The Bābur-nāma

121

One of Bābur’s quatrains, quoted in the Abūshqa, is almost certainly addressed to Khān-zāda. Cf. A.Q. Review, Jan. 1911, p. 4; H. Beveridge’s Some verses of Bābur. For an account of her marriage see Shaibānī-nāma (Vambéry) cap. xxxix.

122

Kehr’s MS. has a passage here not found elsewhere and seeming to be an adaptation of what is at the top of Ḥai. MS. f. 88. (Ilminsky, p. 10, ba wujūd … tāpīb.)

123

tūshtī, which here seems to mean that she fell to his share on division of captives. Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ makes it a love-match and places the marriage before Bābur’s departure. Cf. f. 95 and notes.

124

aūgāhlān. Khurram would be about five when given Balkh in circa 911 AH. (1505 AD.). He died when about 12. Cf. Ḥ.S. ii, 364.

125

This fatrat (interregnum) was between Bābur’s loss of Farghāna and his gain of Kābul; the furṣatlār were his days of ease following success in Hindūstān and allowing his book to be written.

126

qīlālīng, lit. do thou be (setting down), a verbal form recurring on f. 227b l. 2. With the same form (aīt)ālīng, lit. do thou be saying, the compiler of the Abūshqa introduces his quotations. Shaw’s paradigm, qīlīng only. Cf. A.Q.R. Jan. 1911, p. 2.

127

Kehr’s MS. (Ilminsky p. 12) and its derivatives here interpolate the erroneous statement that the sons of Yūnas were Afāq and Bābā Khāns.

128

i. e. broke up the horde. Cf. T.R. p. 74.

129

See f. 50b for his descent.

130

Descendants of these captives were in Kāshghar when Ḥaidar was writing the T.R. It was completed in 953 AH. (1547 AD.). Cf. T.R. pp. 81 and 149.

131

An omission from his Persian source misled Mr. Erskine here into making Abū-sa‘īd celebrate the Khānīm’s marriage, not with himself but with his defeated foe, ‘Abdu’l-‘azīz who had married her 28 years earlier.

132

Aīsān-būghā was at Āq Sū in Eastern Turkistān; Yūnas Khān’s head-quarters were in Yītī-kīnt. The Sāghārīchī tūmān was a subdivision of the Kūnchī Mughūls.

133

Khān kūtārdīlār. The primitive custom was to lift the Khān-designate off the ground; the phrase became metaphorical and would seem to be so here, since there were two upon the felt. Cf., however, Th. Radloff’s Récueil d’Itinéraires p. 326.

134

qūyūb īdī, probably in childhood.

135

She was divorced by Shaibānī Khān in 907 AH. in order to allow him to make lawful marriage with her niece, Khān-zāda.

136

This was a prudential retreat before Shaibānī Khān. Cf. f. 213.

137

The “Khān” of his title bespeaks his Chaghatāī-Mughūl descent through his mother, the “Mīrzā,” his Tīmūrid-Turkī, through his father. The capture of the women was facilitated by the weakening of their travelling escort through his departure. Cf. T.R. p. 203.

138

Qila‘-i-z̤afar. Its ruins are still to be seen on the left bank of the Kukcha. Cf. T.R. p. 220 and Kostenko i, 140. For Mubārak Shāh Muẓaffarī see f. 213 and T.R. s. n.

139

Ḥabība, a child when captured, was reared by Shaibānī and by him given in marriage to his nephew. Cf. T.R. p. 207 for an account of this marriage as saving Ḥaidar’s life.

140

i. e. she did not take to flight with her husband’s defeated force, but, relying on the victor, her cousin Bābur, remained in the town. Cf. T.R. p. 268. Her case receives light from Shahr-bānū’s (f. 169).

141

Muḥammad Ḥaidar Mīrzā Kūrkān Dūghlāt Chaghatāī Mūghūl, the author of the Tārīkh-i-rashīdī; b. 905 AH. d. 958 AH. (b. 1499 d. 1551 AD.). Of his clan, the “Oghlāt” (Dūghlāt) Muḥ. ṣāliḥ says that it was called “Oghlāt” by Mughūls but Qūngūr-āt (Brown Horse) by Aūzbegs.

142

Baz garadad ba aṣl-i-khūd hama chīz,

Zar-i-ṣāfī u naqra u airzīn.

These lines are in Arabic in the introduction to the Anwār-i-suhailī. (H.B.) The first is quoted by Ḥaidar (T.R. p. 354) and in Field’s Dict. of Oriental Quotations (p. 160). I understand them to refer here to Ḥaidar’s return to his ancestral home and nearest kin as being a natural act.

