The Bābur-nāma

339

This statement is confused in the Elp. and Ḥai. MSS. The second appears to give, by abjad, lat. 40° 6" and long. 99'. Mr. Erskine (p. 48) gives lat. 39’ 57" and long. 99’ 16”, noting that this is according to Ūlūgh Beg’s Tables and that the long. is calculated from Ferro. The Ency. Br. of 1910-11 gives lat. 39’ 39" and long. 66’ 45”.

340

The enigmatical cognomen, Protected Town, is of early date; it is used i. a. by Ibn Batūta in the 14th. century. Bābur’s tense refers it to the past. The town had frequently changed hands in historic times before he wrote. The name may be due to immunity from damage to the buildings in the town. Even Chīngīz Khān’s capture (1222 AD.) left the place well-preserved and its lands cultivated, but it inflicted great loss of men. Cf. Schuyler i, 236 and his authorities, especially Bretschneider.

341

Here is a good example of Bābur’s caution in narrative. He does not affirm that Samarkand became Musalmān, or (infra) that Quṣam ibn ‘Abbās went, or that Alexander founded but in each case uses the presumptive past tense, resp. būlghān dūr, bārghān dūr, bīnā qīlghān dūr, thus showing that he repeats what may be inferred or presumed and not what he himself asserts.

342

i. e. of Muḥammad. See Z̤.N. ii, 193.

343

i. e. Fat Village. His text misleading him, Mr. Erskine makes here the useful irrelevant note that Persians and Arabs call the place Samar-qand and Turks, Samar-kand, the former using qaf (q), the latter kaf (k). Both the Elph. and the Ḥai. MSS. write Samarqand.

For use of the name Fat Village, see Clavijo (Markham p. 170), Simesquinte, and Bretschneider’s Mediæval Geography pp. 61, 64, 66 and 163.

344

qadam. Kostenko (i, 344) gives 9 m. as the circumference of the old walls and 1-2/3m. as that of the citadel. See Mde. Ujfalvy p. 175 for a picture of the walls.

345

Ma‘lūm aīmās kīm mūncha paidā būlmīsh būlghāī; an idiomatic phrase.

346

d. 333 AH. (944 AD.). See D’Herbélot art. Mātridī p. 572.

347

See D’Herbélot art. Aschair p. 124.

348

Abū ‘Abdu’l-lāh bin Ismā‘īlu’l-jausī b. 194 AH. d. 256 AH. (810-870 AD.). See D’Herbélot art. Bokhārī p. 191, art. Giorag p. 373, and art. Ṣāḥiḥu’l-bokhārī p. 722. He passed a short period, only, of his life in Khartank, a suburb of Samarkand.

349

Cf. f. 3b and n. 1.

350

This though 2475 ft. above the sea is only some 300 ft. above Samarkand. It is the Chūpān-ātā (Father of Shepherds) of maps and on it Tīmūr built a shrine to the local patron of shepherds. The Zar-afshān, or rather, its Qarā-sū arm, flows from the east of the Little Hill and turns round it to flow west. Bābur uses the name Kohik Water loosely; e. g. for the whole Zar-afshān when he speaks (infra) of cutting off the Dar-i-gham canal but for its southern arm only, the Qarā-sū in several places, and once, for the Dar-i-gham canal. See f. 49b and Kostenko i. 192.

351

rūd. The Zar-afshān has a very rapid current. See Kostenko i, 196, and for the canal, i, 174. The name Dar-i-gham is used also for a musical note having charm to witch away grief; and also for a town noted for its wines.

352

What this represents can only be guessed; perhaps 150 to 200 miles. Abū’l-fidā (Reinaud ii, 213) quotes Ibn Haukal as saying that from Bukhārā up to “Bottam” (this seems to be where the Zar-afshān emerges into the open land) is eight days’ journey through an unbroken tangle of verdure and gardens.

353

See Schuyler i, 286 on the apportionment of water to Samarkand and Bukhārā.

354

It is still grown in the Samarkand region, and in Mr. Erskine’s time a grape of the same name was cultivated in Aurangābād of the Deccan.

355

i. e. Shāhrukhī, Tīmūr’s grandson, through Shāhrukh. It may be noted here that Bābur never gives Tīmūr any other title than Beg and that he styles all Tīmūrids, Mīrzā (Mīr-born).

