The Bābur-nāma

2136

As has been noted frequently, this phrase stands for artificial water-courses.

2137

Certainly Trans-Hindū-kush lands; presumably also those of Trans-Indus, Kābul in chief.

2138

aūstī; perhaps the reservoir was so built as to contain the bubbling spring.

2139

Chūn jā’ī khẉush karda ām.

2140

f. 315.

2141

var. Janwār (Jarrett). It is 25 m. east of Āgra on the Muttra-Etāwa road (G. of I.).

2142

kūcha-band, perhaps a barricade at the limit of a suburban lane.

2143

This has been mentioned already (f. 327).

2144

f. 315.

2145

i. e. those professedly held for Bābur.

2146

Or, according to local pronunciation, Badāyūn.

2147

This is the old name of Shāhābād in Rāmpūr (G. of I. xxii, 197). The A. – i-A. locates it in Saṃbal. Cf. E. and D.’s History of India, iv, 384 n. and v. 215 n.

2148

Perhaps the one in Sītapūr.

2149

f. 305b.

2150

As the Elphinstone Codex which is the treasure-house of Humāyūn’s notes, has a long lacuna into which this episode falls, it is not known if the culprit entered in his copy of the Bābur-nāma a marginal excuse for his misconduct (cf. f. 252 and n.); such excuse was likely to be that he knew he would be forgiven by his clement father.

2151

f. 305b.

2152

Kāmrān would be in Qandahār. Erskine notes that the sum sent to him would be about £750, but that if the coins were rūpīs, it would be £30,000.

2153

qit̤a‘, for account of which form of poem see Blochmann’s translations of Saifī’s and Jāmī’s Prosody, p. 86.

2154

Rāmpūr Dīwān (E. D. Ross’ ed. p. 16 and Plate 14a). I am uncertain as to the meaning of ll. 4 and 10. I am not sure that what in most MSS. ends line 4, viz. aūl dam, should not be read as aūlūm, death; this is allowed by Plate 14a where for space the word is divided and may be aūlūm. To read aūlūm and that the deserters fled from the death in Hind they were anxious about, has an answering phrase in “we still are alive”. Ll. 9 and 10 perhaps mean that in the things named all have done alike. [Ilminsky reads khāir nafsī for the elsewhere ḥaz̤z̤-nafsī.]

2155

These are 20 attitudes (rak‘ah) assumed in prayer during Ramẓān after the Bed-time Prayer. The ablution (ghusl) is the bathing of the whole body for ceremonial purification.

2156

This Feast is the ‘Id-i-fit̤ṛ, held at the breaking of the Ramẓān Fast on the 1st of Shawwāl.

2157

Erskine notes that this is the earliest mention of playing-cards he can recall in oriental literature.

2158

f. 339b.

2159

The two varieties mentioned by Bābur seem to be Diospyrus melanoxylon, the wood of which is called tindu abnūs in Hindūstānī, and D. tomentosa, Hindi, tindu (Brandis s. nn.). Bārī is 19 m. west of Dūlpūr.

2160

mī‘ād, perhaps the time at which the Shaikh was to appear before Bābur.

2161

The Pers. trs. makes the more definite statement that what had to be read was a Section of the Qoran (wird). This was done with remedial aim for the illness.

2162

As this statement needs comment, and as it is linked to matters mentioned in the Rāmpūr Dīwān, it seems better to remit remarks upon it to Appendix Q, Some matters concerning the Rāmpūr Dīwān.

2163

risāla. See Appendix Q.

2164

Elph. MS. lacuna; I.O. 215 lacuna and 217 f. 229; Mems. p. 373. This year’s narrative resumes the diary form.

2165

There is some uncertainty about these names and also as to which adversary crossed the river. The sentence which, I think, shews, by its plural verb, that Humāyūn left two men and, by its co-ordinate participles, that it was they crossed the river, is as follows: – (Darwīsh and Yūsuf, understood) Qut̤b Sīrwānī-nī u bīr pāra rājalār-nī bīr daryā aūtūb aūrūshūb yakshī bāsīb tūrlār. Aūtūb, aūrūshūb and bāsīb are grammatically referable to the same subject, [whatever was the fact about the crossing].

