The Bābur-nāma

1944

bāghcha (Index s. n.). That Bābur was the admitted pioneer of orderly gardens in India is shewn by the 30th Āyīn, On Perfumes: – “After the foot-prints of Firdaus-makānī (Bābur) had added to the glory of Hindūstān, embellishment by avenues and landscape-gardening was seen, while heart-expanding buildings and the sound of falling-waters widened the eyes of beholders.”

1945

Perhaps gaz, each somewhat less than 36 inches.

1946

The more familiar Indian name is baoli. Such wells attracted Peter Mundy’s attention; Yule gives an account of their names and plan (Mundy’s Travels in Asia, Hakluyt Society, ed. R. C. Temple, and Yule’s Hobson Jobson s. n. Bowly). Bābur’s account of his great wāīn is not easy to translate; his interpreters vary from one another; probably no one of them has felt assured of translating correctly.

1947

i. e. the one across the river.

1948

tāsh masjid; this, unless some adjectival affix (e. g. dīn) has been omitted by the scribe, I incline to read as meaning extra, supplementary, or outer, not as “mosque-of-stone”.

1949

or Jājmāwa, the old name for the sub-district of Kānhpūr (Cawnpur).

1950

i. e. of the Corps of Braves.

1951

Dilmāū is on the left bank of the Ganges, s.e. from Bareilly (Erskine).

1952

Marv-nīng bundī-nī bāghlāb, which Erskine renders by “Having settled the revenue of Merv”, and de Courteille by, “Aprés avoir occupé Merv.” Were the year’s revenues compressed into a 40 to 50 days collection?

1953

i. e. those who had part in his brother’s murder. Cf. Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Aḥmad’s T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī and the Mīrat-i-sikandarī (trs. History of Gujrat E. C. Bayley).

1954

Elph. MS. f. 252; W. – i-B. I.O. 215 f. 199b and 217 f. 208b; Mems. p. 343.

1955

sīūnchī (Zenker). Fārūq was Māhīm’s son; he died in 934 A.H. before his father had seen him.

1956

ṣalaḥ. It is clear from the “tāsh-awī” (Pers. trs. khāna-i-sang) of this mortar (qāzān) that stones were its missiles. Erskine notes that from Bābur’s account cannon would seem sometimes to have been made in parts and clamped together, and that they were frequently formed of iron bars strongly compacted into a circular shape. The accoutrement (ṣalaḥ) presumably was the addition of fittings.

1957

About £40,000 sterling (Erskine).

1958

The MSS. write Ṣafar but it seems probable that Muḥarram should be substituted for this; one ground for not accepting Ṣafar being that it breaks the consecutive order of dates, another that Ṣafar allows what seems a long time for the journey from near Dilmāū to Āgra. All MSS. I have seen give the 8th as the day of the month but Erskine has 20th. In this part of Bābur’s writings dates are sparse; it is a narrative and not a diary.

1959

This phrase, foreign to Bābur’s diction, smacks of a Court-Persian milieu.

1960

Here the Elph. MS. has Ṣafar Muḥarram (f. 253), as has also I.O. 215 f. 200b, but it seems unsafe to take this as an al Ṣafarānī extension of Muḥarram because Muḥ. – Ṣafar 24th was not a Wednesday. As in the passage noted just above, it seems likely that Muḥarram is right.

1961

Cf. f. 15b note to Qaṃbar-i-‘alī. The title Akhta-begī is to be found translated by “Master of the Horse”, but this would not suit both uses of akhta in the above sentence. Cf. Shaw’s Vocabulary.

1962

i. e. Tahangaṛh in Karauli, Rājpūtāna.

1963

Perhaps sipāhī represents Hindūstānī foot-soldiers.

1964

Rafī‘u-d-dīn Ṣafawī, a native of Īj near the Persian Gulf, teacher of Abū’l-faẓl’s father and buried near Āgra (Āyīn-i-akbarī).