356

Mr. Erskine here points out the contradiction between the statements (i) of Ibn Haukal, writing, in 367 AH. (977 AD.), of Samarkand as having a citadel (ark), an outer-fort (qūrghān) and Gates in both circumvallations; and (2) of Sharafu’d-dīn Yazdī (Z̤.N.) who mentions that when, in Tīmūr’s day, the Getes besieged Samarkand, it had neither walls nor gates. See Ouseley’s Ibn Haukal p. 253; Z̤.N. Bib. Ind. ed. i, 109 and Pétis de la Croix’s Z̤.N. (Histoire de Tīmūr Beg) i, 91.

357

Here still lies the Ascension Stone, the Gūk-tāsh, a block of greyish white marble. Concerning the date of the erection of the building and meaning of its name, see e. g. Pétis de la Croix’s Histoire de Chīngīz Khān p. 171; Mems. p. 40 note; and Schuyler s. n.

358

This seems to be the Bībī Khānīm Mosque. The author of Les Mosquées de Samarcande states that Tīmūr built Bībī Khānīm and the Gūr-i-amīr (Amīr’s tomb); decorated Shāh-i-zinda and set up the Chūpān-ātā shrine. Cf. f. 46 and note to Jahāngīr Mīrzā, as to the Gūr-i-amīr.

359

Cap. II. Quoting from Sale’s Qur’ān (i, 24) the verse is, “And Ibrāhīm and Ismā‘īl raised the foundations of the house, saying, ‘Lord! accept it from us, for Thou art he who hearest and knowest; Lord! make us also resigned to Thee, and show us Thy holy ceremonies, and be turned to us, for Thou art easy to be reconciled, and merciful.’”

360

or, buland, Garden of the Height or High Garden. The Turkī texts have what can be read as buldī but the Z̤.N. both when describing it (ii, 194) and elsewhere (e. g. ii, 596) writes buland. Buldī may be a clerical error for bulandī, the height, a name agreeing with the position of the garden.

361

In the Heart-expanding Garden, the Spanish Ambassadors had their first interview with Tīmūr. See Clavijo (Markham p. 130). Also the Z̤.N. ii, 6 for an account of its construction.

362

Judging from the location of the gardens and of Bābur’s camps, this appears to be the Avenue mentioned on f. 39b and f. 40.

363

See infra f. 48 and note.

364

The Plane-tree Garden. This seems to be Clavijo’s Bayginar, laid out shortly before he saw it (Markham p. 136).

365

The citadel of Samarkand stands high; from it the ground slopes west and south; on these sides therefore gardens outside the walls would lie markedly below the outer-fort (tāsh-qūrghān). Here as elsewhere the second W. – i-B. reads stone for outer (Cf. index s. n. tāsh). For the making of the North garden see Z̤.N. i, 799.

366

Tīmūr’s eldest son, d. 805 AH. (1402 AD.), before his father, therefore. Bābur’s wording suggests that in his day, the Gūr-i-amīr was known as the Madrāsa. See as to the buildings Z̤.N. i, 713 and ii, 492, 595, 597, 705; Clavijo (Markham p. 164 and p. 166); and Les Mosquées de Samarcande.

367

Hindūstān would make a better climax here than Samarkand does.

368

These appear to be pictures or ornamentations of carved wood. Redhouse describes islīmī as a special kind of ornamentation in curved lines, similar to Chinese methods.

369

i. e. the Black Stone (ka’ba) at Makkah to which Musalmāns turn in prayer.

370

As ancient observatories were themselves the instruments of astronomical observation, Bābur’s wording is correct. Aūlūgh Beg’s great quadrant was 180 ft. high; Abū-muḥammad Khujandī’s sextant had a radius of 58 ft. Jā’ī Singh made similar great instruments in Jā’īpūr, Dihlī has others. Cf. Greaves Misc. Works i, 50; Mems. p. 51 note; Āiyīn-i-akbarī (Jarrett) ii, 5 and note; Murray’s Hand-book to Bengal p. 331; Indian Gazetteer xiii, 400.

371

b. 597 AH. d. 672 AH. (1201-1274 AD.). See D’Herbélot’s art. Naṣīr-i-dīn p. 662; Abū’l-fidā (Reinaud, Introduction i, cxxxviii) and Beale’s Biographical Dict. s. n.

372

a grandson of Chīngīz Khān, d. 663 AH. (1265 AD.). The cognomen Aīl-khānī (Īl-khānī) may mean Khān of the Tribe.