2166

bīr daryā; W. – i-B. 217 f. 229, yak daryā, one river, but many MSS. har daryā, every river. If it did not seem pretty certain that the rebels were not in the Miyān-dū-āb one would surmise the river to be “one river” of the two enclosing the tract “between the waters”, and that one to be the Ganges. It may be one near Saṃbhal, east of the Ganges.

2167

var. Shīrwānī. The place giving the cognomen may be Sarwān, a thakurāt of the Mālwā Agency (G. of I.). Qut̤b of Sīrwān may be the Qut̤b Khān of earlier mention without the cognomen.

2168

n. w. of Aligarh (Kūl). It may be noted here, where instances begin to be frequent, that my translation “we marched” is an evasion of the Turkī impersonal “it was marched”. Most rarely does Bābur write “we marched”, never, “I marched.”

2169

in the Aligarh (Kūl) district; it is the Sikandara Rao of the A. – i-A. and the G. of I.

2170

Rāmpūr Dīwān (E. D. Ross’ ed., p. 19, Plate 16b). This Dīwān contains other quatrains which, judging from their contents, may well be those Bābur speaks of as also composed in Saṃbal. See Appendix Q, Some matters concerning the Rāmpūr Dīwān.

2171

These are aunts of Bābur, daughters of Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrān-shāhī.

2172

Sikandarābād is in the Buland-shahr district of the United Provinces.

2173

It is not clear whether Bābur returned from Sīkrī on the day he started for Jalīsīr; no question of distance would prevent him from making the two journeys on the Monday.

2174

As this was the rendezvous for the army, it would be convenient if it lay between Āgra and Anwār; as it was 6 m. from Āgra, the only mapped place having approximately the name Jalīsīr, viz. Jalesar, in Etah, seems too far away.

2175

Anwār would be suitably the Unwāra of the Indian Atlas, which is on the first important southward dip of the Jumna below Āgra. Chandwār is 25 m. east of Āgra, on the Muttra-Etāwah road (G. of I.); Jarrett notes that Tiefenthaler identifies it with Fīrūzābād (A. – i-A. ii, 183 n.).

2176

In the district of Kālpī. The name does not appear in maps I have seen.

2177

āghā, Anglicé, uncle. He was Sa‘īd Khān of Kāshghar. Ḥaidar M. says Bābā Sl. was a spoiled child and died without mending his ways.

2178

From Kālpī Bābur will have taken the road to the s.w. near which now runs the Cawnpur (Kānhpūr) branch of the Indian Midland Railway, and he must have crossed the Betwa to reach Īrij (Irich, Indian Atlas, Sheet 69 N.W.).

2179

Leaving Īrij, Bābur will have recrossed the Betwa and have left its valley to go west to Bāndīr (Bhander) on the Pahūj (Indian Atlas, Sheet 69 S.W.).

2180

beneficent, or Muḥassan, comely.

2181

The one man of this name mentioned in the B.N. is an amīr of Sl. Ḥusain Bāī-qarā.

