The Bābur-nāma

Chū bīān qīldīm āndā shar‘īyāt,

Nī ‘ajab gar Mubīn dīdīm āt?

(Since in it I have made exposition of Laws, what wonder if I named it Mubīn (exposition)?) Cf. Translator’s Note, p. 437. [Berésine says (Ch. T.) that he prints half of his “unique manuscrit” of the poem.]

2370

The passage Bābur quotes comes from the Mubīn section on tayammum masā’la (purification with sand), where he tells his son sand may be used, Sū yurāq būlsā sīndīn aīr bīr mīl (if from thee water be one mīl distant), and then interjects the above explanation of what the mīl is. Two lines of his original are not with the Bābur-nāma.

2371

The t̤anāb was thus 120 ft. long. Cf. A. – i-A. Jarrett i, 414; Wilson’s Glossary of Indian Terms and Gladwin’s Revenue Accounts, p. 14.

2372

Bābur’s customary method of writing allows the inference that he recorded, in due place, the coming and reception of the somewhat surprising group of guests now mentioned as at this entertainment. That preliminary record will have been lost in one or more of the small gaps in his diary of 935 AH. The envoys from the Samarkand Aūzbegs and from the Persian Court may have come in acknowledgment of the Fātḥ-nāma which announced victory over Rānā Sangā; the guests from Farghāna will have accepted the invitation sent, says Gul-badan, “in all directions,” after Bābur’s defeat of Sl. Ibrāhīm Lūdī, to urge hereditary servants and Tīmūrid and Chīngīz-khānid kinsfolk to come and see prosperity with him now when “the Most High has bestowed sovereignty” (f. 293a; Gul-badan’s H.N. f. 11).

2373

Hindū here will represent Rājpūt. D’Herbélot’s explanation of the name Qīzīl-bāsh (Red-head) comes in usefully here: – “Kezel basch or Kizil basch. Mot Turc qui signifie Tête rouge. Les Turcs appellent les Persans de ce nom, depuis qu’Ismaël Sofi, fondateur de la Dynastie des princes qui regnent aujourd’hui en Perse, commanda à ses soldats de porter un bonnet rouge autour duquel il y a une écharpe ou Turban à douze plis, en mémoire et à l’honneur des 12 Imams, successeurs d’Ali, desquels il prétendoit descendre. Ce bonnet s’appelle en Persan, Tāj, et fut institué l’an 9O7^e de l’Hég.” T̤ahmāsp himself uses the name Qīzīl-bāsh; Bābur does so too. Other explanations of it are found (Steingass), but the one quoted above suits its use without contempt. (Cf. f. 354 n. 3).

2374

cir. 140-150ft. or more if the 36in. qārī be the unit.

2375

Andropogon muricatus, the scented grass of which the roots are fitted into window spaces and moistened to mitigate dry, hot winds. Cf. Hobson-Jobson s. n. Cuscuss.

2376

A nephew and a grandson of Aḥrāri’s second son Yahya (f. 347b) who had stood staunch to Bābur till murdered in 906 AH. -1500 AD. (80b). They are likely to be those to whom went a copy of the Mubīn under cover of a letter addressed to lawyers of Mā warā’u’n-nahr (f. 351 n. 1). The Khwājas were in Āgra three weeks after Bābur finished his metrical version of their ancestor’s Wālidiyyah-risāla; whether their coming (which must have been announced some time before their arrival), had part in directing his attention to the tract can only be surmised (f. 346).

2377

He was an Aūzbeg (f. 371) and from his association here with a Bāī-qarā, and, later with Qāsim-i-ḥusain who was half Bāī-qarā, half Aūzbeg, seems likely to be of the latter’s family (Index s. nn.).

2378

sāchāq kīūrdī (kīltūrdī?) No record survives to tell the motive for this feast; perhaps the gifts made to Bābur were congratulatory on the birth of a grandson, the marriage of a son, and on the generally-prosperous state of his affairs.

2379

Gold, silver and copper coins.

2380

Made so by bhang or other exciting drug.

2381

ārāl, presumably one left by the winter-fall of the Jumna; or, a peninsula.

2382

Scribes and translators have been puzzled here. My guess at the Turkī clause is aūrang aīralīk kīsh jabbah. In reading muslin, I follow Erskine who worked in India and could take local opinion; moreover gifts made in Āgra probably would be Indian.

2383

For one Ḥāfiz̤ of Samarkand see f.237b.

