The Bābur-nāma

1771

Eulabes intermedia, the Indian grackle or hill-mīna. Here the Pers. trs. adds that people call it mīna.

1772

Calornis chalybeius, the glossy starling or tree-stare, which never descends to the ground.

1773

Sturnopastor contra, the pied mīna.

1774

Part of the following passage about the lūja (var. lūkha, lūcha) is verbatim with part of that on f. 135; both were written about 934-5 AH. as is shewn by Shaikh Zain (Index s. n.) and by inference from references in the text (Index s. n. B.N. date of composition). See Appendix N.

1775

Lit. mountain-partridge. There is ground for understanding that one of the birds known in the region as monals is meant. See Appendix N.

1776

Sans. chakora; Ar. durrāj; P. kabg; T. kīklīk.

1777

Here, probably, southern Afghānistān.

1778

Caccabis chukūr (Scully, Shaw’s Vocabulary) or C. pallescens (Hume, quoted under No. 126 E. D. Ross’ Polyglot List).

1779

“In some parts of the country (i. e. India before 1841 AD.), tippets used to be made of the beautiful black, white-spotted feathers of the lower plumage (of the durrāj), and were in much request, but they are rarely procurable now” (Bengal Sporting Magazine for 1841, quoted by Jerdon, ii, 561).

1780

A broad collar of red passes round the whole neck (Jerdon, ii, 558).

1781

Ar. durrāj means one who repeats what he hears, a tell-tale.

1782

Various translations have been made of this passage, “I have milk and sugar” (Erskine), “J’ai du lait, un peu de sucre” (de Courteille), but with short sh:r, it might be read in more than one way ignoring milk and sugar. See Jerdon, ii, 558 and Hobson Jobson s. n. Black-partridge.

1783

Flower-faced, Trapogon melanocephala, the horned (sing) – monal. It is described by Jahāngīr (Memoirs, R. and B., ii, 220) under the names [H. and P.] phūl-paikār and Kashmīrī, sonlū.

1784

Gallus sonneratii, the grey jungle-fowl.

1785

Perhaps Bambusicola fytchii, the western bambu-partridge. For chīl see E. D. Ross, l. c. No. 127.

1786

Jahāngīr (l. c.) describes, under the Kashmīrī name pūt̤, what may be this bird. It seems to be Gallus ferrugineus, the red jungle-fowl (Blanford, iv, 75).

1787

Jahāngīr helps to identify the bird by mentioning its elongated tail-feathers, – seasonal only.

1788

The migrant quail will be Coturnix communis, the grey quail, 8 inches long; what it is compared with seems likely to be the bush-quail, which is non-migrant and shorter.

1789

Perhaps Perdicula argunda, the rock bush-quail, which flies in small coveys.

1790

Perhaps Coturnix coromandelica, the black-breasted or rain quail, 7 inches long.

1791

Perhaps Motacilla citreola, a yellow wag-tail which summers in Central Asia (Oates, ii, 298). If so, its Kābul name may refer to its flashing colour. Cf. E. D. Ross, l. c. No. 301; de Courteille’s Dictionary which gives qārcha, wag-tail, and Zenker’s which fixes the colour.

1792

Eupodotis edwardsii; Turkī, tūghdār or tūghdīrī.

1793

Erskine noting (Mems. p. 321), that the bustard is common in the Dakkan where it is bigger than a turkey, says it is called tūghdār and suggests that this is a corruption of tūghdāq. The uses of both words are shewn by Bābur, here, and in the next following, account of the charz. Cf. G. of I. i, 260 and E. D. Ross l. c. Nos. 36, 40.

1794

Sypheotis bengalensis and S. aurita, which are both smaller than Otis houbara (tūghdīrī). In Hindustan S. aurita is known as līkh which name is the nearest approach I have found to Bābur’s [lūja] lūkha.

1795

Jerdon mentions (ii, 615) that this bird is common in Afghānistān and there called dugdaor (tūghdār, tūghdīrī).

