The Bābur-nāma

798

Are we to infer from this that the musk-rat (Crocidura cœrulea, Lydekker, p. 626) was not so common in Hindūstān in the age of Bābur as it has now become? He was not a careless observer (Erskine).

799

Index s. n. Bābur-nāma, date of composition; also f. 131.

800

In the absence of examples of bund to mean kūtal, and the presence “in those countries” of many in which bund means koh, it looks as though a clerical error had here written kūtal for koh. But on the other hand, the wording of the next passage shows just the confusion an author’s unrevised draft might shew if a place were, as this is, both a tūmān and a kūtal (i. e. a steady rise to a traverse). My impression is that the name Ghūr-bund applies to the embanking spur at the head of the valley-tūmān, across which roads lead to Ghūrī and Ghūr (PRGS 1879, Maps; Leech’s Report VII; and Wood’s VI).

801

So too when, because of them, Leech and Lord turned back, re infectâ.

802

It will be noticed that these villages are not classed in any tūmān; they include places “rich without parallel” in agricultural products, and level lands on which towns have risen and fallen, one being Alexandria ad Caucasum. They cannot have been part of the unremunerative Ghūr-bund tūmān; from their place of mention in Bābur’s list of tūmāns, they may have been part of the Kābul tūmān (f. 178), as was Koh-dāman (Burnes’ Cabool p. 154; Haughton’s Charikar p. 73; and Cunningham’s Ancient History, i, 18).

803

Dūr-namāī, seen from afar (Masson, iii, 152) is not marked on the Survey Maps; Masson, Vigne and Haughton locate it. Bābur’s “head” and “foot” here indicate status and not location.

804

Mems. p. 146 and Méms, i, 297, Arabs’ encampment and Cellule des Arabes. Perhaps the name may refer to uses of the level land and good pasture by horse qāfilas, since Kurra is written with tashdīd in the Ḥaidarābād Codex, as in kurra-tāz, a horse-breaker. Or the tāziyān may be the fruit of a legend, commonly told, that the saint of the neighbouring Running-sands was an Arabian.

805

Presumably this is the grass of the millet, the growth before the ear, on which grazing is allowed (Elphinstone, i, 400; Burnes, p. 237).

806

Wood, p. 115; Masson, iii, 167; Burnes, p. 157 and JASB 1838 p. 324 with illustration; Vigne, pp. 219, 223; Lord, JASB 1838 p. 537; Cathay and the way thither, Hakluyt Society vol. I. p. xx, para. 49; History of Musical Sands, C. Carus-Wilson.

807

West might be more exact, since some of the group are a little north, others a little south of the latitude of Kābul.

808

Affluents and not true sources in some cases (Col. Holdich’s Gates of India, s. n. Koh-i-bābā; and PRGS 1879, maps pp. 80 and 160).

809

The Pamghān range. These are the villages every traveller celebrates. Masson’s and Vigne’s illustrations depict them well.

810

Cercis siliquastrum, the Judas-tree. Even in 1842 it was sparingly found near Kābul, adorning a few tombs, one Bābur’s own. It had been brought from Sih-yārān where, as also at Chārikār, (Chār-yak-kār) it was still abundant and still a gorgeous sight. It is there a tree, as at Kew, and not a bush, as in most English gardens (Masson, ii, 9; Elphinstone, i, 194; and for the tree near Harāt, f. 191 n. to Ṣafar).

811

Khwāja Maudūd of Chisht, Khwāja Khāwand Sa‘īd and the Khwāja of the Running-sands (Elph. MS. f. 104b, marginal note).

812

The yellow-flowered plant is not cercis siliquastrum but one called mahaka(?) in Persian, a shrubby plant with pea-like blossoms, common in the plains of Persia, Bilūchistān and Kābul (Masson, iii, 9 and Vigne, p. 216).

813

The numerical value of these words gives 925 (Erskine). F. 246b et seq. for the expedition.

814

f. 178. I.O. MS. No. 724, Haft-iqlīm f. 135 (Ethé, p. 402); Rieu, pp. 21a, 1058b.

815

of Afghan habit. The same term is applied (f. 139b) to the Zurmutīs; it may be explained in both places by Bābur’s statement that Zurmutīs grow corn, but do not cultivate gardens or orchards.