2182

It seems safe to take Kachwa [Kajwa] as the Kajwarra of Ibn Batūta, and the Kadwāha (Kadwaia) of the Indian Atlas, Sheet 52 N.E. and of Luard’s Gazetteer of Gwalior (i, 247), which is situated in 24° 58’ N. and 77° 57’ E. Each of the three names is of a place standing on a lake; Ibn Batūta’s lake was a league (4 m.) long, Bābur’s about 11 miles round; Luard mentions no lake, but the Indian Atlas marks one quite close to Kadwāha of such form as to seem to have a tongue of land jutting into it from the north-west, and thus suiting Bābur’s description of the site of Kachwa. Again, – Ibn Batūta writes of Kajwarra as having, round its lake, idol-temples; Luard says of Kadwāha that it has four idol-temples standing and nine in ruins; there may be hinted something special about Bābur’s Kachwa by his remark that he encouraged its people, and this speciality may be interaction between Muḥammadanism and Hindūism serving here for the purpose of identification. For Ibn Batūta writes of the people of Kajwarra that they were jogīs, yellowed by asceticism, wearing their hair long and matted, and having Muḥammadan followers who desired to learn their (occult?) secrets. If the same interaction existed in Bābur’s day, the Muḥammadan following of the Hindū ascetics may well have been the special circumstance which led him to promise protection to those Hindūs, even when he was out for Holy-war. It has to be remembered of Chandīrī, the nearest powerful neighbour of Kadwāha, that though Bābur’s capture makes a vivid picture of Hindūism in it, it had been under Muḥammadan rulers down to a relatively short time before his conquest. The jogīs of Kachwa could point to long-standing relations of tolerance by the Chandīrī Governors; this, with their Muḥammadan following, explains the encouragement Bābur gave them, and helps to identify Kachwa with Kajarra. It may be observed that Bābur was familiar with the interaction of the two creeds, witness his “apostates”, mostly Muḥammadans following Hindū customs, witness too, for the persistent fact, the reports of District-officers under the British Rāj. Again, – a further circumstance helping to identify Kajwarra, Kachwa and Kadwāha is that these are names of the last important station the traveller and the soldier, as well perhaps as the modern wayfarer, stays in before reaching Chandīrī. The importance of Kajwarra is shewn by Ibn Batūta, and of Kadwāha by its being a maḥāll in Akbar’s sarkār of Bāyawān of the ṣūba of Āgra. Again, – Kadwāha is the place nearest to Chandīrī about which Bābur’s difficulties as to intermediate road and jungle would arise. That intermediate road takes off the main one a little south of Kadwāha and runs through what looks like a narrow valley and broken country down to Bhamor, Bhurānpūr and Chandīrī. Again, – no bar to identification of the three names is placed by their differences of form, in consideration of the vicissitudes they have weathered in tongue, script, and transliteration. There is some ground, I believe, for surmising that their common source is kajūr, the date-fruit. [I am indebted to my husband for the help derived from Ibn Batūta, traced by him in Sanguinetti’s trs. iv, 33, and S. Lee’s trs. p. 162.]

Two places similar in name to Kachwa, and situated on Bābur’s route viz. Kocha near Jhansi, and Kuchoowa north of Kadwāha (Sheet 69 S.W.) are unsuitable for his “Kachwa”, the first because too near Bandīr to suit his itinerary, the second because too far from the turn off the main-road mentioned above, because it has no lake, and has not the help in identification detailed above of Kadwāha.)

2183

qūrūghīr which could mean also reserved (from the water?).

2184

qāzān. There seems to have been one only; how few Bābur had is shewn again on f. 337.

2185

Indian Atlas, Sheet 52 N.E. near a tributary of the Betwa, the Or, which appears to be Bābur’s Burhānpūr-water.

2186

The bed of the Betwa opposite Chandīrī is 1050 ft. above the sea; the walled-town (qūrghān) of Chandīrī is on a table-land 250 ft. higher, and its citadel is 230 ft. higher again (Cunningham’s Archeological Survey Report, 1871 A.D. ii, 404).

2187

The plan of Chandīrī illustrating Cunningham’s Report (see last note) allows surmise about the road taken by Bābur, surmise which could become knowledge if the names of tanks he gives were still known. The courtesy of the Government of India allows me to reproduce that plan [Appendix R, Chandīrī and Gwālīāwar].

2188

He is said to have been Governor of Chandīrī in 1513 AD.

2189

Here and in similar passages the word m: ljār or m: lchār is found in MSS. where the meaning is that of T. būljār. It is not in any dictionary I have seen; Mr. Irvine found it “obscure” and surmised it to mean “approach by trenches”, but this does not suit its uses in the Bābur-nāma of a military post, and a rendezvous. This surmise, containing, as it does, a notion of protection, links m: ljār in sense with Ar. malja'. The word needs expert consideration, in order to decide whether it is to be received into dictionaries, or to be rejected because explicable as the outcome of unfamiliarity in Persian scribes with T. būljār or, more Persico with narrowed vowels, bŭljăr. Shaw in his Vocabulary enters būljāq (būljār?), “a station for troops, a rendezvous, see malja',” thus indicating, it would seem, that he was aware of difficulty about m: ljār and būljāq (būljār?). There appears no doubt of the existence of a Turkī word būljār with the meanings Shaw gives to būljāq; it could well be formed from the root būl, being, whence follows, being in a place, posted. Maljā has the meaning of a standing-place, as well as those of a refuge and an asylum; both meanings seem combined in the m: ljār of f. 336b, where for matchlockmen a m: ljār was ordered “raised”. (Cf. Irvine’s Army of the Indian Moghuls p. 278.)