373

Ḥarūnu’r-rashīd’s second son; d. 218 AH. (833 AD.).

374

Mr. Erskine notes that this remark would seem to fix the date at which Bābur wrote it as 934 AH. (1527 AD.), that being the 1584th. year of the era of Vikramāditya, and therefore at three years before Bābur’s death. (The Vikramāditya era began 57 BC.)

375

Cf. index s. n. tāsh.

376

This remark may refer to the 34 miles between the town and the quarries of its building stone. See f. 49 and note to Aītmāk Pass.

377

Steingass, any support for the back in sitting, a low wall in front of a house. See Vullers p. 148 and Burhān-i-qāt̤i‘; p. 119. Perhaps a dado.

378

beg u begāt, bāgh u bāghcha.

379

Four Gardens, a quadrilateral garden, laid out in four plots. The use of the name has now been extended for any well-arranged, large garden, especially one belonging to a ruler (Erskine).

380

As two of the trees mentioned here are large, it may be right to translate nārwān, not by pomegranate, but as the hard-wood elm, Madame Ujfalvy’s ‘karagatche’ (p. 168 and p. 222). The name qarā-yīghāch (karagatch), dark tree, is given to trees other than this elm on account of their deep shadow.

381

Now a common plan indeed! See Schuyler i, 173.

382

juwāz-i-kaghazlār (nīng) sū’ī, i. e. the water of the paper-(pulping) – mortars. Owing to the omission from some MSS. of the word sū, water, juwāz has been mistaken for a kind of paper. See Mems. p. 52 and Méms. i, 102; A.Q.R. July 1910, p. 2, art. Paper-mills of Samarkand (H.B.); and Madame Ujfalvy p. 188. Kostenko, it is to be noted, does not include paper in his list (i, 346) of modern manufactures of Samarkand.

383

Mine of mud or clay. My husband has given me support for reading gil, and not gul, rose; – (1) In two good MSS. of the W. – i-B. the word is pointed with kasra, i. e. as for gil, clay; and (2) when describing a feast held in the garden by Tīmūr, the Z̤.N. says the mud-mine became a rose-mine, shuda Kān-i-gil Kān-i-gul. [Mr. Erskine refers here to Pétis de la Croix’s Histoire de Tīmūr Beg (i. e. Z̤.N.) i, 96 and ii, 133 and 421.]

384

qūrūgh. Vullers, classing the word as Arabic, Zenker, classing it as Eastern Turkī, and Erskine (p. 42 n.) explain this as land reserved for the summer encampment of princes. Shaw (Voc. p. 155), deriving it from qūrūmāq, to frighten, explains it as a fenced field of growing grain.

385

Cf. f. 40. There it is located at one yīghāch and here at 3 kurohs from the town.

386

t̤aur. Cf. Zenker s. n. I understand it to lie, as Khān Yūrtī did, in a curve of the river.

387

162 m. by rail.

388

Cf. f. 3.

389

tīrīsīnī sūīūb. The verb sūīmāk, to despoil, seems to exclude the common plan of stoning the fruit. Cf. f. 3b, dānasīnī alīp, taking out the stones.

390

Mīn Samarkandtā aūl (or auwal) aīchkāndā Bukhārā chāghīrlār nī aīchār aīdīm. These words have been understood to refer to Bābur’s initial drinking of wine but this reading is negatived by his statement (f. 189) that he first drank wine in Harāt in 912 AH. I understand his meaning to be that the wine he drank in Samarkand was Bukhārā wine. The time cannot have been earlier than 917 AH. The two words aūl aīchkāndā, I read as parallel to aūl (bāghrī qarā) (f. 280) ‘that drinking,’ ‘that bird,’ i. e. of those other countries, not of Hindūstān where he wrote.

It may be noted that Bābur’s word for wine, chāghīr, may not always represent wine of the grape but may include wine of the apple and pear (cider and perry), and other fruits. Cider, its name seeming to be a descendant of chāghīr, was introduced into England by Crusaders, its manufacture having been learned from Turks in Palestine.

391

48 m. 3 fur. by way of the Aītmāk Pass (mod. Takhta Qarachi), and, Réclus (vi, 256) Buz-gala-khāna, Goat-house.

392

The name Aītmāk, to build, appears to be due to the stone quarries on the range. The pass-head is 34 m. from Samarkand and 3000 ft. above it. See Kostenko ii, 115 and Schuyler ii, 61 for details of the route.