2384

Kūchūm was Khāqān of the Aūzbegs and had his seat in Samarkand. One of his sons, Abū-sa‘īd, mentioned below, had sent envoys. With Abū-sa‘īd is named Mihr-bān who was one of Kūchūm’s wives; Pulād was their son. Mihr-bān was, I think, a half-sister of Bābur, a daughter of ‘Umar Shaikh and Umīd of Andijān (f. 9), and a full-sister of Nāṣir. No doubt she had been captured on one of the occasions when Bābur lost to the Aūzbegs. In 925 AH. -1519 AD. (f. 237b) when he sent his earlier Dīwān to Pulād Sl. (Translator’s Note, p. 438) he wrote a verse on its back which looks to be addressed to his half-sister through her son.

2385

T̤ahmāsp’s envoy; the title Chalabī shews high birth.

2386

This statement seems to imply that the weight made of silver and the weight made of gold were of the same size and that the differing specific gravity of the two metals, – that of silver being cir. 10 and that of gold cir. 20 – gave their equivalents the proportion Bābur states. Persian Dictionaries give sang (tāsh), a weight, but without further information. We have not found mention of the tāsh as a recognized Turkī weight; perhaps the word tāsh stands for an ingot of unworked metal of standard size. (Cf. inter alios libros, A. – i-A. Blochmann p. 36, Codrington’s Musalman Numismatics p. 117, concerning the miṣqāl, dīnār, etc.)

2387

tarkāsh bīla. These words are clear in the Ḥai. MS. but uncertain in some others. E. and de C. have no equivalent of them. Perhaps the coins were given by the quiverful; that a quiver of arrows was given is not expressed.

2388

Bābur’s half-nephew; he seems from his name Keepsake-of-nāṣir to have been posthumous.

2389

934 AH. -1528 AD. (f. 336).

2390

Or, gold-embroidered.

2391

Wife of Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā.

2392

These Highlanders of Asfara will have come by invitation sent after the victory at Panīpat; their welcome shows remembrance of and gratitude for kindness received a quarter of a century earlier. Perhaps villagers from Dikh-kat will have come too, who had seen the Pādshāh run barefoot on their hills (Index s.nn.).

2393

Here gratitude is shewn for protection given in 910 AH. -1504 AD. to the families of Bābur and his men when on the way to Kābul. Qurbān and Shaikhī were perhaps in Fort Ajar (f. 122b, f. 126).

2394

Perhaps these acrobats were gipsies.

2395

This may be the one with which Sayyid Daknī was concerned (f. 346).

2396

Bābur obviously made the distinction between pahr and pās that he uses the first for day-watches, the second for those of the night.

2397

Anglicé, Tuesday, Dec. 21st; by Muḥammadan plan, Wednesday 22nd. Dhūlpūr is 34 m. s. of Āgra; the journey of 10hrs. 20m. would include the nooning and the time taken in crossing rivers.

2398

The well was to fill a cistern; the 26 spouts with their 26 supports were to take water into (26?) conduits. Perhaps tāsh means that they were hewn in the solid rock; perhaps that they were on the outer side of the reservoir. They will not have been built of hewn stone, or the word would have been sangīn or tāshdīn.

2399

One occupation of these now blank days is indicated by the date of the “Rāmpūr Dīwān”, Thursday Rabī‘ II. 15th (Dec. 27th).

2400

The demon (or, athlete) sult̤ān of Rumelia (Rūmlū); once T̤ahmāsp’s guardian (Taẕkirat-i-T̤ahmāsp, Bib. Ind. ed. Phillott, p. 2). Some writers say he was put to death by T̤ahmāsp (æt. 12) in 933 AH.; if this were so, it is strange to find a servant described as his in 935 AH. (An account of the battle is given in the Sharaf-nāma, written in 1005 AH. by Sharaf Khān who was reared in T̤ahmāsp’s house. The book has been edited by Veliaminof-Zernof and translated into French by Charmoy; cf. Trs. vol. ii, part i, p. 555. —H. Beveridge.)

2401

This name, used by one who was with the Shāh’s troops, attracts attention; it may show the composition of the Persian army; it may differentiate between the troops and their “Qīzīl-bāsh leader”.

2402

Several writers give Sārū-qamsh (Charmoy, roseau jaune) as the name of the village where the battle was fought; Sharaf Khān gives ‘Umarābād and mentions that after the fight T̤ahmāsp spent some time in the meadow of Sārū-qamsh.

