The Bābur-nāma

227

tāsh qūrghān dā chīqār dā. Here (as e. g. f. 110b l. 9) the Second W. – i-B. translates tāsh as though it meant stone instead of outer. Cf. f. 47 for an adjectival use of tāsh, stone, with the preposition (tāsh) din. The places contrasted here are the citadel (ark) and the walled-town (qūrghān). The chīqār (exit) is the fortified Gate-house of the mud circumvallation. Cf. f. 46 for another example of chīqār.

228

Elph. Ḥai. Kehr’s MSS., ānīng bīla bār kīshi bār beglārnī tūtūrūldī. This idiom recurs on f. 76b l. 8. A palimpsest entry in the Elph. MS. produces the statement that when Ḥasan fled, his begs returned to Andijān.

229

Ḥai. MS. awī mūnkūzī, underlined by sāgh-i-gāū, cows’ thatched house. [T. mūnkūz, lit. horn, means also cattle.] Elph. MS., awī mūnkūsh, underlined by dar jā’ī khwāb alfakhta, sleeping place. [T. mūnkūsh, retired.]

230

The first qāchār of this pun has been explained as gurez-gāh, sharm-gāh, hinder parts, fuite and vertèbre inférieur. The Ḥ.S. (ii, 273 l. 3 fr. ft.) says the wound was in a vital (maqattal) part.

231

From Niz̤āmī’s Khusrau u Shirīn, Lahore lith. ed. p. 137 l. 8. It is quoted also in the A.N. Bib. Ind. ed. ii, 207 (H.B. ii, 321). (H.B.).

232

See Hughes Dictionary of Islām s.nn. Eating and Food.

233

Cf. f. 6b and note. If ‘Umar Shaikh were Maḥmūd’s full-brother, his name might well appear here.

234

i. e. “Not a farthing, not a half-penny.”

235

Here the Mems. enters a statement, not found in the Turkī text, that Maḥmūd’s dress was elegant and fashionable.

236

n: h: l: m. My husband has cleared up a mistake (Mems. p. 28 and Méms. i, 54) of supposing this to be the name of an animal. It is explained in the A.N. (i, 255. H.B. i, 496) as a Badakhshī equivalent of tasqāwal; tasqāwal var. tāshqāwal, is explained by the Farhang-i-az̤farī, a Turkī-Persian Dict. seen in the Mullā Fīroz Library of Bombay, to mean rāh band kunanda, the stopping of the road. Cf. J.R.A.S. 1900 p. 137.

237

i. e. “a collection of poems in the alphabetical order of the various end rhymes.” (Steingass.)

238

At this battle Daulat-shāh was present. Cf. Browne’s D.S. for Astarābād p. 523 and for Andikhūd p. 532. For this and all other references to D.S. and Ḥ.S. I am indebted to my husband.

239

The following dates will help out Bābur’s brief narrative. Maḥmūd æt. 7, was given Astarābād in 864 AH. (1459-60 AD.); it was lost to Ḥusain at Jauz-wilāyat and Maḥmūd went into Khurāsān in 865 AH.; he was restored by his father in 866 AH.; on his father’s death (873 AH. -1469 AD.) he fled to Harāt, thence to Samarkand and from there was taken to Ḥiṣār æt. 16. Cf. D’Herbélot s. n. Abū-sa‘ad; Ḥ.S. i, 209; Browne’s D.S. p. 522.

240

Presumably the “Hindūstān the Less” of Clavijo (Markham p. 3 and p. 113), approx. Qaṃbar-‘alī’s districts. Clavijo includes Tīrmīẕ under the name.

241

Perhaps a Ṣufī term, – longing for the absent friend. For particulars about this man see Ḥ.S. ii, 235 and Browne’s D.S. p. 533.

242

Here in the Ḥai. MS. is one of several blank spaces, waiting for information presumably not known to Bābur when writing. The space will have been in the archetype of the Ḥai. MS. and it makes for the opinion that the Ḥai. MS. is a direct copy of Bābur’s own. This space is not left in the Elph. MS. but that MS. is known from its scribe’s note (f. 198) down to f. 198 (Ḥai. MS. f. 243b) to have been copied from “other writings” and only subsequent to its f. 198 from Bābur’s own. Cf. JRAS 1906 p. 88 and 1907 p. 143.

243

The T.R. (p. 330) supplies this name.

244

Cf. f. 35b. This was a betrothal only, the marriage being made in 903 AH. Cf. Ḥ.S. ii, 260 and Gul-badan’s H.N. f. 24b.

