The Bābur-nāma

Jarrett’s Āyīn-i-akbarī.

P.R.G.S. for maps, 1879; Macnair on the Kafirs, 1884; Tanner’s On the Chugānī and neighbouring tribes of Kāfiristān, 1881.

Simpson’s Nagarahāra, JASB., xiii.

Biddulph’s Dialects of the Hindū-kush, JRAS.

Gazette of India, 1907, art. Jalalābād.

Bellew’s Races of Afghānistān.

F. – ON THE NAME DARA-I-NŪR

Some European writers have understood the name Dara-i-nūr to mean Valley of Light, but natural features and also the artificial one mentioned by Colonel H. G. Tanner (infra), make it better to read the component nūr, not as Persian nūr, light, but as Pushtū nūr, rock. Hence it translates as Valley of Rocks, or Rock-valley. The region in which the valley lies is rocky and boulder-strewn; its own waters flow to the Kābul-river east of the water of Chitrāl. It shews other names composed with nūr, in which nūr suits if it means rock, but is inexplicable if it means light, e. g. Nūr-lām (Nūr-fort), the master-fort in the mouth of Nūr-valley, standing high on a rock between two streams, as Bābur and Tanner have both described it from eye-witness, – Nūr-gal (village), a little to the north-west of the valley, – Aūlūgh-nūr (great rock), at a crossing mentioned by Bābur, higher up the Bārān-water, – and Koh-i-nūr (Rocky-mountains), which there is ground for taking as the correct form of the familiar “Kunar” of some European writers (Raverty’s Notes, p. 106). The dominant feature in these places dictates reading nūr as rock; so too the work done in Nūr-valley with boulders, of which Colonel H. G. Tanner’s interesting account is subjoined (P.R.G.S. 1881, p. 284).

“Some 10 miles from the source of the main stream of the Nur-valley the Dameneh stream enters, but the waters of the two never meet; they flow side by side about three-quarters of a mile apart for about 12 miles and empty themselves into the Kunar river by different mouths, each torrent hugging closely the foot of the hills at its own side of the valley. Now, except in countries where terracing has been practised continuously for thousands of years, such unnatural topography as exists in the valley of Nur is next to impossible. The forces which were sufficient to scoop out the valley in the first instance, would have kept a water-way at the lowest part, into which would have poured the drainage of the surrounding mountains; but in the Nur-valley long-continued terracing has gradually raised the centre of the valley high above the edges. The population has increased to its maximum limit and every available inch of ground is required for cultivation; the people, by means of terrace-walls built of ponderous boulders in the bed of the original single stream, have little by little pushed the waters out of their true course, until they run, where now found, in deep rocky cuttings at the foot of the hills on either side” (p. 280).

“I should like to go on and say a good deal more about boulders; and while I am about it I may as well mention one that lies back from a hamlet in Shulut, which is so big that a house is built in a fault or crack running across its face. Another pebble lies athwart the village and covers the whole of the houses from that side.”

G. – ON THE NAMES OF TWO DARA-I-NŪR WINES

From the two names, Arat-tāshī and Sūhān (Suhār) – tāshī, which Bābur gives as those of two wines of the Dara-i-nūr, it can be inferred that he read nūr to mean rock. For if in them Turkī tāsh, rock, be replaced by Pushtū nūr, rock, two place-names emerge, Arat (-nūrī) and Sūhān (-nūrī), known in the Nūr-valley.

These may be villages where the wines were grown, but it would be quite exceptional for Bābur to say that wines are called from their villages, or indeed by any name. He says here not where they grow but what they are called.

I surmise that he is repeating a joke, perhaps his own, perhaps a standing local one, made on the quality of the wines. For whether with tāsh or with nūr (rock), the names can be translated as Rock-saw and Rock-file, and may refer to the rough and acid quality of the wines, rasping and setting the teeth on edge as does iron on stone.

The villages themselves may owe their names to a serrated edge or splintered pinnacle of weathered granite, in which local people, known as good craftsmen, have seen resemblance to tools of their trade.

H. – ON THE COUNTERMARK BIH BŪD ON COINS

As coins of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā Bāī-qarā and other rulers do actually bear the words Bih būd, Bābur’s statement that the name of Bihbūd Beg was on the Mīrzā’s coins acquires a numismatic interest which may make serviceable the following particulars concerning the passage and the beg.2775

a. The Turkī passage (Elph. MS. f. 135b; Ḥaidarābād Codex f. 173b; Ilminsky p. 217).