2403

The number of T̤ahmāsp’s guns being a matter of interest, reference should be made to Bābur’s accounts of his own battles in which he arrayed in Rūmī (Ottoman) fashion; it will then be seen that the number of carts does not imply the number of guns (Index s. n. arāba, cart).

2404

This cannot but represent T̤ahmāsp who was on the battle-field (see his own story infra). He was 14 years old; perhaps he was called Shāh-zāda, and not Shāh, on account of his youth, or because under guardianship (?). Readers of the Persian histories of his reign may know the reason. Bābur hitherto has always called the boy Shāh-zāda; after the victory at Jām, he styles him Shāh. Jūha Sl. (Taklū) who was with him on the field, was Governor of Ispahān.

2405

If this Persian account of the battle be in its right place in Bābur’s diary, it is singular that the narrator should be so ill-informed at a date allowing facts to be known; the three sult̤āns he names as killed escaped to die, Kūchūm in 937 AH. -1530 AD., Abū-sa‘īd in 940 AH. -1533 AD., ‘Ubaid in 946 AH. -1539 AD. (Lane-Poole’s Muḥammadan Dynasties). It would be natural for Bābur to comment on the mistake, since envoys from two of the sult̤āns reported killed, were in Āgra. There had been time for the facts to be known: the battle was fought on Sep. 26th; the news of it was in Āgra on Nov. 23rd; envoys from both adversaries were at Bābur’s entertainment on Dec. 19th. From this absence of comment and for the reasons indicated in note 3 (infra), it appears that matter has been lost from the text.

2406

T̤ahmāsp’s account of the battle is as follows (T. – i-T̤. p. 11): – “I marched against the Aūzbegs. The battle took place outside Jām. At the first onset, Aūzbeg prevailed over Qīzīl-bāsh. Ya‘qūb Sl. fled and Sl. Wālāma Taklū and other officers of the right wing were defeated and put to flight. Putting my trust in God, I prayed and advanced some paces… One of my body-guard getting up with ‘Ubaid struck him with a sword, passed on, and occupied himself with another. Qūlīj Bahādur and other Aūzbegs carried off the wounded ‘Ubaid; Kūchkūnjī (Kūchūm) Khān and Jānī Khān Beg, when they became aware of this state of affairs, fled to Merv. Men who had fled from our army rejoined us that day. That night I spent on the barren plain (ṣaḥra'). I did not know what had happened to ‘Ubaid. I thought perhaps they were devising some stratagem against me.” The ‘A. – ‘A. says that ‘Ubaid’s assailant, on seeing his low stature and contemptible appearance, left him for a more worthy foe.

2407

Not only does some comment from Bābur seem needed on an account of deaths he knew had not occurred, but loss of matter may be traced by working backward from his next explicit date (Friday 19th), to do which shows fairly well that the “same day” will be not Tuesday the 16th but Thursday the 18th. Ghīāṣu’d-dīn’s reception was on the day preceding Friday 19th, so that part of Thursday’s record (as shewn by “on this same day”), the whole of Wednesday’s, and (to suit an expected comment by Bābur on the discrepant story of the Aūzbeg deaths) part of Tuesday’s are missing. The gap may well have contained mention of Ḥasan Chalabī’s coming (f. 357), or explain why he had not been at the feast with his younger brother.

2408

qūrchī, perhaps body-guard, life-guardsman.

2409

As on f. 350b (q. v. p. 628 n. 1) aūn altī gūnlūk bŭljār (or, m: ljār) bīla.

2410

A sub-division of the Ballia district of the United Provinces, on the right bank of the Ghogrā.

2411

i. e. in 16 days; he was 24 or 25 days away.

2412

The envoy had been long in returning; Kanwā was fought in March, 1527; it is now the end of 1528 AD.

2413

Rabī‘ II. 20th – January 1st 1529 AD.; Anglicé, Friday, after 6p.m.

2414

This “Bengalī” is territorial only; Naṣrat Shāh was a Sayyid’s son (f.271).

2415

Ismā‘īl Mītā (f. 357) who will have come with Mullā Maẕhab.

2416

mī‘ād, cf. f. 350b and f. 354b. Ghīāṣu’d-dīn may have been a body-guard.

2417

Lūdī Afghāns and their friends, including Bīban and Bāyazīd.

2418

yūllūq tūrālīk; Memoirs, p. 398, “should act in every respect in perfect conformity to his commands”; Mémoires ii, 379, “chacun suivant son rang et sa dignité.”