816

aīkān dūr. Sabuk-tīgīn, d. 387 AH. -997 AD., was the father of Sl. Maḥmūd Ghaznawī, d. 421 AH. -1030 AD.

817

d. 602 AH. -1206 AD.

818

Some Musalmāns fast through the months of Rajab, Sha‘bān and Ramẓān; Muḥammadans fast only by day; the night is often given to feasting (Erskine).

819

The Garden; the tombs of more eminent Muṣalmāns are generally in gardens (Erskine). See Vigne’s illustrations, pp. 133, 266.

820

i. e. the year now in writing. The account of the expedition, Bābur’s first into Hindūstān, begins on f. 145.

821

i. e. the countries groupable as Khurāsān.

822

For picture and account of the dam, see Vigne, pp. 138, 202.

823

f. 295b.

824

The legend is told in numerous books with varying location of the spring. One narrator, Zakarīyā Qazwīnī, reverses the parts, making Jāī-pāl employ the ruse; hence Leyden’s note (Mems. p. 150; E. and D.’s History of India ii, 20, 182 and iv, 162; for historical information, R.’s Notes p. 320). The date of the events is shortly after 378 AH. -988 AD.

825

R.’s Notes s. n. Zurmut.

826

The question of the origin of the Farmūlī has been written of by several writers; perhaps they were Turks of Persia, Turks and Tājīks.

827

This completes the list of the 14 tūmāns of Kābul, viz. Nīngnahār, ‘Alī-shang, Alangār, Mandrāwar, Kūnār-with-Nūr-gal, Nijr-aū, Panjhīr, Ghūr-bund, Koh-dāman (with Kohistān?), Luhūgur (of the Kābul tūmān), Ghaznī, Zurmut, Farmūl and Bangash.

828

Between Nijr-aū and Tag-aū (Masson, iii, 165). Mr. Erskine notes that Bābur reckoned it in the hot climate but that the change of climate takes place further east, between ‘Alī-shang and Aūzbīn (i. e. the valley next eastwards from Tag-aū).

829

būghūzlārīghā furṣat būlmās; i. e. to kill them in the lawful manner, while pronouncing the Bi’smi’llāh.

830

This completes the bulūks of Kābul viz. Badr-aū (Tag-aū), Nūr-valley, Chaghān-sarāī, Kāma and Ālā-sāī.

831

The rūpī being equal to 2-1/2 shāhrukhīs, the shāhrukhī may be taken at 10d. thus making the total revenue only £33,333 6s. 8d. See Āyīn-i-akbarī ii, 169 (Erskine).

832

sic in all B. N. MSS. Most maps print Khost. Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ says of Khwāst, “Who sees it, would call it a Hell” (Vambéry, p. 361).

833

Bābur’s statement about this fodder is not easy to translate; he must have seen grass grow in tufts, and must have known the Persian word būta (bush). Perhaps kāh should be read to mean plant, not grass. Would Wood’s bootr fit in, a small furze bush, very plentiful near Bāmiān? (Wood’s Report VI, p. 23; and for regional grasses, Aitchison’s Botany of the Afghān Delimitation Commission, p. 122.)

834

nāzū, perhaps cupressus torulosa (Brandis, p.693).

835

f. 276.

836

A laborious geographical note of Mr. Erskine’s is here regretfully left behind, as now needless (Mems. p. 152).

837

Here, mainly wild-sheep and wild-goats, including mār-khẉār.

838

Perhaps, no conifers; perhaps none of those of the contrasted hill-tract.

839

While here dasht (plain) represents the eastern skirt of the Mehtar Sulaimān range, dūkī or dūgī (desert) seems to stand for the hill tracts on the west of it, and not, as on f. 152, for the place there specified.

840

Mems. p. 152, “A narrow place is large to the narrow-minded”; Méms. i, 311, “Ce qui n’est pas trop large, ne reste pas vide.” Literally, “So long as heights are not equal, there is no vis-a-vis,” or, if tāng be read for tīng, “No dawn, no noon,” i. e. no effect without a cause.

841

I have not lighted on this name in botanical books or explained by dictionaries. Perhaps it is a Cis-oxanian name for the sax-aol of Transoxania. As its uses are enumerated by some travellers, it might be Haloxylon ammodendron, ta-ghas etc. and sax-aol (Aitchison, p. 102).