393

The description of this hall is difficult to translate. Clavijo (Markham 124) throws light on the small recesses. Cf. Z̤.N. i, 781 and 300 and Schuyler ii, 68.

394

The Tāq-i-kisrī, below Bāghdād, is 105 ft. high, 84 ft. span and 150 ft. in depth (Erskine).

395

Cf. f. 46. Bābur does not mention that Tīmūr’s father was buried at Kesh. Clavijo (Markham p. 123) says it was Tīmūr’s first intention to be buried near his father, in Kesh.

396

Abū’l-fidā (Reinaud II, ii, 21) says that Nasaf is the Arabic and Nakhshab the local name for Qarshī. Ibn Haukal (Ouseley p. 260) writes Nakhshab.

397

This word has been translated burial-place and cimetière but Qarshī means castle, or royal-residence. The Z̤.N. (i, 111) says that Qarshī is an equivalent for Ar. qaṣr, palace, and was so called, from one built there by Qublāī Khān (d. 1294 AD.). Perhaps Bābur’s word is connected with Gūrkhān, the title of sovereigns in Khutan, and means great or royal-house, i. e. palace.

398

94 m. 6-1/2 fur. via Jām (Kostenko i, 115.)

399

See Appendix B.

400

some 34 m. (Kostenko i, 196). Schuyler mentions that he heard in Qarā-kūl a tradition that the district, in bye-gone days, was fertilized from the Sīr.

401

Cf. f. 45.

402

By abjad the words ‘Abbās kasht yield 853. The date of the murder was Ramẓān 9, 853 AH. (Oct. 27th. 1449 AD.).

403

This couplet is quoted in the Rauẓatu’ṣ-ṣafā (lith. ed. vi, f. 234 foot) and in the Ḥ.S. ii, 44. It is said, in the R.Ṣ. to be by Niz̤āmī and to refer to the killing by Shīrūya of his father, Khusrau Parwīz in 7 AH. (628 AD.). The Ḥ.S. says that ‘Abdu’l-lat̤īf constantly repeated the couplet, after he had murdered his father. [See also Daulat Shāh (Browne p. 356 and p. 366.) H.B.]

404

By abjad, Bābā Ḥusain kasht yields 854. The death was on Rabi‘ I, 26, 854 AH. (May 9th. 1450 AD.). See R.Ṣ. vi, 235 for an account of this death.

405

This overstates the time; dates shew 1 yr. 1 mth. and a few days.

406

i. e. The Khān of the Mughūls, Bābur’s uncle.

407

Elph. MS. aūrmaghāīlār, might not turn; Ḥai. and Kehr’s MSS. (sar bā bād) bīrmāghāīlār, might not give. Both metaphors seem drawn from the protective habit of man and beast of turning the back to a storm-wind.

408

i. e. betwixt two waters, the Miyān-i-dū-āb of India. Here, it is the most fertile triangle of land in Turkistān (Réclus, vi, 199), enclosed by the eastern mountains, the Nārīn and the Qarā-sū; Rabāt̤ik-aūrchīnī, its alternative name, means Small Station sub-district. From the uses of aūrchīn I infer that it describes a district in which there is no considerable head-quarters fort.

409

i. e. his own, Qūtlūq-nigār Khānīm and hers, Aīsān-daulat Begīm, with perhaps other widows of his father, probably Shāh Sult̤ān Begīm.

410

Cf. f. 16 for almost verbatim statements.

411

Blacksmith’s Dale. Ahangarān appears corrupted in modern maps to Angren. See Ḥ.S. ii, 293 for Khwānd-amīr’s wording of this episode.

412

Cf. f. 1b and Kostenko i, 101.

413

i. e. Khān Uncle (Mother’s brother).

414

n. w. of the Sang ferry over the Sīr.

415

perhaps, messenger of good tidings.

416

This man’s family connections are interesting. He was ‘Alī-shukr Beg Bahārlū’s grandson, nephew therefore of Pāshā Begīm; through his son, Saif-‘alī Beg, he was the grandfather of Bairām Khān-i-khānān and thus the g.g.f. of ‘Abdu’r-raḥīm Mīrzā, the translator of the Second Wāqi‘āt-i-bāburī. See Firishta lith. ed. p. 250.

417

Bābur’s (step-)grandmother, co-widow with Aīsān-daulat of Yūnas Khān and mother of Aḥmad and Maḥmud Chaghatāī.

