskine notes that he found no warrant, previous to Abū’l-faẓl’s, for calling the Indus the Nīl-āb, and that to find one would solve an ancient geographical difficulty. This difficulty, my husband suggests, was Alexander’s supposition that the Indus was the Nile. In books grouping round the Bābur-nāma, the name Nīl-āb is not applied to the Indus, but to the ferry-station on that river, said to owe its name to a spring of azure water on its eastern side. (Cf. Afẓal Khān Khattak, R.’s Notes p. 447.)

I find the name Nīl-āb applied to the Kābul-river: – 1. to its Arghandī affluent (Cunningham, p. 17, Map); 2. through its boatman class, the Nīl-ābīs of Lālpūra, Jalālābād and Kūnār (G. of I. 1907, art. Kābul); 3. inferentially to it as a tributary of the Indus (D’Herbélot); 4. to it near its confluence with the grey, silt-laden Indus, as blue by contrast (Sayyid Ghulām-i-muḥammad, R.’s Notes p. 34). (For Nīl-āb (Naulibis?) in Ghūr-bund see Cunningham, p. 32 and Masson, iii, 169.)

750

By one of two routes perhaps, – either by the Khaibar-Nīngnahār-Jagdālīk road, or along the north bank of the Kābul-river, through Goshṭa to the crossing where, in 1879, the 10th Hussars met with disaster. See S.A. War, Map 2 and p. 63; Leech’s Reports II and IV (Fords of the Indus); and R.’s Notes p. 44.

751

Hāru, Leech’s Harroon, apparently, 10 m. above Atak. The text might be read to mean that both rivers were forded near their confluence, but, finding no warrant for supposing the Kābul-river fordable below Jalālābād, I have guided the translation accordingly; this may be wrong and may conceal a change in the river.

752

Known also as Dhān-kot and as Mu‘az̤z̤am-nagar (Ma‘āṣiru’l-‘umrā i, 249 and A.N. trs. H.B. index s. n. Dhān-kot). It was on the east bank of the Indus, probably near modern Kālā-bāgh, and was washed away not before 956 AH. (1549 AD. H. Beveridge).

753

Chaupāra seems, from f. 148b, to be the Chapari of Survey Map 1889. Bābur’s Dasht is modern Dāman.

754

aīmāq, used usually of Mughūls, I think. It may be noted that Lieutenant Leech compiled a vocabulary of the tongue of the Mughūl Aīmāq in Qandahār and Harāt (JASB 1838, p. 785).

755

The Āyīn-i-akbarī account of Kābul both uses and supplements the Bābur-nāma.

756

viz. ‘Alī-shang, Alangār and Mandrāwar (the Lamghānāt proper), Nīngnahār (with its bulūk, Kāma), Kūnār-with-Nūr-gal, (and the two bulūks of Nūr-valley and Chaghān-sarāī).

757

See Appendix E, On Nagarahāra.

758

The name Adīnapūr is held to be descended from ancient Udyānapūra (Garden-town); its ancestral form however was applied to Nagarahāra, apparently, in the Bārān-Sūrkh-rūd dū-āb, and not to Bābur’s dārogha’s seat. The Sūrkh-rūd’s deltaic mouth was a land of gardens; when Masson visited Adīnapūr he went from Bālā-bāgh (High-garden); this appears to stand where Bābur locates his Bāgh-i-wafā, but he was shown a garden he took to be this one of Bābur’s, a mile higher up the Sūrkh-rūd. A later ruler made the Chār-bāgh of maps. It may be mentioned that Bālā-bāgh has become in some maps Rozābād (Garden-town). See Masson, i, 182 and iii, 186; R.’s Notes; and Wilson’s Ariana Antiqua, Masson’s art.

759

One of these tangī is now a literary asset in Mr. Kipling’s My Lord the Elephant. Bābur’s 13 y. represent some 82 miles; on f. 137b the Kābul-Ghaznī road of 14 y. represents some 85; in each case the yīghāch works out at over six miles (Index s. n. yīghāch and Vigne, p. 454). Sayyid Ghulām-i-muḥammad traces this route minutely (R.’s Notes pp. 57, 59).

760

Masson was shewn “Chaghatai castles”, attributed to Bābur (iii, 174).

761

Dark-turn, perhaps, as in Shibr-tū, Jāl-tū, etc. (f. 130b and note to Shibr-tū).