842

f. 135b note to Ghūr-bund.

843

I understand that wild-goats, wild-sheep and deer (āhū) were not localized, but that the dun-sheep migrated through. Antelope (āhū) was scarce in Elphinstone’s time.

844

qīzīl kīyik which, taken with its alternative name, arqārghalcha, allows it to be the dun-sheep of Wood’s Journey p. 241. From its second name it may be Ovis amnon (Raos), or O. argalī.

845

tusqāwal, var. tutqāwal, tus̱aqāwal and tūshqāwal, a word which has given trouble to scribes and translators. As a sporting-term it is equivalent to shikār-i-nihilam; in one or other of its forms I find it explained as Weg-hüter, Fahnen-hüter, Zahl-meister, Schlucht, Gefahrlicher-weg and Schmaler-weg. It recurs in the B.N. on f. 197b l. 5 and l. 6 and there might mean either a narrow road or a Weg-hüter. If its Turkī root be tūs, the act of stopping, all the above meanings can follow, but there may be two separate roots, the second, tūsh, the act of descent (JRAS 1900 p. 137, H. Beveridge’s art. On the word nihilam).

846

qūshlīk, aītlīk. Elphinstone writes (i, 191) of the excellent greyhounds and hawking birds of the region; here the bird may be the charkh, which works with the dogs, fastening on the head of the game (Von Schwarz, p. 117, for the same use of eagles).

847

An antelope resembling the usual one of Hindūstān is common south of Ghaznī (Vigne, p. 110); what is not found may be some classes of wild-sheep, frequent further north, at higher elevation, and in places more familiar to Bābur.

848

The Parwān or Hindū-kush pass, concerning the winds of which see f. 128.

849

tūrnā u qarqara; the second of which is the Hindī būglā, heron, egret ardea gazetta, the furnisher of the aigrette of commerce.

850

The aūqār is ardea cinerea, the grey heron; the qarqara is ardea gazetta, the egret. Qūt̤ān is explained in the Elph. Codex (f. 110) by khawāsil, goldfinch, but the context concerns large birds; Scully (Shaw’s Voc.) has qodan, water-hen, which suits better.

851

giz, the short-flight arrow.

852

a small, round-headed nail with which a whip-handle is decorated (Vambéry). Such a stud would keep the cord from slipping through the fingers and would not check the arrow-release.

853

It has been understood (Mems. p. 158 and Méms. i, 313) that the arrow was flung by hand but if this were so, something heavier than the giz would carry the cord better, since it certainly would be difficult to direct a missile so light as an arrow without the added energy of the bow. The arrow itself will often have found its billet in the closely-flying flock; the cord would retrieve the bird. The verb used in the text is aītmāq, the one common to express the discharge of arrows etc.

854

For Tīmūrids who may have immigrated the fowlers see Raverty’s Notes p. 579 and his Appendix p. 22.

855

milwāh; this has been read by all earlier translators, and also by the Persian annotator of the Elph. Codex, to mean shākh, bough. For decoy-ducks see Bellew’s Notes on Afghānistān p. 404.

856

qūlān qūyirūghī. Amongst the many plants used to drug fish I have not found this one mentioned. Khār-zāhra and khār-fāq approach it in verbal meaning; the first describes colocynth, the second, wild rue. See Watts’ Economic Products of India iii, 366 and Bellew’s Notes pp. 182, 471 and 478.

857

Much trouble would have been spared to himself and his translators, if Bābur had known a lobster-pot.

858

The fish, it is to be inferred, came down the fall into the pond.

859

Burnes and Vigne describe a fall 20 miles from Kābul, at “Tangī Gharoi”, [below where the Tag-aū joins the Bārān-water,] to which in their day, Kābulīs went out for the amusement of catching fish as they try to leap up the fall. Were these migrants seeking upper waters or were they captives in a fish-pond?

860

Elph. MS. f. 111; W. – i-B. I.O. 215 f. 116b and 217 f. 97b; Mems. p. 155; Méms. i, 318.

861

mihmān-beglār, an expression first used by Bābur here, and due, presumably, to accessions from Khusrau Shāh’s following. A parallel case is given in Max Müller’s Science of Language i, 348 ed. 1871, “Turkmān tribes … call themselves, not subjects, but guests of the Uzbeg Khāns.”