245

Kehr’s MS. supplies Aī (Moon) as her name but it has no authority. The Elph. MS. has what may be lā nām, no name, on its margin and over tūrūtūnchī (4th.) its usual sign of what is problematical.

246

See Ḥ.S. ii, 250. Here Pīr-i-Muḥammad Aīlchī-būghā was drowned. Cf. f. 29.

247

Chaghānīān is marked in Erskine’s (Mems.) map as somewhere about the head of (Fr. map 1904) the Ilyak Water, a tributary of the Kāfir-nighān.

248

i. e. when Bābur was writing in Hindūstān.

249

For his family see f. 55b note to Yār-‘alī Balāl.

250

bā wujūd turklūk muhkam paidā kunanda īdī.

251

Roebuck’s Oriental Proverbs (p. 232) explains the five of this phrase where seven might be expected, by saying that of this Seven days’ world (qy. days of Creation) one is for birth, another for death, and that thus five only are left for man’s brief life.

252

The cognomen Aīlchī-būghā, taken with the bearer’s recorded strength of fist, may mean Strong man of Aīlchī (the capital of Khutan). One of Tīmūr’s commanders bore the name. Cf. f. 21b for būghū as athlete.

253

Hazārāspī seems to be Mīr Pīr Darwesh Hazārāspī. With his brother, Mīr ‘Alī, he had charge of Balkh. See Rauzatu’ṣ-ṣafā B.M. Add. 23506, f. 242b; Browne’s D.S. p. 432. It may be right to understand a hand-to-hand fight between Hazārāspī and Aīlchī-būghā. The affair was in 857 AH. (1453 AD.).

254

yārāq sīz, perhaps trusting to fisticuffs, perhaps without mail. Bābur’s summary has confused the facts. Muḥ. Aīlchī-būghā was sent by Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā from Ḥiṣār with 1,000 men and did not issue out of Qūndūz. (Ḥ.S. ii, 251.) His death occurred not before 895 AH.

255

See T.R. s. nn. Mīr Ayūb and Ayūb.

256

This passage is made more clear by f. 120b and f. 125b.

257

He is mentioned in ‘Alī-sher Nawā’ī’s Majālis-i-nafā’is; see B.M. Add. 7875, f. 278 and Rieu’s Turkish Catalogue.

258

? full of splits or full handsome.

259

This may have occurred after Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā’s death whose son Abā-bikr was. Cf. f. 28. If so, over-brevity has obscured the statement.

260

mīnglīgh aīldīn dūr, perhaps of those whose hereditary Command was a Thousand, the head of a Mīng (Pers. Hazāra), i. e. of the tenth of a tūmān.

261

qūrghān-nīng tāshīdā yāngī tām qūpārīb sālā dūr. I understand, that what was taken was a new circumvallation in whole or in part. Such double walls are on record. Cf. Appendix A.

262

bahādurlūq aūlūsh, an actual portion of food.

263

i. e. either unmailed or actually naked.

264

The old English noun strike expresses the purpose of the sar-kob. It is “an instrument for scraping off what rises above the top” (Webster, whose example is grain in a measure). The sar-kob is an erection of earth or wood, as high as the attacked walls, and it enabled besiegers to strike off heads appearing above the ramparts.

265

i. e. the dislocation due to ‘Umar Shaikh’s death.

266

Cf. f. 13. The Ḥ.S. (ii, 274) places his son, Mīr Mughūl, in charge, but otherwise agrees with the B.N.

267

Cf. Clavijo, Markham p. 132. Sir Charles Grandison bent the knee on occasions but illustrated MSS. e. g. the B.M. Tawārīkh-i-guzīda Naṣrat-nāma show that Bābur would kneel down on both knees. Cf. f. 123b for the fatigue of the genuflection.

268

I have translated kūrūshūb thus because it appears to me that here and in other places, stress is laid by Bābur upon the mutual gaze as an episode of a ceremonious interview. The verb kūrūshmak is often rendered by the Persian translators as daryāftan and by the L. and E. Memoirs as to embrace. I have not found in the B.N. warrant for translating it as to embrace; qūchūshmāq is Bābur’s word for this (f. 103). Daryāftan, taken as to grasp or see with the mind, to understand, well expresses mutual gaze and its sequel of mutual understanding. Sometimes of course, kūrūsh, the interview does not imply kūrūsh, the silent looking in the eyes with mutual understanding; it simply means se voyer e. g. f. 17. The point is thus dwelt upon because the frequent mention of an embrace gives a different impression of manners from that made by “interview” or words expressing mutual gaze.