1796

Cf. Appendix B, since I wrote which, further information has made it fairly safe to say that the Hindūstān bāghrī-qarā is Pterocles exustus, the common sand-grouse and that the one of f. 49b is Pterocles arenarius, the larger or black-bellied sand-grouse. P. exustus is said by Yule (H. J. s. n. Rock-pigeon) to have been miscalled rock-pigeon by Anglo-Indians, perhaps because its flight resembles the pigeon’s. This accounts for Erskine’s rendering (p. 321) bāghrī-qarā here by rock-pigeon.

1797

Leptoptilus dubius, Hind. hargīlā. Hindūstānīs call it pīr-i-dīng (Erskine) and peda dhauk (Blanford), both names referring, perhaps, to its pouch. It is the adjutant of Anglo-India. Cf. f. 235.

1798

only when young (Blanford, ii, 188).

1799

Elph. MS. mank: sā or mankīā; Ḥai. MS. m: nk. Haughton’s Bengali Dictionary gives two forms of the name mānek-jur and mānak-yoī. It is Dissura episcopus, the white-necked stork (Blanford iv, 370, who gives manik-jor amongst its Indian names). Jerdon classes it (ii, 737) as Ciconia leucocephala. It is the beefsteak bird of Anglo-India.

1800

Ciconia nigra (Blanford, iv, 369).

1801

Under the Hindūstānī form, būza, of Persian buzak the birds Bābur mentions as buzak can be identified. The large one is Inocotis papillosus, būza, kāla būza, black curlew, king-curlew. The bird it equals in size is a buzzard, Turkī sār (not Persian sār, starling). The king-curlew has a large white patch on the inner lesser and marginal coverts of its wings (Blanford, iv, 303). This agrees with Bābur’s statement about the wings of the large buzak. Its length is 27 inches, while the starling’s is 9-1/2 inches.

1802

Ibis melanocephala, the white ibis, Pers. safed buzak, Bengali sabut būza. It is 30 inches long.

1803

Perhaps, Plegadis falcinellus, the glossy ibis, which in most parts of India is a winter visitor. Its length is 25 inches.

1804

Erskine suggests that this is Platalea leucorodia, the chamach-būza, spoon-bill. It is 33 inches long.

1805

Anas poecilorhyncha. The Ḥai. MS. writes gharm-pāī, and this is the Indian name given by Blanford (iv, 437).

1806

Anas boschas. Dr. Ross notes (No. 147), from the Sanglākh, that sūna is the drake, būrchīn, the duck and that it is common in China to call a certain variety of bird by the combined sex-names. Something like this is shewn by the uses of būghā and marāl q. v. Index.

1807

Centropus rufipennis, the common coucal (Yule’s H.J. s. n. Crow-pheasant); H. makokhā, Cuculus castaneus (Buchanan, quoted by Forbes).

1808

Pteropus edwardsii, the flying-fox. The inclusion of the bat here amongst birds, may be a clerical accident, since on f. 136 a flying-fox is not written of as a bird.

1809

Bābur here uses what is both the Kābul and Andijān name for the magpie, Ar. ‘aqqa (Oates, i, 31 and Scully’s Voc), instead of T. sāghizghān or P. dam-sīcha (tail-wagger).

1810

The Pers. trs. writes sāndūlāch mamūlā, mamūlā being Arabic for wag-tail. De Courteille’s Dictionary describes the sāndūlāch as small and having a long tail, the cock-bird green, the hen, yellow. The wag-tail suiting this in colouring is Motacilla borealis (Oates, ii, 294; syn. Budytes viridis, the green wag-tail); this, as a migrant, serves to compare with the Indian “little bird”, which seems likely to be a red-start.

1811

This word may represent Scully’s kirich and be the Turkī name for a swift, perhaps Cypselus affinis.

1812

This name is taken from its cry during the breeding season (Yule’s H.J. s. n. Koel).

1813

Bābur’s distinction between the three crocodiles he mentions seems to be that of names he heard, shīr-ābī, siyāh-sār, and ghaṛīāl.