862

tiyūl-dīk in all the Turkī MSS. Ilminsky, de Courteille and Zenker, yitūl-dīk, Turkī, a fief.

863

Wilāyat khūd hech bīrīlmādī; W. – i-B. 215 f. 116b, Wilāyat dāda na shuda and 217 f. 97b, Wilāyat khūd hech dāda na shud. By this I understand that he kept the lands of Kābul itself in his own hands. He mentions (f. 350) and Gul-badan mentions (H.N. f. 40b) his resolve so to keep Kābul. I think he kept not only the fort but all lands constituting the Kābul tūmān (f. 135b and note).

864

Saifī dūr, qalamī aīmās, i. e. tax is taken by force, not paid on a written assessment.

865

khar-wār, about 700 lbs Averdupois (Erskine). Cf. Āyīn-i-akbarī (Jarrett, ii, 394).

866

Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Aḥmad and Badāyūnī both mention this script and say that in it Bābur transcribed a copy of the Qorān for presentation to Makka. Badāyūnī says it was unknown in his day, the reign of Akbar (T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī, lith. ed. p. 193, and Muntakhabu’t-tawārīkh Bib. Ind. ed. iii, 273).

867

Bābur’s route, taken with one given by Raverty (Notes p. 691), allows these Hazāras, about whose location Mr. Erskine was uncertain, to be located between the Takht-pass (Arghandī-Maidān-Unai road), on their east, and the Sang-lākh mountains, on their west.

868

The Takht-pass, one on which from times immemorial, toll (nirkh) has been taken.

869

khāt̤ir-khwāh chāpīlmādī, which perhaps implies mutual discontent, Bābur’s with his gains, the Hazāras’ with their losses. As the second Persian translation omits the negative, the Memoirs does the same.

870

Bhīra being in Shāhpūr, this Khān’s daryā will be the Jehlam.

871

Bābur uses Persian dasht and Hindī dūkī, plain and hill, for the tracts east and west of Mehtar Sulaimān. The first, dasht, stands for Dāman (skirt) and Dara-i-jāt, the second, dūkī, indefinitely for the broken lands west of the main range, but also, in one instance for the Dūkī [Dūgī] district of Qandahār, as will be noted.

872

f. 132. The Jagdālīk-pass for centuries has separated the districts of Kābul and Nīngnahār. Forster (Travels ii, 68), making the journey the reverse way, was sensible of the climatic change some 3m. east of Gandamak. Cf. Wood’s Report I. p. 6.

873

These are they whose families Nāṣir Mīrzā shepherded out of Kābul later (f. 154, f. 155).

874

Bird’s-dome, opposite the mouth of the Kūnār-water (S.A. War, Map p. 64).

875

This word is variously pointed and is uncertain. Mr. Erskine adopted “Pekhi”, but, on the whole, it may be best to read, here and on f. 146, Ar. fajj or pers. paj, mountain or pass. To do so shews the guide to be one located in the Khaibar-pass, a Fajjī or Pajī.

876

mod. Jām-rūd (Jām-torrent), presumably.

877

G. of I. xx, 125 and Cunningham’s Ancient History i, 80. Bābur saw the place in 925 AH. (f. 232b).

878

Cunningham, p. 29. Four ancient sites, not far removed from one another, bear this name, Bīgrām, viz. those near Hūpīān, Kābul, Jalālābād and Pashāwar.

879

Cunningham, i, 79.

880

Perhaps a native of Kamarī on the Indus, but kamarī is a word of diverse application (index s. n.).

881

The annals of this campaign to the eastward shew that Bābur was little of a free agent; that many acts of his own were merciful; that he sets down the barbarity of others as it was, according to his plan of writing (f. 86); and that he had with him undisciplined robbers of Khusrau Shāh’s former following. He cannot be taken as having power to command or control the acts of those, his guest-begs and their following, who dictated his movements in this disastrous journey, one worse than a defeat, says Ḥaidar Mīrzā.

882

For the route here see Masson, i, 117 and Colquhoun’s With the Kuram Field-force p. 48.

883

The Ḥai. MS. writes this Dilah-zāk.

884

i. e. raised a force in Bābur’s name. He took advantage of this farmān in 911 AH. to kill Bāqī Chagkānīānī (f. 159b-160).