143

tā’ib and t̤arīqā suggest that Ḥaidar had become an orthodox Musalmān in or about 933 AH. (1527 AD.).

144

Abū’l-faẓl adds music to Ḥaidar’s accomplishments and Ḥaidar’s own Prologue mentions yet others.

145

Cf. T.R. s. n. and Gul-badan’s H.N. s. n. Ḥaram Begīm.

146

i. e. Alexander of Macedon. For modern mention of Central Asian claims to Greek descent see i.a. Kostenko, Von Schwarz, Holdich and A. Durand. Cf. Burnes’ Kābul p. 203 for an illustration of a silver patera (now in the V. and A. Museum), once owned by ancestors of this Shāh Sult̤ān Muḥammad.

147

Cf. f. 6b note.

148

i. e. Khān’s child.

149

The careful pointing of the Ḥai. MS. clears up earlier confusion by showing the narrowing of the vowels from ālāchī to alacha.

150

The Elph. MS. (f. 7) writes Aūng, Khān’s son, Prester John’s title, where other MSS. have Adik. Bābur’s brevity has confused his account of Sult̤ān-nigār. Widowed of Maḥmūd in 900 AH. she married Adik; Adik, later, joined Shaibānī Khān but left him in 908 AH. perhaps secretly, to join his own Qāzāq horde. He was followed by his wife, apparently also making a private departure. As Adik died shortly after 908 AH. his daughters were born before that date and not after it as has been understood. Cf. T.R. and G.B.’s H.N. s. nn.; also Mems. p. 14 and Méms. i, 24.

151

Presumably by tribal custom, yīnkālīk, marriage with a brother’s widow. Such marriages seem to have been made frequently for the protection of women left defenceless.

152

Sa‘īd’s power to protect made him the refuge of several kinswomen mentioned in the B.N. and the T.R. This mother and child reached Kāshghar in 932 AH. (1526 AD.).

Here Bābur ends his [interpolated] account of his mother’s family and resumes that of his father’s.

153

Bābur uses a variety of phrases to express Lordship in the Gate. Here he writes aīshīknī bāshlātīb; elsewhere, aīshīk ikhtiyārī qīlmāq and mīnīng aīshīkīmdā ṣāḥib ikhtiyārī qīlmāq. Von Schwarz (p. 159) throws light on the duties of the Lord of the Gate (Aīshīk Āghāsī). “Das Thür … führt in eine grosse, vier-eckige, höhe Halle, deren Boden etwa 2 m. über den Weg erhoben ist. In dieser Halle, welche alle passieren muss, der durch das Thor eingeht, reitet oder fahrt, ist die Thorwache placiert. Tagsüber sind die Thore beständig öffen, nach Eintritt der Dunkelheit aber werden dieselben geschlossen und die Schlüssel dem zuständigen Polizeichef abgeliefert… In den erwähnten Thorhallen nehmen in den hoch unabhängigen Gebieten an Bazar-tagen haufig die Richter Platz, um jedem der irgend ein Anliegen hat, so fort Recht zu sprechen. Die zudiktierten Strafen werden auch gleich in diesem selben locale vollzogen und eventuell die zum Hangen verurteilten Verbrecher an den Deckbalken aufgehängt, so dass die Besucher des Bazars unter den gehenkten durchpassieren müssen.”

154

bu khabarnī ‘Abdu’l-wahhāb shaghāwaldīn ‘arẓa-dāsht qīlīb Mīrzāghā chāptūrdīlār. This passage has been taken to mean that the shaghāwal, i. e. chief scribe, was the courier, but I think Bābur’s words shew that the shaghāwal’s act preceded the despatch of the news. Moreover the only accusative of the participle and of the verb is khabarnī. ‘Abdu’l-wahhāb had been ‘Umar Shaikh’s and was now Aḥmad’s officer in Khujand, on the main road for Aūrā-tīpā whence the courier started on the rapid ride. The news may have gone verbally to ‘Abdu’l-wahhāb and he have written it on to Aḥmad and Abū-sa‘īd.

155

Measured from point to point even, the distance appears to be over 500 miles. Concerning Bābā Khākī see Ḥ.S. ii. 224; for rapid riding i. a. Kostenko iii, cap. Studs.