For ease of reference the Turkī, Persian and English version are subjoined: —

(1) Yana Bihbūd Beg aīdī. Būrūnlār chuhra-jīrga-sī-dā khidmat qīlūr aīdī. Mīrzā-nīng qāzāqlīqlārīdā khidmatī bāqīb Bihbūd Beg-kā bū ‘ināyatnī qīlīb aīdī kīm tamghā u sikka-dā ānīng ātī aīdī.

(2) The Persian translation of ‘Abdu’r-raḥīm (Muḥ. Shīrāzī’s lith. ed. p. 110): —

Dīgar Bihbūd Beg būd. Auwalhā dar jīrga-i-chuhrahā khidmat mikard. Chūn dar qāzāqīhā Mīrzārā khidmat karda būd u ānrā mulāḥaẓa namūda, aīnrā ‘ināyat karda būd kah dar tamghānāt sikka 2776 nām-i-au būd.

(3) A literal English translation of the Turkī: —

Another was Bihbūd Beg. He served formerly in the chuhra-jīrga-sī (corps of braves). Looking to his service in the Mīrzā’s guerilla-times, the favour had been done to Bihbūd Beg that his name was on the stamp and coin.2777

b. Of Bihbūd Beg.

We have found little so far to add to what Bābur tells of Bihbūd Beg and what he tells we have not found elsewhere. The likely sources of his information are Daulat Shāh and Khwānd-amīr who have written at length of Ḥusain Bāī-qarā. Considerable search in the books of both men has failed to discover mention of signal service or public honour connected with the beg. Bābur may have heard what he tells in Harāt in 912 AH. (1506 AD.) when he would see Ḥusain’s coins presumably; but later opportunity to see them must have been frequent during his campaigns and visits north of Hindū-kush, notably in Balkh.

The sole mention we have found of Bihbūd Beg in the Ḥabību’s-siyar is that he was one of Ḥusain’s commanders at the battle of Chīkmān-sarāī which was fought with Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā Mīrānshāhī in Muḥarram 876 AH. (June-July 1471 AD.).2778 His place in the list shews him to have had importance. “Amīr Niz̤āmu’d-dīn ‘Alī-sher’s brother Darwesh-i-‘alī the librarian (q. v. Ḥai. Codex Index), and Amīr Bihbūd, and Muḥ. ‘Alī ātāka, and Bakhshīka and Shāh Walī Qīpchāq, and Dost-i-muḥammad chuhra, and Amīr Qul-i-‘alī, and” (another).

The total of our information about the man is therefore: —

(1) That when Ḥusain2779 from 861 to 873 AH. (1457 to 1469 AD.) was fighting his way up to the throne of Harāt, Bihbūd served him well in the corps of braves, (as many others will have done).

(2) That he was a beg and one of Ḥusain’s commanders in 876 AH. (1471 AD.).

(3) That Bābur includes him amongst Ḥusain’s begs and says of him what has been quoted, doing this circa 934 AH. (1528 AD.), some 56 years after Khwānd-amīr’s mention of him s. a. 876 AH. (1471 AD.).

c. Of the term chuhra-jīrga-sī used by Bābur.

Of this term Bābur supplies an explicit explanation which I have not found in European writings. His own book amply exemplifies his explanation, as do also Khwānd-amīr’s and Ḥaidar’s.

He gives the explanation (f. 15b) when describing a retainer of his father’s who afterwards became one of his own begs. It is as follows: —

“‘Alī-darwesh of Khurāsān served in the Khurāsān chuhra-jīrga-sī, one of two special corps (khāṣa tābīn) of serviceable braves (yārār yīgītlār) formed by Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā when he first began to arrange the government of Khurāsān and Samarkand and, presumably, called by him the Khurāsān corps and the Samarkand corps.”

This shews the circle to have consisted of fighting-men, such serviceable braves as are frequently mentioned by Bābur; and his words “yārār yīgīt” make it safe to say that if instead of using a Persian phrase, he had used a Turkī one, yīgīt, brave would have replaced chuhra, “young soldier” (Erskine). A considerable number of men on active service are styled chuhra, one at least is styled yīgīt, in the same way as others are styled beg.2780

Three military circles are mentioned in the Bābur-nāma, consisting respectively of braves, household begs (under Bābur’s own command), and great begs. Some men are mentioned who never rose from the rank of brave (yīgīt), some who became household-begs, some who went through the three grades.