2190

yāghdā; Pers. trs. sar-āshīb. Bābur’s remark seems to show that for effect his mortar needed to be higher than its object. Presumably it stood on the table-land north of the citadel.

2191

shātū. It may be noted that this word, common in accounts of Bābur’s sieges, may explain one our friend the late Mr. William Irvine left undecided (l. c. p. 278), viz. shāt̤ūr. On p. 281 he states that nardubān is the name of a scaling-ladder and that Bābur mentions scaling ladders more than once. Bābur mentions them however always as shātū. Perhaps shāt̤ūr which, as Mr. Irvine says, seems to be made of the trunks of trees and to be a siege appliance, is really shātū u … (ladder and …) as in the passage under note and on f. 216b, some other name of an appliance following.

2192

The word here preceding tūra has puzzled scribes and translators. I have seen the following variants in MSS.; —nūkrī or tūkrī, b: krī or y: krī, būkrī or yūkrī, būkrāī or yūkrāī, in each of which the k may stand for g. Various suggestions might be made as to what the word is, but all involve reading the Persian enclitic ī (forming the adjective) instead of Turkī līk. Two roots, tīg and yūg, afford plausible explanations of the unknown word; appliances suiting the case and able to bear names formed from one or other of these roots are wheeled mantelet, and head-strike (P. sar-kob). That the word is difficult is shewn not only by the variants I have quoted, but by Erskine’s reading naukarī tūra, “to serve the tūras,” a requisite not specified earlier by Bābur, and by de Courteille’s paraphrase, tout ce qui est nécessaire aux touras.

2193

Sl. Nāṣiru’d-dīn was the Khīljī ruler of Mālwā from 906 to 916 A.H. (1500-1510 AD.).

2194

He was a Rājpūt who had been prime-minister of Sl. Maḥmūd II. Khīljī (son of Nāṣīru’d-dīn) and had rebelled. Bābur (like some other writers) spells his name Mindnī, perhaps as he heard it spoken.

2195

Presumably the one in the United Provinces. For Shamsābād in Gūālīār see Luard l. c. i, 286.

2196

chīqtī; Pers. trs. bar āmad and, also in some MSS. namī bar āmad; Mems. p. 376, “averse to conciliation”; Méms. ii, 329, “s'élevèrent contre cette proposition.” So far I have not found Bābur using the verb chīqmāq metaphorically. It is his frequent verb to express “getting away”, “going out of a fort”. It would be a short step in metaphor to understand here that Medinī’s men “got out of it”, i. e. what Bābur offered. They may have left the fort also; if so, it would be through dissent.

2197

f. 332.

2198

I.O. 217, f. 231, inserts here what seems a gloss, “Tā īn jā Farsī farmūda” (gufta, said). As Bābur enters his speech in Persian, it is manifest that he used Persian to conceal the bad news.

2199

The Illustrated London News of July 10th, 1915 (on which day this note is written), has an àpropos picture of an ancient fortress-gun, with its stone-ammunition, taken by the Allies in a Dardanelles fort.

2200

The dū-tahī is the āb-duzd, water-thief, of f. 67. Its position can be surmised from Cunningham’s Plan [Appendix R].

2201

For Bābur’s use of hand (qūl) as a military term see f. 209.

2202

His full designation would be Shāh Muḥammad yūz-begī.

2203

This will be flight from the ramparts to other places in the fort.