1965

This phrase, again, departs from Bābur’s simplicity of statement.

1966

About £5,000 (Erskine).

1967

About £17,500 (Erskine).

1968

Ḥai. MS. and 215 f. 201b, Hastī; Elph. MS. f. 254, and Ilminsky, p. 394, Aīmīshchī; Memoirs, p. 346, Imshiji, so too Mémoires, ii, 257.

1969

About £5000 (Erskine). Bīānwān lies in the sūbah of Āgra.

1970

Cf. f. 175 for Bābur’s estimate of his service.

1971

Cf. f. 268b for Bābur’s clemency to him.

1972

Firishta. (Briggs ii, 53) mentions that Asad had gone to T̤ahmāsp from Kābul to congratulate him on his accession. Shāh Ismā‘īl had died in 930 AH. (1524 AD.); the title Shāh-zāda is a misnomer therefore in 933 AH. – one possibly prompted by T̤ahmāsp’s youth.

1973

The letter is likely to have been written to Māhīm and to have been brought back to India by her in 935 AH. (f. 380b). Some MSS. of the Pers. trs. reproduce it in Turkī and follow this by a Persian version; others omit the Turkī.

1974

Turkī, būā. Hindī bawā means sister or paternal-aunt but this would not suit from Bābur’s mouth, the more clearly not that his epithet for the offender is bad-bakht. Gul-badan (H.N. f. 19) calls her “ill-omened demon”.

1975

She may have been still in the place assigned to her near Āgra when Bābur occupied it (f. 269).

1976

f. 290. Erskine notes that the tūla is about equal in weight to the silver rūpī.

1977

It appears from the kitchen-arrangements detailed by Abū’l-faẓl, that before food was dished up, it was tasted from the pot by a cook and a subordinate taster, and next by the Head-taster.

1978

The Turkī sentences which here follow the well-known Persian proverb, Rasīda būd balāī walī ba khair guz̤asht, are entered as verse in some MSS.; they may be a prose quotation.

1979

She, after being put under contribution by two of Bābur’s officers (f. 307b) was started off for Kābul, but, perhaps dreading her reception there, threw herself into the Indus in crossing and was drowned. (Cf. A.N. trs. H. Beveridge Errata and addenda p. xi for the authorities.)

1980

gil makhtūm, Lemnian earth, terra sigillata, each piece of which was impressed, when taken from the quarry, with a guarantee-stamp (Cf. Ency. Br. s. n. Lemnos).

1981

tirīāq-i-fārūq, an antidote.

1982

Index s. n.

1983

Kāmrān was in Qandahār (Index s. n.). Erskine observes here that Bābur’s omission to give the name of Ibrāhīm’s son, is noteworthy; the son may however have been a child and his name not known to or recalled by Bābur when writing some years later.

1984

f. 299b.

1985

The Āyīn-i-akbarī locates this in the sarkār of Jūn-pūr, a location suiting the context. The second Persian translation (‘Abdu’r-raḥīm’s) has here a scribe’s skip from one “news” to another (both asterisked in my text); hence Erskine has an omission.

1986

This is the Chār-bāgh of f. 300, known later as the Rām (Arām) – bāgh (Garden-of-rest).

1987

Presumably he was coming up from Marwār.

1988

This name varies; the Ḥai. MS. in most cases writes Qismatī, but on f. 267b, Qismatāī; the Elph. MS. on f. 220 has Q: s: mnāī; De Courteille writes Qismī.

1989

artkāb qīldī, perhaps drank wine, perhaps ate opium-confections to the use of which he became addicted later on (Gulbadan’s Humāyūn-nāma f. 30b and 73b).

1990

furṣatlār, i. e. between the occupation of Āgra and the campaign against Rānā Sangā.

1991

Apparently the siege Bābur broke up in 931 AH. had been renewed by the Aūzbegs (f. 255b and Trs. Note s. a. 931 AH. section c).

1992

These places are on the Khulm-river between Khulm and Kāhmard. The present tense of this and the following sentences is Babur’s.