Of the corps of braves Bābur conveys the information that Abū-sa‘īd founded it at a date which will have lain between 1451 and 1457 AD.; that ‘Umar Shaikh’s man ‘Alī-darwesh belonged to it; and that Ḥusain’s man Bihbūd did so also. Both men, ‘Ali-darwesh and Bihbūd, when in its circle, would appropriately be styled chuhra as men of the beg-circle were styled beg; the Dost-i-muḥammad chuhra who was a commander, (he will have had a brave’s command,) at Chīkmān-sarāī (see list supra) will also have been of this circle. Instances of the use by Bābur of the name khaṣa-tābīn and its equivalent būītīkīnī are shewn on f. 209 and f. 210b. A considerable number of Bābur’s fighting men, the braves he so frequently mentions as sent on service, are styled chuhra and inferentially belong to the same circle.2781

d. Of Bih būd on Ḥusain Bāī-qarā’s coins.

So far it does not seem safe to accept Bābur’s statement literally. He may tell a half-truth and obscure the rest by his brevity.

Nothing in the sources shows ground for signal and public honour to Bihbūd Beg, but a good deal would allow surmise that jesting allusion to his name might decide for Bih būd as a coin mark when choice had to be made of one, in the flush of success, in an assembly of the begs, and, amongst those begs, lovers of word-play and enigma.

The personal name is found written Bihbūd, as one word and with medial h; the mark is Bih būd with the terminal h in the Bih. There have been discussions moreover as to whether to read on the coins Bih būd, it was good, or Bih buvad, let it be, or become, good (valid for currency?).

The question presents itself; would the beg’s name have appeared on the coins, if it had not coincided in form with a suitable coin-mark?

Against literal acceptance of Bābur’s statement there is also doubt of a thing at once so ben trovato and so unsupported by evidence.

Another doubt arises from finding Bih būd on coins of other rulers, one of Iskandar Khān’s being of a later date,2782 others, of Tīmūr, Shāhrukh and Abū-sa‘īd, with nothing to shew who counterstruck it on them.

On some of Ḥusain’s coins the sentence Bih būd appears as part of the legend and not as a counterstrike. This is a good basis for finding a half-truth in Bābur’s statement. It does not allow of a whole-truth in his statement because, as it is written, it is a coin-mark, not a name.

An interesting matter as bearing on Ḥusain’s use of Bih būd is that in 865 AH. (1461 AD.) he had an incomparable horse named Bihbūd, one he gave in return for a falcon on making peace with Mustapha Khān.2783

e. Of Bābur’s vassal-coinage.

The following historical details narrow the field of numismatic observation on coins believed struck by Bābur as a vassal of Ismā‘īl Ṣafawī. They are offered because not readily accessible.

The length of Bābur’s second term of rule in Transoxiana was not the three solar years of the B.M. Coin Catalogues but did not exceed eight months. He entered Samarkand in the middle of Rajab 917 AH. (c. Oct. 1st, 1511 AD.). He returned to it defeated and fled at once, after the battle of Kūl-i-malik which was fought in Ṣafar 918 AH. (mid-April to mid-May 1512 AD.). Previous to the entry he was in the field, without a fixed base; after his flight he was landless till at the end both of 920 AH. and of 1514 AD. he had returned to Kābul.

He would not find a full Treasury in Samarkand because the Aūzbegs evacuated the fort at their own time; eight months would not give him large tribute in kind. He failed in Transoxiana because he was the ally of a Shī‘a; would coins bearing the Shī‘a legend have passed current from a Samarkand mint? These various circumstances suggest that he could not have struck many coins of any kind in Samarkand.

The coins classed in the B.M. Catalogues as of Bābur’s vassalage, offer a point of difficulty to readers of his own writings, inasmuch as neither the “Sult̤ān Muḥammad” of No. 652 (gold), nor the “Sult̤ān Bābur Bahādur” of the silver coins enables confident acceptance of them as names he himself would use.

I. – ON THE WEEPING-WILLOWS OF f. 190b

The passage omitted from f. 190b, which seems to describe something decorative done with weeping willows, (bed-i-mawallah) has been difficult to all translators. This may be due to inaccurate pointing in Bābur’s original MS. or may be what a traveller seeing other willows at another feast could explain.

The first Persian translation omits the passage (I.O. 215 f. 154b); the second varies from the Turkī, notably by changing sāch and sāj to shākh throughout (I.O. 217 f. 150b). The English and French translations differ much (Memoirs p. 206, Mémoires i, 414), the latter taking the mawallah to be mūla, a hut, against which much is clear in the various MSS.

Three Turkī sources2784 agree in reading as follows: —

Mawallahlār-nī (or muwallah Ḥai. MS.) kīltūrdīlār. Bīlmān sāchlārī-nīng yā ‘amlī sāchlārī-nīng ārālārīgha k: msān-nī (Ilminsky, kamān) shākh-nīng (Ḥai. MS. șākh) aūzūnlūghī bīla aīnjīga aīnjīga kīsīb, qūīūb tūrlār.