885

Of the Yūsuf-zāī and Ranjīt-sīngh, Masson says, (i, 141) “The miserable, hunted wretches threw themselves on the ground, and placing a blade or tuft of grass in their mouths, cried out, “I am your cow.” This act and explanation, which would have saved them from an orthodox Hindū, had no effect with the infuriated Sikhs.” This form of supplication is at least as old as the days of Firdausī (Erskine, p. 159 n.). The Bahār-i-‘ajam is quoted by Vullers as saying that in India, suppliants take straw in the mouth to indicate that they are blanched and yellow from fear.

886

This barbarous custom has always prevailed amongst the Tartar conquerors of Asia (Erskine). For examples under ‘ see Raverty’s Notes p. 137.

887

For a good description of the road from Kohāt to Thāl see Bellew’s Mission p. 104.

888

F. 88b has the same phrase about the doubtful courage of one Sayyidī Qarā.

889

Not to the mod. town of Bannū, [that having been begun only in 1848 AD.] but wherever their wrong road brought them out into the Bannū amphitheatre. The Survey Map of 1868, No. 15, shews the physical features of the wrong route.

890

Perhaps he connived at recovery of cattle by those raided already.

891

Tāq is the Tank of Maps; Bāzār was s.w. of it. Tank for Tāq looks to be a variant due to nasal utterance (Vigne, p. 77, p. 203 and Map; and, as bearing on the nasal, in loco, Appendix E).

892

If return had been made after over-running Bannū, it would have been made by the Tochī-valley and so through Farmūl; if after over-running the Plain, Bābur’s details shew that the westward turn was meant to be by the Gūmāl-valley and one of two routes out of it, still to Farmūl; but the extended march southward to near Dara-i-Ghazī Khān made the westward turn be taken through the valley opening at Sakhī-sawār.

893

This will mean, none of the artificial runlets familiar where Bābur had lived before getting to know Hindūstān.

894

sauda-āt, perhaps, pack-ponies, perhaps, bred for sale and not for own use. Burnes observes that in 1837 Lūhānī merchants carried precisely the same articles of trade as in Bābur’s day, 332 years earlier (Report IX p. 99).

895

Mr. Erskine thought it probable that the first of these routes went through Kanigūram, and the second through the Ghwālirī-pass and along the Gūmāl. Birk, fastness, would seem an appropriate name for Kanigūram, but, if Bābur meant to go to Ghaznī, he would be off the ordinary Gūmāl-Ghaznī route in going through Farmūl (Aūrgūn). Raverty’s Notes give much useful detail about these routes, drawn from native sources. For Barak (Birk) see Notes pp. 88, 89; Vigne, p. 102.

896

From this it would seem that the alternative roads were approached by one in common.

897

tūmshūq, a bird’s bill, used here, as in Selsey-bill, for the naze (nose), or snout, the last spur, of a range.

898

Here these words may be common nouns.

899

Nū-roz, the feast of the old Persian New-year (Erskine); it is the day on which the Sun enters Aries.

900

In the [Turkī] Elph. and Ḥai. MSS. and in some Persian ones, there is a space left here as though to indicate a known omission.

901

kamarī, sometimes a cattle-enclosure, which may serve as a sangur. The word may stand in one place of its Bābur-nāma uses for Gum-rāhī (R.’s Notes s. n. Gum-rāhān).

902

Index s. n.

903

Vigne, p. 241.

904

This name can be translated “He turns not back” or “He stops not”.

905

i. e. five from Bīlah.

906

Raverty gives the saint’s name as Pīr Kānūn (Ar. kānūn, listened to). It is the well-known Sakhī-sarwār, honoured hy Hindūs and Muḥammadans. (G. of I., xxi, 390; R.’s Notes p. 11 and p. 12 and JASB 1855; Calcutta Review 1875, Macauliffe’s art. On the fair at Sakhi-sarwar; Leech’s Report VII, for the route; Khazīnatu ’l-asfiyā iv, 245.)

907

This seems to be the sub-district of Qandahār, Dūkī or Dūgī.

908

khar-gāh, a folding tent on lattice frame-work, perhaps a khibitka.

909

It may be more correct to write Kāh-mard, as the Ḥai. MS. does and to understand in the name a reference to the grass(kāh) – yielding capacity of the place.

910

f. 121.