156

qūshūqlārnī yakhshī aītūrā īkān dūr. Elph. MS. for qūshūq, tūyūk. Qūshūq is allowed, both by its root and by usage, to describe improvisations of combined dance and song. I understand from Bābur’s tense, that his information was hearsay only.

157

i. e. of the military class. Cf. Vullers s. n. and T.R. p. 301.

158

The Hūma is a fabulous bird, overshadowing by whose wings brings good-fortune. The couplet appears to be addressed to some man, under the name Hūma, from whom Ḥasan of Yaq‘ūb hoped for benefit.

159

khāk-bīla; the Sanglākh, (quoting this passage) gives khāk-p: l:k as the correct form of the word.

160

Cf. f. 99b.

161

One of Tīmūr’s begs.

162

i. e. uncle on the mother’s side, of any degree, here a grandmother’s brother. The title appears to have been given for life to men related to the ruling House. Parallel with it are Madame Mère, Royal Uncle, Sult̤ān Wālida.

163

kīm dīsā būlghāī, perhaps meaning, “Nothing of service to me.”

164

Wais the Thin.

165

Cf. Chardin ed. Langlès v, 461 and ed. 1723 AD. v, 183.

166

n. e. of Kāsān. Cf. f. 74. Ḥai MS., erroneously, Samarkand.

167

An occasional doubt arises as to whether a t̤aurī of the text is Arabic and dispraises or Turkī and laudatory. Cf. Mems. p. 17 and Méms. i, 3.

168

Elph. and Ḥai. MSS. aftābachī, water-bottle bearer on journeys; Kehr (p. 82) aftābchī, ewer-bearer; Ilminsky (p. 19) akhtachi, squire or groom. Circumstances support aftābachī. Yūnas was town-bred, his ewer-bearer would hardly be the rough Mughūl, Qaṃbar-‘alī, useful as an aftābachī.

169

Bābur was Governor of Andijān and the month being June, would be living out-of-doors. Cf. Ḥ.S. ii. 272 and Schuyler ii, 37.

170

To the word Sherīm applies Abū’l-ghāzī’s explanation of Nurūm and Ḥājīm, namely, that they are abbreviations of Nūr and Ḥājī Muḥammad. It explains Sult̤ānīm also when used (f. 72) of Sl. Muḥammad Khānika but of Sult̤ānīm as the name is common with Bābur, Ḥaidar and Gul-badan, i. e. as a woman’s, Busbecq’s explanation is the better, namely, that it means My Sult̤ān and is applied to a person of rank and means. This explains other women’s titles e. g. Khānīm, my Khān and Ākām (Ākīm), My Lady. A third group of names formed like the last by enclitic 'm (my), may be called names of affection, e. g. Māhīm, My Moon, Jānīm, My Life. (Cf. Persian equivalents.) Cf. Abū’l-ghāzī’s Shajarat-i-Turkī (Désmaisons p. 272); and Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq’s Life and Letters (Forster and Daniel i, 38.)

171

Namāz-gāh; generally an open terrace, with a wall towards the Qibla and outside the town, whither on festival days the people go out in crowds to pray. (Erskine.)

172

Bēglār (nīng) mīnī u wilāyatnī tāpshūrghūlārī dūr; a noticeably idiomatic sentence. Cf. f. 16b 1. 6 and 1. 7 for a repetition.

173

Maḥmūd was in Tāshkīnt, Aḥmad in Kāshghār or on the Āq-sū.

174

The B.N. contains a considerable number of what are virtually footnotes. They are sometimes, as here, entered in the middle of a sentence and confuse the narrative; they are introduced by kīm, a mere sign of parenthetical matter to follow, and some certainly, known not to be Bābur’s own, must have stood first on the margin of his text. It seems best to enter them as Author’s notes.

175

darzī; Ḥ.S. khaiyāt̤.

176

bīr yīrgā (qūyūb), lit. to one place.

177

i. e. reconstructed the earthern defences. Cf. Von Schwarz s. n. loess.

178

They had been sent, presumably, before ‘Umar Shaikh’s death, to observe Sl. Aḥmad M.’s advance. Cf. f. 6.

179

i. e. the author of the Hidāyat. Cf. f. 3b and note; Blochmann Āyīn-i-akbarī s.n. qulij and note; Bellew’s Afghan Tribes p. 100, Khilich.