762

f. 145 where the change is described in identical words, as seen south of the Jagdālīk-pass. The Bādām-chashma pass appears to be a traverse of the eastern rampart of the Tīzīn-valley.

763

Appendix E, On Nagarahāra.

764

No record exists of the actual laying-out of the garden; the work may have been put in hand during the Mahmand expedition of 914 AH. (f. 216); the name given to it suggests a gathering there of loyalists when the stress was over of the bad Mughūl rebellion of that year (f. 216b where the narrative breaks off abruptly in 914 AH. and is followed by a gap down to 925 AH. -1519 AD.).

765

No annals of 930 AH. are known to exist; from Ṣafar 926 AH. to 932 AH. (Jan. 1520-Nov. 1525 AD.) there is a lacuna. Accounts of the expedition are given by Khāfī Khān, i, 47 and Firishta, lith. ed. p. 202.

766

Presumably to his son, Humāyūn, then governor in Badakhshān; Bukhārā also was under Bābur’s rule.

767

Here, qārī, yards. The dimensions 10 by 10, are those enjoined for places of ablution.

768

Presumably those of the tūqūz-rūd, supra. Cf. Appendix E, On Nagarahāra.

769

White-mountain; Pushtū, Spīn-ghur (or ghar).

770

i. e. the Lamghānāt proper. The range is variously named; in (Persian) Siyāh-koh (Black-mountain), which like Turkī Qarā-tāgh may mean non-snowy; by Tājīks, Bāgh-i-ātāka (Foster-father’s garden); by Afghāns, Kanda-ghur, and by Lamghānīs Koh-i-būlān, – Kanda and Būlān both being ferry-stations below it (Masson, iii, 189; also the Times Nov. 20th 1912 for a cognate illustration of diverse naming).

771

A comment made here by Mr. Erskine on changes of name is still appropriate, but some seeming changes may well be due to varied selection of land-marks. Of the three routes next described in the text, one crosses as for Mandrāwar; the second, as for ‘Alī-shang, a little below the outfall of the Tīzīn-water; the third may take off from the route, between Kābul and Tag-aū, marked in Col. Tanner’s map (PRGS 1881 p. 180). Cf. R’s Route 11; and for Aūlūgh-nūr, Appendix F, On the name Nūr.

772

The name of this pass has several variants. Its second component, whatever its form, is usually taken to mean pass, but to read it here as pass would be redundant, since Bābur writes “pass (kūtal) of Bād-i-pīch”. Pich occurs as a place name both east (Pīch) and west (Pīchghān) of the kūtal, but what would suit the bitter and even fatal winds of the pass would be to read the name as Whirling-wind (bād-i-pīch). Another explanation suggests itself from finding a considerable number of pass-names such as Shibr-tū, Jāi-tū, Qarā-tū, in which tū is a synonym of pīch, turn, twist; thus Bād-i-pīch may be the local form of Bād-tū, Windy-turn.

773

See Masson, iii, 197 and 289. Both in Pashāī and Lamghānī, lām means fort.

774

See Appendix F, On the name Dara-i-nūr.

775

ghair mukarrar. Bābur may allude to the remarkable change men have wrought in the valley-bottom (Appendix F, for Col. Tanner’s account of the valley).

776

f. 154.

777

diospyrus lotus, the European date-plum, supposed to be one of the fruits eaten by the Lotophagi. It is purple, has bloom and is of the size of a pigeon’s egg or a cherry. See Watts’ Economic Products of India; Brandis’ Forest Trees, Illustrations; and Speede’s Indian Hand-book.

778

As in Lombardy, perhaps; in Luhūgur vines are clipped into standards; in most other places in Afghānistān they are planted in deep trenches and allowed to run over the intervening ridges or over wooden framework. In the narrow Khūlm-valley they are trained up poplars so as to secure them the maximum of sun. See Wood’s Report VI p. 27; Bellew’s Afghānistān p. I75 and Mems. p. 142 note.

779

Appendix G, On the names of two Nūrī wines.

780

This practice Bābur viewed with disgust, the hog being an impure animal according to Muḥammadan Law (Erskine).

781

The Khazīnatu’l-asfiyā (ii, 293) explains how it came about that this saint, one honoured in Kashmīr, was buried in Khutlān. He died in Hazāra (Paklī) and there the Paklī Sult̤ān wished to have him buried, but his disciples, for some unspecified reason, wished to bury him in Khutlān. In order to decide the matter they invited the Sultān to remove the bier with the corpse upon it. It could not be stirred from its place. When, however, a single one of the disciples tried to move it, he alone was able to lift it, and to bear it away on his head. Hence the burial in Khutlān. The death occurred in 786 AH. (1384 AD.). A point of interest in this legend is that, like the one to follow, concerning dead women, it shews belief in the living activities of the dead.