269

dābān. This word Réclus (vi, 171) quoting from Fedschenko, explains as a difficult rocky defile; art, again, as a dangerous gap at a high elevation; bel, as an easy low pass; and kūtal, as a broad opening between low hills. The explanation of kūtal does not hold good for Bābur’s application of the word (f. 81b) to the Sara-tāq.

270

Cf. f. 4b and note. From Bābur’s special mention of it, it would seem not to be the usual road.

271

The spelling of this name is uncertain. Variants are many. Concerning the tribe see T.R. p. 165 n.

272

Niz̤āmu’d-dīn ‘Alī Barlās: see Gul-badan’s H.N. s. n. He served Bābur till the latter’s death.

273

i. e. Ẕū’n-nūn or perhaps the garrison.

274

i. e. down to Shaibānī’s destruction of Chaghatāī rule in Tāshkīnt in 1503 AD.

275

Elph. MS. f. 23; W. – i-B. I.O. 215 f. 26 and 217 f. 21; Mems. p. 35.

Bābur’s own affairs form a small part of this year’s record; the rest is drawn from the Ḥ.S. which in its turn, uses Bābur’s f. 34 and f. 37b. Each author words the shared material in his own style; one adding magniloquence, the other retracting to plain statement, indeed summarizing at times to obscurity. Each passes his own judgment on events, e. g. here Khwānd-amīr’s is more favourable to Ḥusain Bāī-qarā’s conduct of the Ḥiṣār campaign than Bābur’s. Cf. Ḥ.S. ii, 256-60 and 274.

276

This feint would take him from the Oxus.

277

Tīrmīẕ to Ḥiṣār, 96m. (Réclus vi, 255).

278

Ḥ.S. Wazr-āb valley. The usual route is up the Kām Rūd and over the Mūra pass to Sara-tāq. Cf. f. 81b.

279

i. e. the Ḥiṣārī mentioned a few lines lower and on f. 99b. Nothing on f. 99b explains his cognomen.

280

The road is difficult. Cf. f. 81b.

281

Khwānd-amīr also singles out one man for praise, Sl. Maḥmūd Mīr-i-ākhwur; the two names probably represent one person. The sobriquet may refer to skill with a matchlock, to top-spinning (firnagī-bāz) or to some lost joke. (Ḥ.S. ii, 257.)

282

This pregnant phrase has been found difficult. It may express that Bābur assigned the sult̤āns places in their due precedence; that he seated them in a row; and that they sat cross-legged, as men of rank, and were not made, as inferiors, to kneel and sit back on their heels. Out of this last meaning, I infer comes the one given by dictionaries, “to sit at ease,” since the cross-legged posture is less irksome than the genuflection, not to speak of the ease of mind produced by honour received. Cf. f. 18b and note on Aḥmad’s posture; Redhouse s. nn. bāghīsh and bāghdāsh; and B.M. Tawārīkh-i-guzīda naṣrat-nāma, in the illustrations of which the chief personage, only, sits cross-legged.

283

siyāsat. My translation is conjectural only.

284

sar-kob. The old English noun strike, “an instrument for scraping off what appears above the top,” expresses the purpose of the wall-high erections of wood or earth (L. agger) raised to reach what shewed above ramparts. Cf. Webster.

285

Presumably lower down the Qūndūz Water.

286

aūz pādshāhī u mīrzālārīdīn artīb.

287

sic. Ḥai. MS.; Elph. MS. “near Tāliqān”; some W. – i-B. MSS. “Great Garden.” Gul-badan mentions a Tāliqān Garden. Perhaps the Mīrzā went so far east because, Ẕū’n-nūn being with him, he had Qandahār in mind. Cf. f. 42b.

288

i. e. Sayyid Muḥammad ‘Alī. See f. 15 n. to Sherīm. Khwāja Changāl lies 14 m. below Tāliqān on the Tāliqān Water. (Erskine.)

289

f. 27b, second.

290

The first was circa 895 AH. -1490 AD. Cf. f. 27b.

291

Bābur’s wording suggests that their common homage was the cause of Badī‘u’z-zamān’s displeasure but see f. 41.

292

The Mīrzā had grown up with Ḥiṣārīs. Cf. Ḥ.S. ii, 270.

293

As the husband of one of the six Badakhshī Begīms, he was closely connected with local ruling houses. See T.R. p. 107.