2419

tawāchī. Bābur’s uses of this word support Erskine in saying that “the tawāchī is an officer who corresponds very nearly to the Turkish chāwush, or special messenger” (Zenker, p. 346, col. iii) “but he was also often employed to act as a commissary for providing men and stores, as a commissioner in superintending important affairs, as an aide-de-camp in carrying orders, etc.”

2420

Here the Ḥai. MS. has the full-vowelled form, būljār. Judging from what that Codex writes, būljār may be used for a rendezvous of troops, m: ljār or b: ljār for any other kind of tryst (f. 350, p. 628 n. 1; Index s. nn.), also for a shelter.

2421

yāwūshūb aīdī, which I translate in accordance with other uses of the verb, as meaning approach, but is taken by some other workers to mean “near its end”.

2422

Though it is not explicitly said, Chīn-tīmūr may have been met with on the road; as the “also” (ham) suggests.

2423

To the above news the Akbar-nāma adds the important item reported by Humāyūn, that there was talk of peace. Bābur replied that, if the time for negotiation were not past, Humāyūn was to make peace until such time as the affairs of Hindūstān were cleared off. This is followed in the A. N. by a seeming quotation from Bābur’s letter, saying in effect that he was about to leave Hindūstān, and that his followers in Kābul and Tramontana must prepare for the expedition against Samarkand which would be made on his own arrival. None of the above matter is now with the Bābur-nāma; either it was there once, was used by Abū’l-faz̤l and lost before the Persian trss. were made; or Abū’l-faẓl used Bābur’s original, or copied, letter itself. That desire for peace prevailed is shewn by several matters: – T̤ahmāsp, the victor, asked and obtained the hand of an Aūzbeg in marriage; Aūzbeg envoys came to Āgra, and with them Turk Khwājas having a mission likely to have been towards peace (f. 357b); Bābur’s wish for peace is shewn above and on f. 359 in a summarized letter to Humāyūn. (Cf. Abū’l-ghāzī’s Shajarat-i-Turk [Histoire des Mongols, Désmaisons’ trs. p. 216]; Akbar-nāma, H. B.’s trs. i, 270.)

A here-useful slip of reference is made by the translator of the Akbar-nāma (l. c. n. 3) to the Fragment (Mémoires ii, 456) instead of to the Bābur-nāma translation (Mémoires ii, 381). The utility of the slip lies in its accompanying comment that de C.’s translation is in closer agreement with the Akbar-nāma than with Bābur’s words. Thus the Akbar-nāma passage is brought into comparison with what it is now safe to regard as its off-shoot, through Turkī and French, in the Fragment. When the above comment on their resemblance was made, we were less assured than now as to the genesis of the Fragment (Index s. n. Fragment).

2424

Hind-āl’s guardian (G. B.’s Humāyūn-nāma trs. p. 106, n. 1).

2425

Nothing more about Humāyūn’s expedition is found in the B. N.; he left Badakhshān a few months later and arrived in Āgra, after his mother (f. 380b), at a date in August of which the record is wanting.

2426

under 6 m. from Āgra. Gul-badan (f. 16) records a visit to the garden, during which her father said he was weary of sovereignty. Cf. f. 331b, p. 589 n. 2.

2427

kūrnīsh kīlkān kīshīlār.

2428

MSS. vary or are indecisive as to the omitted word. I am unable to fill the gap. Erskine has “Sir Māwineh (or hair-twist)” (p. 399), De Courteille, Sir-mouïneh (ii, 382). Mūīna means ermine, sable and other fine fur (Shamsu’l-lūghāt, p 274, col. 1).

2429

His brother Ḥaẓrat Makhdūmī Nūrā (Khwāja Khāwand Maḥmūd) is much celebrated by Ḥaidar Mīrzā, and Bābur describes his own visit in the words he uses of the visit of an inferior to himself. Cf. Tārīkh-i-rashīdī trs. pp. 395, 478; Akbar-nāma trs., i, 356, 360.

2430

No record survives of the arrival of this envoy or of why he was later in coming than his brother who was at Bābur’s entertainment. Cf. f. 361b.

2431

Presumably this refers to the appliances mentioned on f. 350b.

2432

f. 332, n. 3.

2433

zarbaft m: l: k. Amongst gold stuffs imported into Hindūstān, Abū’l-faẓl mentions mīlak which may be Bābur’s cloth. It came from Turkistān (A. – i-A. Blochmann, p. 92 and n.).