1814

In this passage my husband finds the explanation of two somewhat vague statements of later date, one made by Abū’l-faẓl (A. A. Blochmann, p. 65) that Akbar called the kīlās (cherry) the shāh-ālū (king-plum), the other by Jahāngīr that this change was made because kīlās means lizard (Jahāngīr’s Memoirs, R. & B. i, 116). What Akbar did is shewn by Bābur; it was to reject the Persian name kīlās, cherry, because it closely resembled Turkī gīlās, lizard. There is a lizard Stellio Lehmanni of Transoxiana with which Bābur may well have compared the crocodile’s appearance (Schuyler’s Turkistān, i, 383). Akbar in Hindūstān may have had Varanus salvator (6 ft. long) in mind, if indeed he had not the great lizard, al lagarto, the alligator itself in his thought. The name kīlās evidently was banished only from the Court circle, since it is still current in Kashmīr (Blochmann l. c. p. 616); and Speede (p. 201) gives keeras, cherry, as used in India.

1815

This name as now used, is that of the purely fish-eating crocodile. [In the Turkī text Bābur’s account of the ghaṛīāl follows that of the porpoise; but it is grouped here with those of the two other crocodiles.]

1816

As the Ḥai. MS. and also I.O. 216 f. 137 (Pers. trs.) write kalah (galah) – fish, this may be a large cray-fish. One called by a name approximating to galah-fish is found in Malāyan waters, viz. the galah-prawn (hūdang) (cf. Bengālī gūla-chingrī, gūla-prawn, Haughton). Galah and gūla may express lament made when the fish is caught (Haughton pp. 931, 933, 952); or if kalah be read, this may express scolding. Two good MSS. of the Wāqi‘āt-i-bāburī (Pers. trs.) write kaka; and their word cannot but have weight. Erskine reproduces kaka but offers no explanation of it, a failure betokening difficulty in his obtaining one. My husband suggests that kaka may represent a stuttering sound, doing so on the analogy of Vullers’ explanation of the word, —Vir ridiculus et facetus qui simul balbutiat; and also he inclines to take the fish to be a crab (kakra). Possibly kaka is a popular or vulgar name for a cray-fish or a crab. Whether the sound is lament, scolding, or stuttering the fisherman knows! Shaikh Zain enlarges Bābur’s notice of this fish; he says the bones are prolonged (bar āwarda) from the ears, that these it agitates at time of capture, making a noise like the word kaka by which it is known, that it is two wajab (18 in.) long, its flesh surprisingly tasty, and that it is very active, leaping a gaz (cir. a yard) out of the water when the fisherman’s net is set to take it. For information about the Malāyan fish, I am indebted to Mr. Cecil Wray.

1817

T. qiyünlīghī, presumably referring to spines or difficult bones; T. qīn, however, means a scabbard [Shaw].

1818

One of the common frogs is a small one which, when alarmed, jumps along the surface of the water (G. of I. i, 273).

1819

Anb and anbah (pronounced aṃb and aṃbah) are now less commonly used names than ām. It is an interesting comment on Bābur’s words that Abū’l-faẓl spells anb, letter by letter, and says that the b is quiescent (Āyīn 28; for the origin of the word mango, vide Yule’s H.J. s. n.).

1820

A corresponding diminutive would be fairling.

1821

The variants, entered in parenthesis, are found in the Bib. Ind. ed. of the Āyīn-i-akbarī p. 75 and in a (bazar) copy of the Qurānu’s-sā‘dain in my husband’s possession. As Amīr Khusrau was a poet of Hindūstān, either khẉash (khẉesh) [our own] or mā [our] would suit his meaning. The couplet is, literally: —

Our fairling, [i. e. mango] beauty-maker of the garden,

Fairest fruit of Hindūstān.

1822

Daulat Khān Yūsuf-khail Lūdī in 929 AH. sent Bābur a gift of mangoes preserved in honey (in loco p. 440).

1823

I have learned nothing more definite about the word kārdī than that it is the name of a superior kind of peach (Ghiyās̤u’l-lughat).