The English and French translations differ from the Turkī and from one another: —

(Memoirs, p. 206) They brought in branching willow-trees. I do not know if they were in the natural state of the tree, or if the branches were formed artificially, but they had small twigs cut the length of the ears of a bow and inserted between them.

(Mémoires i, 434) On façonna des huttes (mouleh). Ils les établissent en taillant des baguettes minces, de la longeur du bout recourbé de l’arc, qu’on place entre des branches naturelles ou façonnées artificiellement, je l’ignore.

The construction of the sentence appears to be thus: —Mawal-lahlār-nī kīltūrdīlār, they brought weeping-willows; k: msān-nī qūīūbtūrlār, they had put k: msān-nī; aīnjīga aīnjīga kīsīb, cut very fine (or slender); shākh (or șākh)-nīng aūzūnlūghī, of the length of a shākh, bow, or șākh …; bīlmān sāchlārī-nīng yā ‘amlī sāchlārī-nīng ārālārīgha, to (or at) the spaces of the sāchlār whether their (i. e. the willows') own or artificial sāchlār.

These translations clearly indicate felt difficulty. Mr. Erskine does not seem to have understood that the trees were Salix babylonica. The crux of the passage is the word k: msān-nī, which tells what was placed in the spaces. It has been read as kamān, bow, by all but the scribes of the two good Turkī MSS. and as in a phrase horn of a bow. This however is not allowed by the Turkī, for the reason that k: msān-nī is not in the genitive but in the accusative case. (I may say that Bābur does not use nī for nīng; he keeps strictly to the prime uses of each enclitic, nī accusative, nīng genitive.) Moreover, if k: msān-nī be taken as a genitive, the verbs qūīūb-tūrlār and kīsīb have no object, no other accusative appearing in the sentence than k: msān-nī.

A weighty reason against changing sāch into shākh is that Dr. Ilminsky has not done so. He must have attached meaning to sāch since he uses it throughout the passage. He was nearer the region wherein the original willows were seen at a feast. Unfortunately nothing shows how he interpreted the word.

Sāchmāq is a tassel; is it also a catkin and were there decorations, kimsān-nī (things kimsa, or flowers Ar. kim, or something shining, kimcha, gold brocade) hung in between the catkins?

Ilminsky writes mu’lah (with ḥamza) and this de Courteille translates by hut. The Ḥai. MS. writes muwallah (marking the ẓamma).

In favour of reading mawallah (mulah) as a tree and that tree Salix babylonica the weeping-willow, there are annotations in the Second Persian translation and, perhaps following it, in the Elphinstone MS. of nām-i-dirakht, name of a tree, dīdān-i-bed, sight of the willow, bed-i-mawallah, mournful-willow. Standing alone mawallah means weeping-willow, in this use answering to majnūn the name Panj-ābīs give the tree, from Leila’s lover the distracted i. e. Majnūn (Brandis).

The whole question may be solved by a chance remark from a traveller witnessing similar festive decoration at another feast in that conservative region.

J. – ON BĀBUR’S EXCAVATED CHAMBER AT QANDAHĀR (f. 208b)

Since making my note (f. 208b) on the wording of the passage in which Bābur mentions excavation done by him at Qandahār, I have learned that he must be speaking of the vaulted chamber containing the celebrated inscriptions about which much has been written.2785

The primary inscription, the one commemorating Bābur’s final possession of Qandahār, gives the chamber the character of a Temple of Victory and speaks of it as Rawāq-i-jahān namāī, World-shewing-portal,2786 doubtless because of its conspicuous position and its extensive view, probably also in allusion to its declaration of victory. Mīr Ma‘ṣūm writes of it as a Pesh-t̤āq, frontal arch, which, coupled with Mohan Lall’s word arch (t̤āq)

suggests that the chamber was entered through an arch pierced in a parallelogram smoothed on the rock and having resemblance to the pesh-tāq of buildings, a suggestion seeming the more probable that some inscriptions are on the “wings” of the arch. But by neither of the above-mentioned names do Mohan Lall and later travellers call the chamber or write of the place; all describe it by its approach of forty steps, Chihil-zīna.2787