180

Ar. dead, gone. The precision of Bābur’s words khānwādalār and yūsūnlūq is illustrated by the existence in the days of Tīmūr, in Marghīnān, (Burhānu’d-dīn’s township) of a ruler named Aīlīk Khān, apparently a descendant of Sātūq-būghrā Khān (b. 384 AH. -994 AD.) so that in Khwāja Qāẓī were united two dynasties, (khānwādalār), one priestly, perhaps also regal, the other of bye-gone ruling Khāns. Cf. D’Herbélot p. 433; Yarkand Mission, Bellew p. 121; Taẕkirat-i Sult̤ān Sātūq-būghrā Khān Ghāzī Pādshāh and Tārīkh-i-nāṣirī (Raverty s. n.)

181

The time-table of the Andijān Railway has a station, Kouwa (Qabā).

182

Bābur, always I think, calls this man Long Ḥasan; Khwānd-amīr styles him Khwāja Ḥasan; he seems to be the brother of one of ‘Umar Shaikh’s fathers-in-law, Khwāja Ḥusain.

183

bātqāq. This word is underlined in the Elph. MS. by dil-dil and in the Ḥai. MS. by jam-jama. It is translated in the W. – i-B. by āb pur hīla, water full of deceit; it is our Slough of Despond. It may be remarked that neither Zenker nor Steingass gives to dil-dil or jam-jama the meaning of morass; the Akbar-nāma does so. (H.B. ii, 112.)

184

t̤awīla t̤awīla ātlār yīghīlīb aūlā kīrīshtī. I understand the word yīghīlīb to convey that the massing led to the spread of the murrain.

185

jān tārātmāqlār i. e. as a gift to their over-lord.

186

Perhaps, Bābur’s maternal great-uncle. It would suit the privileges bestowed on Tarkhāns if their title meant Khān of the Gifts (Turkī tar, gift). In the Bāburnāma, it excludes all others. Most of Aḥmad’s begs were Tarkhāns, Arghūns and Chīngīz Khānids, some of them ancestors of later rulers in Tatta and Sind. Concerning the Tarkhāns see T.R. p. 55 and note; A.N. (H.B. s. n.) Elliot and Dowson’s History of India, 498.

187

Cf. f. 6.

188

beg ātākā, lit. beg for father.

189

T.R. s. n. Ābā-bikr.

190

Cf. f. 6b and note.

191

faqra u masākin, i. e. those who have food for one day and those who have none in hand. (Steingass.)

192

For fashions of sitting, see Tawārīkh-i-guzīda Naṣrat-nāma B.M. Or. 3222. Aḥmad would appear to have maintained the deferential attitude by kneeling and sitting back upon his heels.

193

bīr sūnkāk bār īkān dūr. I understand that something defiling must have been there, perhaps a bone.

194

Khwājanīng ham āyāghlārī ārādā īdī.

195

īlbāsūn, a kind of mallard (Abūshqa), here perhaps a popinjay. Cf. Ḥ.S. ii, 193 for Aḥmad’s skill as an archer, and Payne-Gallwey’s Cross-bow p. 225.

196

qabāq, an archer’s mark. Abū’l-ghāzī (Kāsān ed. p. 181. 5) mentions a hen (tūqūq) as a mark. Cf. Payne-Gallwey l. c. p. 231.

197

qīrghīcha, astar palumbarius. (Shaw’s Voc. Scully.)

198

Perhaps, not quarrelsome.

199

The T.R. (p. 116) attributes the rout to Shaibānī’s defection. The Ḥ.S. (ii, 192) has a varied and confused account. An error in the T.R. trs. making Shaibānī plunder the Mughūls, is manifestly clerical.

200

i. e. condiment, ce qu’on ajoute au pain.

201

Cf. f. 6.

202

qāzāqlār; here, if Bābur’s, meaning his conflicts with Taṃbal, but as the Begīm may have been some time in Khujand, the qāzāqlār may be of Samarkand.

203

All the (Turkī) Bābur-nāma MSS. and those examined of the W. – i-B. by writing aūltūrdī (killed) where I suggest to read aūlnūrdī (devenir comme il faut) state that Aḥmad killed Qātāq. I hesitate to accept this (1) because the only evidence of the murder is one diacritical point, the removal of which lifts Aḥmad’s reproach from him by his return to the accepted rules of a polygamous household; (2) because no murder of Qātāq is chronicled by Khwānd-amīr or other writers; and (3) because it is incredible that a mild, weak man living in a family atmosphere such as Bābur, Ḥaidar and Gul-badan reproduce for us, should, while possessing facility for divorce, kill the mother of four out of his five children.