1824

The preceding sentence is out of place in the Turkī text; it may therefore be a marginal note, perhaps not made by Bābur.

1825

This sentence suggests that Bābur, writing in Āgra or Fatḥpūr did not there see fine mango-trees.

1826

See Yule’s H.J. on the plantain, the banana of the West.

1827

This word is a descendant of Sanscrit mocha, and parent of musa the botanical name of the fruit (Yule).

1828

Shaikh Effendī (Kunos), Zenker and de Courteille say of this only that it is the name of a tree. Shaw gives a name that approaches it, ārman, a grass, a weed; Scully explains this as Artemisia vulgaris, wormwood, but Roxburgh gives no Artemisia having a leaf resembling the plantain’s. Scully has arāmadān, unexplained, which, like amān-qarā, may refer to comfort in shade. Bābur’s comparison will be with something known in Transoxiana. Maize has general resemblance with the plantain. So too have the names of the plants, since mocha and mauz stand for the plantain and (Hindī) mukā’ī for maize. These incidental resemblances bear, however lightly, on the question considered in the Ency. Br. (art. maize) whether maize was early in Asia or not; some writers hold that it was; if Bābur’s amān-qarā were maize, maize will have been familiar in Transoxiana in his day.

1829

Abū’l-faẓl mentions that the plantain-tree bears no second crop unless cut down to the stump.

1830

Bābur was fortunate not to have met with a seed-bearing plantain.

1831

The ripe “dates” are called P. tamar-i Hind, whence our tamarind, and Tamarindus Indica.

1832

Sophora alopecuroides, a leguminous plant (Scully).

1833

Abū’l-faẓl gives galaundā as the name of the “fruit” [mewa], – Forbes, as that of the fallen flower. Cf. Brandis p. 426 and Yule’s H.J. s. n. Mohwa.

1834

Bābur seems to say that spirit is extracted from both the fresh and the dried flowers. The fresh ones are favourite food with deer and jackals; they have a sweet spirituous taste. Erskine notes that the spirit made from them was well-known in Bombay by the name of Moura, or of Parsi-brandy, and that the farm of it was a considerable article of revenue (p. 325 n.). Roxburgh describes it as strong and intoxicating (p. 411).

1835

This is the name of a green, stoneless grape which when dried, results in a raisin resembling the sultanas of Europe (Jahāngīr’s Memoirs and Yule’s H.J. s. n.; Griffiths’ Journal of Travel pp. 359, 388).

1836

Aūl, lit. the aūl of the flower. The Persian translation renders aūl by bū which may allow both words to be understood in their (root) sense of being, i. e. natural state. De Courteille translates by quand la fleur est fraîche (ii, 210); Erskine took bū to mean smell (Memoirs p. 325), but the aūl it translates, does not seem to have this meaning. For reading aūl as “the natural state”, there is circumstantial support in the flower’s being eaten raw (Roxburgh). The annotator of the Elphinstone MS. [whose defacement of that Codex has been often mentioned], has added points and tashdīd to the aūl-ī (i. e. its aūl), so as to produce awwalī (first, f. 235). Against this there are the obvious objections that the Persian translation does not reproduce, and that its bū does not render awwalī; also that aūl-ī is a noun with its enclitic genitive yā (i).

1837

This word seems to be meant to draw attention to the various merits of the mahuwā tree.

1838

Erskine notes that this is not to be confounded with E. jāmbū, the rose-apple (Memoirs p. 325 n.). Cf. Yule’s H.J. s. n. Jambu.

1839

var. ghat-ālū, ghab-ālū, ghain-ālū, shafl-ālū. Scully enters ‘ain-ālū (true-plum?) unexplained. The kamrak fruit is 3 in. long (Brandis) and of the size of a lemon (Firminger); dimensions which make Bābur’s 4 aīlīk (hand’s-thickness) a slight excess only, and which thus allow aīlīk, with its Persion translation, angusht, to be approximately an inch.

1840

Speede, giving the fruit its Sanscrit name kamarunga, says it is acid, rather pleasant, something like an insipid apple; also that its pretty pink blossoms grow on the trunk and main branches (i, 211).