294

i. e. Muḥammad ‘Ubaidu’l-lāh the elder of Aḥrārī’s two sons. d. 911 AH. See Rashaḥāt-i-‘ain-alḥayāt (I.O. 633) f. 269-75; and Khizīnatu’l-aṣfīya lith. ed. i, 597.

295

Bū yūq tūr, i. e. This is not to be.

296

d. 908 AH. He was not, it would seem, of the Aḥrārī family. His own had provided Pontiffs (Shaikhu’l-islām) for Samarkand through 400 years. Cf. Shaibānī-nāma, Vambéry, p. 106; also, for his character, p. 96.

297

i. e. he claimed sanctuary.

298

Cf. f. 45b and Pétis de la Croix’s Histoire de Chīngīz Khān pp. 171 and 227. What Tīmūr’s work on the Gūk Sarāī was is a question for archæologists.

299

i. e. over the Aītmak Pass. Cf. f. 49.

300

Ḥai. MS. ārālighīgha. Elph. MS. ārāl, island.

301

See f. 179b for Binā’ī. Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Mīrzā Khwārizmī is the author of the Shaibānī-nāma.

302

Elph. MS. f. 27; W. – i-B. I.O. 215 f. 30b and 217 f. 25; Mems. p. 42.

303

i. e. Circassian. Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ (Sh.N. Vambéry p. 276 l. 58) speaks of other Aūzbegs using Chirkas swords.

304

aīrtā yāzīghā. My translation is conjectural. Aīrtā implies i. a. foresight. Yāzīghā allows a pun at the expense of the sult̤āns; since it can be read both as to the open country and as for their (next, aīrtā) misdeeds. My impression is that they took the opportunity of being outside Samarkand with their men, to leave Bāī-sunghar and make for Shaibānī, then in Turkistān. Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ also marking the tottering Gate of Sl. ‘Alī Mīrzā, left him now, also for Shaibānī. (Vambéry cap. xv.)

305

aūmāq, to amuse a child in order to keep it from crying.

306

i. e. with Khwāja Yahya presumably. See f. 38.

307

This man is mentioned also in the Tawārikh-i-guzīda Naṣratnāma B.M. Or. 3222 f. 124b.

308

Ḥ.S., on the last day of Ramẓān (June 28th. 1497 AD.).

309

Muḥammad Sīghal appears to have been a marked man. I quote from the T.G.N.N. (see supra), f. 123b foot, the information that he was the grandson of Ya‘qūb Beg. Zenker explains Sīghalī as the name of a Chaghatāī family. An Ayūb-i-Ya‘qūb Begchīk Mughūl may be an uncle. See f. 43 for another grandson.

310

baẓ’ī kīrkān-kīnt-kīsākkā bāsh-sīz-qīlghān Mughūllārnī tūtūb. I take the word kīsāk in this highly idiomatic sentence to be a diminutive of kīs, old person, on the analogy of mīr, mīrāk, mard, mardak. [The Ḥ.S. uses Kīsāk (ii, 261) as a proper noun.] The alliteration in kāf and the mighty adjective here are noticeable.

311

Qāsim feared to go amongst the Mughūls lest he should meet retaliatory death. Cf. f. 99b.

312

This appears from the context to be Yām (Jām) – bāī and not the Djouma (Jām) of the Fr. map of 1904, lying farther south. The Avenue named seems likely to be Tīmūr’s of f. 45b and to be on the direct road for Khujand. See Schuyler i, 232.

313

būghān buyīnī. W. – i-B. 215, yān, thigh, and 217 gardan, throat. I am in doubt as to the meaning of būghān; perhaps the two words stand for joint at the nape of the neck. Khwāja-i-kalān was one of seven brothers, six died in Bābur’s service, he himself served till Bābur’s death.

314

Cf. f. 48.

315

Khorochkine (Radlov’s Réceuil d’Itinéraires p. 241) mentions Pul-i-mougak, a great stone bridge thrown across a deep ravine, east of Samarkand. For Kūl-i-maghāk, deep pool, or pool of the fosse, see f. 48b.

316

From Khwānd-amīr’s differing account of this affair, it may be surmised that those sending the message were not treacherous; but the message itself was deceiving inasmuch as it did not lead Bābur to expect opposition. Cf. f. 43 and note.

317

Of this nick-name several interpretations are allowed by the dictionaries.

318

See Schuyler i, 268 for an account of this beautiful Highland village.