2204

Bābur’s account of the siege of Chandīrī is incomplete, inasmuch as it says nothing of the general massacre of pagans he has mentioned on f. 272. Khẉāfī Khān records the massacre, saying, that after the fort was surrendered, as was done on condition of safety for the garrison, from 3 to 4000 pagans were put to death by Bābur’s troops on account of hostility shewn during the evacuation of the fort. The time assigned to the massacre is previous to the jūhar of 1000 women and children and the self-slaughter of men in Medinī Rāo’s house, in which he himself died. It is not easy to fit the two accounts in; this might be done, however, by supposing that a folio of Bābur’s MS. was lost, as others seem lost at the end of the narrative of this year’s events (q. v.). The lost folio would tell of the surrender, one clearly affecting the mass of Rājpūt followers and not the chiefs who stood for victory or death and who may have made sacrifice to honour after hearing of the surrender. Bābur’s narrative in this part certainly reads less consecutive than is usual with him; something preceding his account of the jūhar would improve it, and would serve another purpose also, since mention of the surrender would fix a term ending the now too short time of under one hour he assigns as the duration of the fighting. If a surrender had been mentioned, it would be clear that his “2 or 3 garīs” included the attacking and taking of the dū-tahī and down to the retreat of the Rājpūts from the walls. On this Bābur’s narrative of the unavailing sacrifice of the chiefs would follow in due order. Khẉāfī Khān is more circumstantial than Firishta who says nothing of surrender or massacre, but states that 6000 men were killed fighting. Khẉāfī Khān’s authorities may throw light on the matter, which so far does not hang well together in any narrative, Bābur’s, Firishta’s, or Khẉāfī Khān’s. One would like to know what led such a large body of Rājpūts to surrender so quickly; had they been all through in favour of accepting terms? One wonders, again, why from 3 to 4000 Rājpūts did not put up a better resistance to massacre. Perhaps their assailants were Turks, stubborn fighters down to 1915 AD.

2205

For suggestion about the brevity of this period, see last note.

2206

Clearly, without Bābur’s taking part in the fighting.

2207

These words by abjad make 934. The Ḥai. MS. mistakenly writes Būd Chandīrī in the first line of the quatrain instead of Būd chandī. Khẉāfī Khān quotes the quatrain with slight variants.

2208

Chandīrī t̤aurī wilāyat (dā?) wāqī‘ būlūb tūr, which seems to need dā, in, because the fort, and not the country, is described. Or there may be an omission e. g. of a second sentence about the walled-town (fort).

2209

This is the “Kirat-sagar” of Cunningham’s Plan of Chandīrī; it is mentioned under this name by Luard (l. c. i, 210). “Kirat” represents Kirtī or Kirit Sīngh who ruled in Gūālīār from 1455 to 1479 AD., there also making a tank (Luard, l. c. i, 232).

2210

For illustrative photographs see Luard, l. c. vol. i, part iv.

2211

I have taken this sentence to apply to the location of the tanks, but with some doubt; they are on the table-land.

2212

Bābur appears to have written Betwī, this form being in MSS. I have read the name to be that of the river Betwa which is at a considerable distance from the fort. But some writers dispraise its waters where Bābur praises.

2213

T. qīā means a slope or slant; here it may describe tilted strata, such as would provide slabs for roofing and split easily for building purposes. (See next note.)

2214

‘imārat qīlmāq munāsib. This has been read to mean that the qīālar provide good sites (Mems. & Méms.), but position, distance from the protection of the fort, and the merit of local stone for building incline me to read the words quoted above as referring to the convenient lie of the stone for building purposes. (See preceding note.)

2215

Chandīrī-dā judai (jady) – nīng irtiqā‘ī yīgīrma-bīsh darja dūr; Erskine, p. 378, Chanderi is situated in the 25th degree of N. latitude; de Courteille, ii, 334, La hauteur du Capricorne à Tchanderi est de 25 degrées. The latitude of Chandīrī, it may be noted, is 24° 43'. It does not appear to me indisputable that what Bābur says here is a statement of latitude. The word judai (or jady) means both Pole-star and the Sign Capricorn. M. de Courteille translates the quoted sentence as I have done, but with Capricorn for Pole-star. My acquaintance with such expressions in French does not allow me to know whether his words are a statement of latitude. It occurs to me against this being so, that Bābur uses other words when he gives the latitude of Samarkand (f. 44b); and also that he has shewn attention to the Pole-star as a guide on a journey (f. 203, where he uses the more common word Qut̤b). Perhaps he notes its lower altitude when he is far south, in the way he noted the first rise of Canopus to his view (f. 125).