1841

Cf. Yule’s H.J. s. n. jack-fruit. In a Calcutta nurseryman’s catalogue of 1914 AD. three kinds of jack-tree are offered for sale, viz. “Crispy Or Khaja, Soft or Neo, Rose-scented” (Seth, Feronia Nursery).

1842

The gīpa is a sheep’s stomach stuffed with rice, minced meat, and spices, and boiled as a pudding. The resemblance of the jack, as it hangs on the tree, to the haggis, is wonderfully complete (Erskine).

1843

These when roasted have the taste of chestnuts.

1844

Firminger (p. 186) describes an ingenious method of training.

1845

For a note of Humāyūn’s on the jack-fruit see Appendix O.

1846

aīd-ī-yamān aīmās. It is somewhat curious that Bābur makes no comment on the odour of the jack itself.

1847

būsh, English bosh (Shaw). The Persian translation inserts no more about this fruit.

1848

Steingass applies this name to the plantain.

1849

Erskine notes that “this is the bullace-plum, small, not more than twice as large as the sloe and not so high-flavoured; it is generally yellow, sometimes red.” Like Bābur, Brandis enumerates several varieties and mentions the seasonal changes of the tree (p. 170).

1850

This will be Kābul, probably, because Transoxiana is written of by Bābur usually, if not invariably, as “that country”, and because he mentions the chīkda (i. e. chīka?), under its Persian name sinjid, in his Description of Kābul (f. 129b).

1851

P. mar manjān, which I take to refer to the rīwājlār of Kābul. (Cf. f. 129b, where, however, (note 5) are corrigenda of Masson’s rawash for rīwāj, and his third to second volume.) Kehr’s Codex contains an extra passage about the karaūn dā, viz. that from it is made a tasty fritter-like dish, resembling a rhubarb-fritter (Ilminsky, p. 369).

1852

People call it (P.) pālasa also (Elph. MS. f. 236, marginal note).

1853

Perhaps the red-apple of Kābul, where two sorts are common, both rosy, one very much so, but much inferior to the other (Griffith’s Journal of Travel p. 388).

1854

Its downy fruit grows in bundles from the trunk and large branches (Roxburgh).

1855

The reference by “also” (ham) will be to the kamrak (f. 283b), but both Roxburgh and Brandis say the amla is six striated.

1856

The Sanscrit and Bengālī name for the chirūnjī-tree is pīyala (Roxburgh p. 363).

1857

Cf. f. 250b.

1858

The leaflet is rigid enough to serve as a runlet, but soon wears out; for this reason, the usual practice is to use one of split bamboo.

1859

This is a famous hunting-ground between Bīāna and Dhūlpūr, Rājpūtāna, visited in 933 AH. (f. 33Ob). Bābur’s great-great-grandson Shāh-jahān built a hunting-lodge there (G. of I.).

1860

Ḥai. MS. mu‘arrab, but the Elph. MS. maghrib, [occidentalizing]. The Ḥai. MS. when writing of the orange (infra) also has maghrib. A distinction of locality may be drawn by maghrib.

1861

Bābur’s “Hindūstān people” (aīl) are those neither Turks nor Afghāns.

1862

This name, with its usual form tāḍī (toddy), is used for the fermented sap of the date, coco, and mhār palms also (cf. Yule’s H.J. s. n. toddy).

1863

Bābur writes of the long leaf-stalk as a branch (shākh); he also seems to have taken each spike of the fan-leaf to represent a separate leaf. [For two omissions from my trs. see Appendix O.]

1864

Most of the fruits Bābur describes as orange-like are named in the following classified list, taken from Watts’ Economic Products of India: – “Citrus aurantium, narangi, sangtara, amrit-phal; C. decumana, pumelo, shaddock, forbidden-fruit, sada-phal; C. medica proper, turunj, limu; C. medica limonum, jambhira, karna-nebu.” Under C. aurantium Brandis enters both the sweet and the Seville oranges (nārangī); this Bābur appears to do also.