1993

f. 261.

1994

Erskine here notes that if the ser Bābur mentions be one of 14 tūlas, the value is about £27; if of 24 tūlas, about £45.

1995

T. chāpdūq. Cf. the two Persian translations 215 f. 205b and 217 f. 215; also Ilminsky, p. 401.

1996

būlghān chīrīkī. The Rānā’s forces are thus stated by Tod (Rājastān; Annals of Marwār Cap. ix): – “Eighty thousand horse, 7 Rajas of the highest rank, 9 Raos, and 104 chieftains bearing the titles of Rawul and Rawut, with 500 war-elephants, followed him into the field.” Bābur’s army, all told, was 12,000 when he crossed the Indus from Kābul; it will have had accretions from his own officers in the Panj-āb and some also from other quarters, and will have had losses at Pānipat; his reliable kernel of fighting-strength cannot but have been numerically insignificant, compared with the Rājpūt host. Tod says that almost all the princes of Rājastān followed the Rānā at Kanwā.

1997

dūrbātūr. This is the first use of the word in the Bābur-nāma; the defacer of the Elph. Codex has altered it to aūrātūr.

1998

Shaikh Zain records [Abū’l-faẓl also, perhaps quoting from him] that Bābur, by varying diacritical points, changed the name Sīkrī to Shukrī in sign of gratitude for his victory over the Rānā. The place became the Fatḥpūr-sīkrī of Akbar.

1999

Erskine locates this as 10 to 12 miles n.w. of Bīāna.

2000

This phrase has not occurred in the B.N. before; presumably it expresses what has not yet been expressed; this Erskine’s rendering, “each according to the speed of his horse,” does also. The first Persian translation, which in this portion is by Muḥammad-qulī Mughūl Ḥiṣārī, translates by az daṃbal yak dīgar (I.O. 215, f. 205b); the second, ‘Abdu’r-rāḥīm’s, merely reproduces the phrase; De Courteille (ii, 272) appears to render it by (amirs) que je ne nomme pas. If my reading of T̤āhir-tibrī’s failure be correct (infra), Erskine’s translation suits the context.

2001

The passage cut off by my asterisks has this outside interest that it forms the introduction to the so-called “Fragments”, that is, to certain Turkī matter not included in the standard Bābur-nāma, but preserved with the Kehr – Ilminsky – de Courteille text. As is well-known in Bāburiana, opinion has varied as to the genesis of this matter; there is now no doubt that it is a translation into Turkī from the (Persian) Akbar-nāma, prefaced by the above-asterisked passage of the Bābur-nāma and continuous (with slight omissions) from Bib. Ind. ed. i, 106 to 120 (trs. H. Beveridge i, 260 to 282). It covers the time from before the battle of Kanwā to the end of Abū’l-faẓl’s description of Bābur’s death, attainments and Court; it has been made to seem Bābur’s own, down to his death-bed, by changing the third person of A.F.’s narrative into the autobiographical first person. (Cf. Ilminsky, p. 403 l. 4 and p. 494; Mémoires ii, 272 and 443 to 464; JRAS. 1908, p. 76.)

A minute point in the history of the B.N. manuscripts may be placed on record here; viz. that the variants from the true Bābur-nāma text which occur in the Kehr-Ilminsky one, occur also in the corrupt Turkī text of I.O. No. 214 (JRAS 1900, p. 455).

2002

chāpār kūmak yītmās, perhaps implying that the speed of his horses was not equal to that of Muḥibb-i-'alī’s. Translators vary as to the meaning of the phrase.

2003

Erskine and de Courteille both give Must̤afa the commendation the Turkī and Persian texts give to the carts.

2004

According to Tod’s Rājastān, negotiations went on during the interval, having for their object the fixing of a frontier between the Rānā and Bābur. They were conducted by a “traitor” Ṣalaḥ’d-dīn Tūār the chief of Raisin, who moreover is said to have deserted to Bābur during the battle.