319

Here Bābur takes up the thread, dropped on f. 36, of the affairs of the Khurāsānī mīrzās. He draws on other sources than the Ḥ.S.; perhaps on his own memory, perhaps on information given by Khurāsānīs with him in Hindūstān e. g. Ḥusain’s grandson. See f. 167b. Cf. Ḥ.S. ii, 261.

320

bāghīshlāb tūr. Cf. f. 34 note to bāghīsh dā.

321

Bū sozlār aūnūlūng. Some W. – i-B. MSS., Farāmosh bakunīd for nakunīd, thus making the Mīrzā not acute but rude, and destroying the point of the story i. e. that the Mīrzā pretended so to have forgotten as to have an empty mind. Khwānd-amīr states that ‘Alī-sher prevailed at first; his tears therefore may have been of joy at the success of his pacifying mission.

322

i. e. B.Z.’s father, Ḥusain, against Mū‘min’s father, B.Z. and Ḥusain’s son, Muz̤affar Ḥusain against B.Z.’s son Mū‘min; – a veritable conundrum.

323

Garzawān lies west of Balkh. Concerning Pul-i-chirāgh Col. Grodekoff’s Ride to Harāt (Marvin p. 103 ff.) gives pertinent information. It has also a map showing the Pul-i-chirāgh meadow. The place stands at the mouth of a triply-bridged defile, but the name appears to mean Gate of the Lamp (cf. Gate of Tīmūr), and not Bridge of the Lamp, because the Ḥ.S. and also modern maps write bīl (bel), pass, where the Turkī text writes pul, bridge, narrows, pass.

The lamp of the name is one at the shrine of a saint, just at the mouth of the defile. It was alight when Col. Grodekoff passed in 1879 and to it, he says, the name is due now – as it presumably was 400 years ago and earlier.

324

Khwānd-amīr heard from the Mīrzā on the spot, when later in his service, that he was let down the precipice by help of turban-sashes tied together.

325

yīkīt yīlāng u yāyāq yālīng; a jingle made by due phonetic change of vowels; a play too on yālāng, which first means stripped i. e. robbed and next unmailed, perhaps sometimes bare-bodied in fight.

326

qūsh-khāna. As the place was outside the walls, it may be a good hawking ground and not a falconry.

327

The Ḥ.S. mentions (ii, 222) a Sl. Aḥmad of Chār-shaṃba, a town mentioned e. g. by Grodekoff p. 123. It also spoils Bābur’s coincidence by fixing Tuesday, Shab‘ān 29th. for the battle. Perhaps the commencement of the Muḥammadan day at sunset, allows of both statements.

328

Elph. MS. f. 30b; W. – i-B. I.O. 215 f. 34 and 217 f. 26b; Mems. p. 46.

The abruptness of this opening is due to the interposition of Sl. Ḥusain M.’s affairs between Bābur’s statement on f. 41 that he returned from Aūrgūt and this first of 903 AH. that on return he encamped in Qulba.

329

See f. 48b.

330

i. e. Chūpān-ātā; see f. 45 and note.

331

Aūghlāqchī, the Grey Wolfer of f. 22.

332

A sobriquet, the suppliant or perhaps something having connection with musk. Ḥ.S. ii, 278, son of Ḥ.D.

333

i. e. grandson (of Muḥammad Sīghal). Cf. f. 39.

334

This seeming sobriquet may show the man’s trade. Kāl is a sort of biscuit; qāshūq may mean a spoon.

335

The Ḥ.S. does not ascribe treachery to those inviting Bābur into Samarkand but attributes the murder of his men to others who fell on them when the plan of his admission became known. The choice here of “town-rabble” for retaliatory death supports the account of Ḥ.S. ii.

336

“It was the end of September or beginning of October” (Erskine).

337

awī u kīpa yīrlār. Awī is likely to represent kibitkas. For kīpa yīr, see Zenker p. 782.

338

Interesting reference may be made, amongst the many books on Samarkand, to Sharafu’d-dīn ‘Alī Yazdī’s Z̤afar-nāma Bib. Ind. ed. i, 300, 781, 799, 800 and ii, 6, 194, 596 etc.; to Ruy Gonzalves di Clavijo’s Embassy to Tīmūr (Markham) cap. vi and vii; to Ujfalvy’s Turkistan ii, 79 and Madame Ujfalvy’s De Paris à Samarcande p. 161, – these two containing a plan of the town; to Schuyler’s Turkistan; to Kostenko’s Turkistan Gazetteer i, 345; to Réclus, vi, 270 and plan; and to a beautiful work of the St. Petersburg Archæological Society, Les Mosquées de Samarcande, of which the B.M. has a copy.