782

The MSS. vary between 920 and 925 AH. – neither date seems correct. As the annals of 925 AH. begin in Muḥarram, with Bābur to the east of Bājaur, we surmise that the Chaghān-sarāī affair may have occurred on his way thither, and at the end of 924 AH.

783

karanj, coriandrum sativum.

784

i. e. treat her corpse as that of an infidel (Erskine).

785

Some 20-24 m. north of Jalālābād. The name Multa-kundī may refer to the Rām-kundī range, or mean Lower district, or mean Below Kundī. See Biddulph’s Khowārī Dialect s.n under; R.’s Notes p. 108 and Dict. s.n. kund; Masson, i, 209.

786

It would suit the position of this village if its name were found to link to the Turkī verb chaqmāq, to go out, because it lies in the mouth of a defile (Dahānah-i-koh, Mountain-mouth) through which the road for Kāfiristān goes out past the village. A not-infrequent explanation of the name to mean White-house, Āq-sarāī, may well be questioned. Chaghān, white, is Mughūlī and it would be less probable for a Mughūlī than for a Turkī name to establish itself. Another explanation may lie in the tribe name Chugānī. The two forms chaghān and chaghār may well be due to the common local interchange in speech of n with r. (For Dahānah-i-koh see [some] maps and Raverty’s Bājaur routes.)

787

Nīmchas, presumably, – half-bred in custom, perhaps in blood – ; and not improbably, converted Kāfirs. It is useful to remember that Kāfiristān was once bounded, west and south, by the Bārān-water.

788

Kāfir wine is mostly poor, thin and, even so, usually diluted with water. When kept two or three years, however, it becomes clear and sometimes strong. Sir G. S. Robertson never saw a Kāfir drunk (Kāfirs of the Hindū-kush, p. 591).

789

Kāma might have classed better under Nīngnahār of which it was a dependency.

790

i. e. water-of-Nijr; so too, Badr-aū and Tag-aū. Nijr-aū has seven-valleys (JASB 1838 p. 329 and Burnes’ Report X). Sayyid Ghulām-i-muḥammad mentions that Bābur established a frontier-post between Nijr-aū and Kāfiristān which in his own day was still maintained. He was an envoy of Warren Hastings to Tīmūr Shāh Sadozī (R.’s Notes p. 36 and p. 142).

791

Kāfirwash; they were Kāfirs converted to Muḥammadanism.

792

Archa, if not inclusive, meaning conifer, may represent juniperus excelsa, this being the common local conifer. The other trees of the list are pinus Gerardiana (Brandis, p. 690), quercus bīlūt, the holm-oak, and pistacia mutica or khanjak, a tree yielding mastic.

793

rūba-i-parwān, pteromys inornatus, the large, red flying-squirrel (Blandford’s Fauna of British India, Mammalia, p. 363).

794

The giz is a short-flight arrow used for shooting small birds etc. Descending flights of squirrels have been ascertained as 60 yards, one, a record, of 80 (Blandford).

795

Apparently tetrogallus himalayensis, the Himalayan snow-cock (Blandford, iv, 143).Burnes (Cabool p. 163) describes the kabg-i-darī as the rara avis of the Kābul Kohistān, somewhat less than a turkey, and of the chikor (partridge) species. It was procured for him first in Ghūr-bund, but, when snow has fallen, it could be had nearer Kābul. Bābur’s bū-qalamūn may have come into his vocabulary, either as a survival direct from Greek occupation of Kābul and Panj-āb, or through Arabic writings. PRGS 1879 p. 251, Kaye’s art. and JASB 1838 p. 863, Hodgson’s art.

796

Bartavelle’s Greek-partridge, tetrao- or perdrix-rufus [f. 279 and Mems. p. 320 n.].

797

A similar story is told of some fields near Whitby: – “These wild geese, which in winter fly in great flocks to the lakes and rivers unfrozen in the southern parts, to the great amazement of every-one, fall suddenly down upon the ground when they are in flight over certain neighbouring fields thereabouts; a relation I should not have made, if I had not received it from several credible men.” See Notes to Marmion p. xlvi (Erskine); Scott’s Poems, Black’s ed. 1880, vii, 104.