2005

Cf. f. 89 for Bābur’s disastrous obedience to astrological warning.

2006

For the reading of this second line, given by the good MSS. viz. Tauba ham bī maza nīst, bachash, Ilminsky (p. 405) has Tauba ham bī maza, mast bakhis, which de Courteille [II, 276] renders by, “O ivrogne insensé! que ne goûtes-tu aussi à la pénitence?” The Persian couplet seems likely to be a quotation and may yet be found elsewhere. It is not in the Rāmpūr Dīwān which contains the Turkī verses following it (E. D. Ross p. 21).

2007

kīchmāklīk, to pass over (to exceed?), to ford or go through a river, whence to transgress. The same metaphor of crossing a stream occurs, in connection with drinking, on f. 189b.

2008

This line shews that Bābur’s renouncement was of wine only; he continued to eat confections (ma‘jūn).

2009

Cf. f. 186b. Bābur would announce his renunciation in Dīwān; there too the forbidden vessels of precious metals would be broken. His few words leave it to his readers to picture the memorable scene.

2010

This night-guard (‘asas) cannot be the one concerning whom Gul-badan records that he was the victim of a little joke made at his expense by Bābur (H. N. Index s. n.). He seems likely to be the Ḥājī Muḥ. ‘asas whom Abū’l-faẓl mentions in connection with Kāmrān in 953 AH. (1547 AD.). He may be the ‘asas who took charge of Bābur’s tomb at Āgra (cf. Gul-badan’s H. N. s. n. Muḥ. ‘Alī ‘asas t̤aghāī, and Akbar-nāma trs. i, 502).

2011

saqālī qīrqmāqta u qūīmāqta. Erskine here notes that “a vow to leave the beard untrimmed was made sometimes by persons who set out against the infidels. They did not trim the beard till they returned victorious. Some vows of similar nature may be found in Scripture”, e. g. II Samuel, cap. 19 v. 24.

2012

Index s. n. The tamghā was not really abolished until Jahāngīr’s time – if then (H. Beveridge). See Thomas’ Revenue Resources of the Mughal Empire.

2013

There is this to notice here: – Bābur’s narrative has made the remission of the tamghā contingent on his success, but the farmān which announced that remission is dated some three weeks before his victory over Rānā Sangā (Jumāda II, 13th-March 16th). Manifestly Bābur’s remission was absolute and made at the date given by Shaikh Zain as that of the farmān. The farmān seems to have been despatched as soon as it was ready, but may have been inserted in Bābur’s narrative at a later date, together with the preceding paragraph which I have asterisked.

2014

“There is a lacuna in the Turkī copy” (i. e. the Elphinstone Codex) “from this place to the beginning of the year 935. Till then I therefore follow only Mr. Metcalfe’s and my own Persian copies” (Erskine).

2015

I am indebted to my husband for this revised version of the farmān. He is indebted to M. de Courteille for help generally, and specially for the references to the Qorān (q. v. infra).

2016

The passages in italics are Arabic in the original, and where traced to the Qorān, are in Sale’s words.

2017

Qorān, Sūrah XII, v. 53.

2018

Sūrah LVII, v. 21.

2019

Sūrah LVII, v. 15.

2020

Sūrah VII, v. 140.

2021

Sūrah II, v. 185.

2022

These may be self-conquests as has been understood by Erskine (p. 356) and de Courteille (ii. 281) but as the Divine “acceptance” would seem to Bābur vouched for by his military success, “victories” may stand for his success at Kanwā.

2023

Sūrah II, 177 where, in Sale’s translation, the change referred to is the special one of altering a legacy.