The excavation has been chipped out of the white-veined limestone of the bare ridge on and below which stood Old Qandahār.2794 It does not appear from the descriptions to have been on the summit of the ridge; Bellew says that the forty steps start half-way up the height. I have found no estimate of the height of the ridge, or statement that the steps end at the chamber. The ridge however seems to have been of noticeably dominating height. It rises steeply to the north and there ends in the naze of which Bābur writes. The foot of the steps is guarded by two towers. Mohan Lall, unaccustomed to mountains, found their ascent steep and dizzy. The excavated chamber of the inscriptions, which Bellew describes as “bow-shaped and dome-roofed”, he estimated as 12 feet at the highest point,

12 feet deep and 8 feet wide. Two sculptured beasts guard the entrance; Bellew calls them leopards but tigers would better symbolize the watch and ward of the Tiger Bābur. In truth the whole work, weary steps of approach, tiger guardians, commemorative chamber, laboriously incised words, are admirably symbolic of his long-sustained resolve and action, taken always with Hindūstān as the goal.

There are several inscriptions of varying date, within and without the chamber. Mohan Lall saw and copied them; Darmesteter worked on a copy; the two English observers Lumsden and Bellew made no attempt at correct interpretation. In the versions all give there are inaccuracies, arising from obvious causes, especially from want of historical data. The last word has not been said; revision awaits photography and the leisured expert. A part of the needed revision has been done by Beames, who deals with the geography of what Mīr Ma‘ṣūm himself added under Akbar after he had gone as Governor to Qandahār in 1007 AH. (1598 AD.). This commemorates not Bābur’s but Akbar’s century of cities.

It is the primary inscription only which concerns this Appendix. This is one in relief in the dome of the chamber, recording in florid Persian that Abū’l-ghāzī Bābur took possession of Qandahār on Shawwāl 13th 928 AH. (Sep. 1st 1522 AD.), that in the same year he commanded the construction of this Rawāq-i-jahān-namāī, and that the work had been completed by his son Kāmrān at the time he made over charge of Qandahār to his brother ‘Askarī in 9 … (mutilated). After this the gravure changes in character.

In the above, Bābur’s title Abū’l-ghāzī fixes the date of the inscription as later than the battle of Kanwāha (f. 324b), because it was assumed in consequence of this victory over a Hindū, in March 1527 (Jumāda II 933 AH.).

The mutilated date 9 … is given by Mohan Lall as 952 AH. but this does not suit several circumstances, e. g. it puts completion too far beyond the time mentioned as consumed by the work, nine years, – and it was not that at which Kāmrān made over charge to ‘Askarī, but followed the expulsion of both full-brothers from Qandahār by their half-brother Humāyūn.

The mutilated date 9 … is given by Darmesteter as 933 AH. but this again does not fit the historical circumstance that Kāmrān was in Qandahār after that date and till 937 AH. This date (937 AH.) we suggest as fitting to replace the lost figures, (1) because in that year and after his father’s death, Kāmrān gave the town to ‘Askarī and went himself to Hindūstān, and (2) because work begun in 928 AH. and recorded as occupying 70-80 men for nine years would be complete in 937 AH.2788 The inscription would be one of the last items of the work.

The following matters are added here because indirectly connected with what has been said and because not readily accessible.

a. Birth of Kāmrān.

Kāmrān’s birth falling in a year of one of the Bābur-nāma gaps, is nowhere mentioned. It can be closely inferred as 914 or 915 AH. from the circumstances that he was younger than Humāyūn born late in 913 AH., that it is not mentioned in the fragment of the annals of 914 AH., and that he was one of the children enumerated by Gul-badan as going with her father to Samarkand in 916 AH. (Probably the children did not start with their father in the depth of winter across the mountains.) Possibly the joyful name Kāmrān is linked to the happy issue of the Mughūl rebellion of 914 AH. Kāmrān would thus be about 18 when left in charge of Kābul and Qandahār by Bābur in 932 AH. before the start for the fifth expedition to Hindūstān.

A letter from Bābur to Kāmrān in Qandahār is with Kehr’s Latin version of the Bābur-nāma, in Latin and entered on the lining of the cover. It is shewn by its main topic viz. the despatch of Ibrāhīm Lūdī’s son to Kāmrān’s charge, to date somewhere close to Jan. 3rd 1527 (Rabī‘u’l-awwal 29th 933 AH.) because on that day Bābur writes of the despatch (Ḥai. Codex f. 306b foot).

Presumably the letter was with Kāmrān’s own copy of the Bābur-nāma. That copy may have reached Humāyūn’s hands

(JRAS 1908 p. 828 et seq.). The next known indication of the letter is given in St. Petersburg by Dr. Kehr. He will have seen it or a copy of it with the B.N. Codex he copied (one of unequaled correctness), and he, no doubt, copied it in its place on the fly-leaf or board of his own transcript, but if so, it has disappeared.