418

Here the narrative picks up the thread of Khusrau Shāh’s affairs, dropped on f. 44.

419

mīng tūmān fulūs, i. e. a thousand sets-of-ten-thousand small copper coins. Mr. Erskine (Mems. p. 61) here has a note on coins. As here the tūmān does not seem to be a coin but a number, I do not reproduce it, valuable as it is per se.

420

ārīqlār; this the annotator of the Elph. MS. has changed to āshlīq, provisions, corn.

421

Samān-chī may mean Keeper of the Goods. Tīngrī-bīrdī, Theodore, is the purely Turkī form of the Khudāī-bīrdī, already met with several times in the B.N.

422

Bast (Bost) is on the left bank of the Halmand.

423

Cf. f. 56b.

424

known as Kābulī. He was a son of Abū-sa‘īd and thus an uncle of Bābur. He ruled Kābul and Ghaznī from a date previous to his father’s death in 873 AH. (perhaps from the time ‘Umar Shaikh was not sent there, in 870 AH. See f. 6b) to his death in 907 AH. Bābur was his virtual successor in Kābul, in 910 AH.

425

Elph. MS. f. 42; W. – i-B. I.O. 215 f. 47b and 217 f. 38; Mems. p. 63. Bābur here resumes his own story, interrupted on f. 56.

426

aīsh achīlmādī, a phrase recurring on f. 59b foot. It appears to imply, of trust in Providence, what the English “The way was not opened,” does. Cf. f. 60b for another example of trust, there clinching discussion whether to go or not to go to Marghīnān.

427

i. e. Aḥrārī. He had been dead some 10 years. The despoilment of his family is mentioned on f. 23b.

428

fatratlār, here those due to the deaths of Aḥmad and Maḥmūd with their sequel of unstable government in Samarkand.

429

Aūghlāqchī, the player of the kid-game, the gray-wolfer. Yār-yīlāq will have gone with the rest of Samarkand into ‘Alī’s hands in Rajab 903 AH. (March 1498). Contingent terms between him and Bābur will have been made; Yūsuf may have recognized some show of right under them, for allowing Bābur to occupy Yār-yīlāq.

430

i. e. after 933 AH. Cf. f. 46b and note concerning the Bikramāditya era. See index s. n. Aḥmad-i-yūsuf and Ḥ.S. ii, 293.

431

This plural, unless ironical, cannot be read as honouring ‘Alī; Bābur uses the honorific plural most rarely and specially, e. g. for saintly persons, for The Khān and for elder women-kinsfolk.

432

bīr yārīm yīl. Dates shew this to mean six months. It appears a parallel expression to Pers. hasht-yak, one-eighth.

433

Ḥ.S. ii, 293, in place of these two quotations, has a misra‘, —Na rāy ṣafar kardan u na rūy iqāmat, (Nor resolve to march, nor face to stay).

434

i. e. in Samarkand.

435

Point to point, some 145 m. but much further by the road. Tang-āb seems likely to be one of the head-waters of Khwāja Bikargān-water. Thence the route would be by unfrequented hill-tracks, each man leading his second horse.

436

tūn yārīmī naqāra waqtīdā. Tūn yārīmī seems to mean half-dark, twilight. Here it cannot mean mid-night since this would imply a halt of twelve hours and Bābur says no halt was made. The drum next following mid-day is the one beaten at sunset.

437

The voluntary prayer, offered when the sun has well risen, fits the context.

438

I understand that the obeisance was made in the Gate-house, between the inner and outer doors.

439

This seeming sobriquet may be due to eloquence or to good looks.

440

qarā tīyāq. Cf. f. 63 where black bludgeons are used by a red rabble.

441

He was head-man of his clan and again with Shaibānī in 909 AH. (Sh. N. Vambéry, p. 272). Erskine (p. 67) notes that the Manghīts are the modern Nogais.

442

i. e. in order to allow for the here very swift current. The Ḥ.S. varying a good deal in details from the B.N. gives the useful information that Aūzūn Ḥasan’s men knew nothing of the coming of the Tāshkīnt Mughūls.

443

Cf. f. 4b and App. A. as to the position of Akhsī.

444

bārīnī qīrdīlār. After this statement the five exceptions are unexpected; Bābur’s wording is somewhat confused here.

445

i. e. in Hindūstān.

446

Taṃbal would be the competitor for the second place.

447