2434

A tang is a small silver coin of the value of about a penny (Erskine).

2435

tānglāsī, lit. at its dawning. It is not always clear whether tānglāsī means, Anglicé, next dawn or day, which here would be Monday, or whether it stands for the dawn (daylight) of the Muḥammadan day which had begun at 6 p. m. on the previous evening, here Sunday. When Bābur records, e. g. a late audience, tānglāsī, following, will stand for the daylight of the day of audience. The point is of some importance as bearing on discrepancies of days, as these are stated in MSS., with European calendars; it is conspicuously so in Bābur’s diary sections.

2436

risālat t̤arīqī bīla; their special mission may have been to work for peace (f. 359b, n. 1).

2437

He may well be Kāmrān’s father-in-law Sl. ‘Alī Mīrzā T̤aghāī Begchīk.

2438

nīmcha u takband. The tak-band is a silk or woollen girdle fastening with a “hook and eye” (Steingass), perhaps with a buckle.

2439

This description is that of the contents of the “Rāmpūr Dīwān”; the tarjuma being the Wālidiyyah-risāla (f. 361 and n.). What is said here shows that four copies went to Kābul or further north. Cf. Appendix Q.

2440

Sar-khat̤ may mean “copies” set for Kāmrān to imitate.

2441

bīr pahr yāwūshūb aīdī; I.O. 215 f. 221, qarīb yak pās roz būd.

2442

ākhar, a word which may reveal a bad start and uncertainty as to when and where to halt.

2443

This, and not Chandwār (f. 331b), appears the correct form. Neither this place nor Ābāpūr is mentioned in the G. of I.’s Index or shewn in the I.S. Map of 1900 (cf. f. 331b n. 3). Chandawār lies s.w. of Fīrūzābād, and near a village called Ṣufīpūr.

2444

Anglicé, Wednesday after 6 p.m.

2445

or life-guardsman, body-guard.

2446

This higher title for T̤ahmāsp, which first appears here in the B.N., may be an early slip in the Turkī text, since it occurs in many MSS. and also because “Shāh-zāda” reappears on f. 359.

2447

Slash-face, balafré; perhaps Ibrāhīm Begchīk (Index s. n.), but it is long since he was mentioned by Bābur, at least by name. He may however have come, at this time of reunion in Āgra, with Mīrzā Beg T̤aghāī (his uncle or brother?), father-in-law of Kāmrān.

2448

The army will have kept to the main road connecting the larger towns mentioned and avoiding the ravine district of the Jumna. What the boat-journey will have been between high banks and round remarkable bends can be learned from the G. of I. and Neave’s District Gazetteer of Mainpūrī. Rāprī is on the road from Fīrūzābād to the ferry for Bateswar, where a large fair is held annually. (It is misplaced further east in the I.S. Map of 1900.) There are two Fatḥpūrs, n. e. of Rāprī.

2449

aūlūgh tūghāīnīng tūbī. Here it suits to take the Turkī word tūghāī to mean bend of a river, and as referring to the one shaped (on the map) like a soda-water bottle, its neck close to Rāprī. Bābur avoided it by taking boat below its mouth. – In neither Persian translation has tūghāī been read to mean a bend of a river; the first has az pāyān rūīa Rāprī, perhaps referring to the important ford (pāyān); the second has az zīr bulandī kalān Rāprī, perhaps referring to a height at the meeting of the bank of the ravine down which the road to the ford comes, with the high bank of the river. Three examples of tūghāī or tūqāī [a synonym given by Dictionaries], can be seen in Abū’l-ghāzī’s Shajrat-i-Turk, Fræhn’s imprint, pp. 106, 107, 119 (Désmaisons’ trs. pp. 204, 205, 230). In each instance Désmaisons renders it by coude, elbow, but one of the examples may need reconsideration, since the word has the further meanings of wood, dense forest by the side of a river (Vambéry), prairie (Zenker), and reedy plain (Shaw).

2450

Blochmann describes the apparatus for marking lines to guide writing (A. – i-A. trs. p. 52 n. 5): – On a card of the size of the page to be written on, two vertical lines are drawn within an inch of the edges; along these lines small holes are pierced at regular intervals, and through these a string is laced backwards and forwards, care being taken that the horizontal strings are parallel. Over the lines of string the pages are placed and pressed down; the strings then mark the paper sufficiently to guide the writing.