Reprieve must wait however until the word tīrīklīk is considered. This Erskine and de C. have read, with consistency, to mean life-time, but if aūlnūrdī be read in place of aūltūrdī (killed), tīrīklīk may be read, especially in conjunction with Bābur’s ‘āshīqlīklār, as meaning living power or ascendancy. Again, if read as from tīrik, a small arrow and a consuming pain, tīrīklīk may represent Cupid’s darts and wounds. Again it might be taken as from tīrāmāk, to hinder, or forbid.

Under these considerations, it is legitimate to reserve judgment on Aḥmad.

204

It is customary amongst Turks for a bride, even amongst her own family, to remain veiled for some time after marriage; a child is then told to pluck off the veil and run away, this tending, it is fancied, to the child’s own success in marriage. (Erskine.)

205

Bābur’s anecdote about Jānī Beg well illustrates his caution as a narrator. He appears to tell it as one who knowing the point of a story, leads up to it. He does not affirm that Jānī Beg’s habits were strange or that the envoy was an athlete but that both things must have been (īkān dūr) from what he had heard or to suit the point of the anecdote. Nor does he affirm as of his own knowledge that Aūzbegs calls a strong man (his zor kīshī) a būkuh (bull) but says it is so understood (dīr īmīsh).

206

Cf. f. 170.

207

The points of a tīpūchāq are variously stated. If the root notion of the name be movement (tīp), Erskine’s observation, that these horses are taught special paces, is to the point. To the verb tīprāmāq dictionaries assign the meaning of movement with agitation of mind, an explanation fully illustrated in the B.N. The verb describes fittingly the dainty, nervous action of some trained horses. Other meanings assigned to tūpūchāq are roadster, round-bodied and swift.

208

Cf. f. 37b.

209

Cf. f. 6b and note.

210

mashaf kitābat qīlūr īdī.

211

Cf. f. 36 and Ḥ.S. ii. 271.

212

sīnkīlīsī ham mūndā īdī.

213

khāna-wādalār, viz. the Chaghatāī, the Tīmūrid in two Mīrān-shāhī branches, ‘Alī’s and Bābur’s and the Bāī-qarā in Harāt.

214

aūghlāqchī i. e. player at kūk-būrā. Concerning the game, see Shaw’s Vocabulary; Schuyler i, 268; Kostenko iii, 82; Von Schwarz s. n. baiga.

215

Ẕū’l-ḥijja 910 AH. – May 1505 AD. Cf. f. 154. This statement helps to define what Bābur reckoned his expeditions into Hindūstān.

216

Aīkū (Ayāgū) – tīmūr Tarkhān Arghūn d. circa 793 AH. -1391 AD. He was a friend of Tīmūr. See Z̤.N. i, 525 etc.

217

āndāq ikhlāq u at̤awārī yūq īdī kīm dīsā būlghāī. The Shāh-nāma cap. xviii, describes him as a spoiled child and man of pleasure, caring only for eating, drinking and hunting. The Shaibānī-nāma narrates his various affairs.

218

i. e., cutlass, a parallel sobriquet to qīlīch, sword. If it be correct to translate by “cutlass,” the nickname may have prompted Bābur’s brief following comment, mardāna īkān dūr, i. e. Qulī Muḥ. must have been brave because known as the Cutlass. A common variant in MSS. from Būghdā is Bāghdād; Bāghdād was first written in the Ḥai. MS. but is corrected by the scribe to būghdā.

219

So pointed in the Ḥai. MS. I surmise it a clan-name.

220

i. e. to offer him the succession. The mountain road taken from Aūrā-tīpā would be by Āb-burdan, Sara-tāq and the Kām Rūd defile.

221

īrīldī. The departure can hardly have been open because Aḥmad’s begs favoured Maḥmūd; Malik-i-Muḥammad’s party would be likely to slip away in small companies.

222

This well-known Green, Grey or Blue palace or halting-place was within the citadel of Samarkand. Cf. f. 37. It served as a prison from which return was not expected.

223

Cf. f. 27. He married a full-sister of Bāī-sunghar.

224

Gulistān Part I. Story 27. For “steaming up,” see Tennyson’s Lotus-eaters Choric song, canto 8 (H.B.).

225

Elph. MS. f. 16b; First W. – i-B. I.O. 215 f. 19; Second W. – i-B. I.O. 217 f. 15b; Memoirs p. 27.

226

He was a Dūghlāt, uncle by marriage of Ḥaidar Mīrzā and now holding Khost for Maḥmūd. See T.R. s.n. for his claim on Aīsān-daulat’s gratitude.