2024

The words dīgūchī and yīgūchī are translated in the second Wāqi‘āt-i-bāburī by sukhan-gūī and [wīlāyat]-khwār. This ignores in them the future element supplied by their component gū which would allow them to apply to conditions dependent on Bābur’s success. The Ḥai. MS. and Ilminsky read tīgūchī, supporter- or helper-to-be, in place of the yīgūchī, eater-to-be I have inferred from the khwār of the Pers. translation; hence de Courteille writes “amīrs auxquels incombait l’obligation de raffermir le gouvernement”. But Erskine, using the Pers. text alone, and thus having khwār before him, translates by, “amīrs who enjoyed the wealth of kingdoms.” The two Turkī words make a depreciatory “jingle”, but the first one, dīgūchī, may imply serious reference to the duty, declared by Muḥammad to be incumbent upon a wazīr, of reminding his sovereign “when he forgetteth his duty”. Both may be taken as alluding to dignities to be attained by success in the encounter from which wazīrs and amīrs were shrinking.

2025

Firdausī’s Shāh-nāma [Erskine].

2026

Also Chand-wāl; it is 25 m. east of Āgra and on the Jamna [T̤abaqāṭ-i-nāṣirī, Raverty, p. 742 n.9]

2027

Probably, Overthrower of the rhinoceros, but if Gurg-andāz be read, of the wolf.

2028

According to the Persian calendar this is the day the Sun enters Aries.

2029

The practical purpose of this order of march is shewn in the account of the battle of Pānīpat, and in the Letter of Victory, f. 319.

2030

kurohcha, perhaps a short kuroh, but I have not found Bābur using cha as a diminutive in such a case as kurohcha.

2031

or Kānūa, in the Bīānā district and three marches from Bīāna-town. “It had been determined on by Rānā Sangrām Sīngh (i. e. Sangā) for the northern limit of his dominions, and he had here built a small palace.” Tod thus describes Bābur’s foe, “Sangā Rānā was of the middle stature, and of great muscular strength, fair in complexion, with unusually large eyes which appear to be peculiar to his descendants. He exhibited at his death but the fragments of a warrior: one eye was lost in the broil with his brother, an arm in action with the Lodī kings of Dehlī, and he was a cripple owing to a limb being broken by a cannon-ball in another; while he counted 80 wounds from the sword or the lance on various parts of his body” (Tod’s Rājastān, cap. Annals of Mewār).

2032

Here M. de C. has the following note (ii, 273 n.); it supplements my own of f. 264 [n. 3]. “Le mot arāba, que j’ai traduit par chariot est pris par M. Leyden” (this should be Erskine) “dans le sens de ‘gun', ce que je ne crois pas exact; tout au plus signifierait-il affût” (gun-carriage). “Il me parait impossible d’admettre que Bāber eût à sa disposition une artillerie attelée aussi considérable. Ces arāba pouvaient servir en partie à transporter des pièces de campagne, mais ils avaient aussi une autre destination, comme on le voit par la suite du récit.” It does not appear to me that Erskine translates the word arāba by the word gun, but that the arābas (all of which he took to be gun-carriages) being there, he supposed the guns. This was not correct as the various passages about carts as defences show (cf. Index s. nn. arāba and carts).

2033

It is characteristic of Bābur that he reproduces Shaikh Zain’s Fatḥ-nāma, not because of its eloquence but because of its useful details. Erskine and de Courteille have the following notes concerning Shaikh Zain’s farmān: – “Nothing can form a more striking contrast to the simple, manly and intelligent style of Baber himself, than the pompous, laboured periods of his secretary. Yet I have never read this Firmān to any native of India who did not bestow unlimited admiration on the official bombast of Zeineddin, while I have met with none but turks who paid due praise to the calm simplicity of Baber” [Mems. p. 359]. “Comme la précédente (farmān), cette pièce est rédigée en langue persane et offre un modèle des plus accomplis du style en usage dans les chancelleries orientales. La traduction d’un semblable morceau d'éloquence est de la plus grande difficulté, si on veut être clair, tout en restant fidèle à l’original.”

Like the Renunciation farmān, the Letter-of-victory with its preceding sentence which I have asterisked, was probably inserted into Bābur’s narrative somewhat later than the battle of Kānwa. Hence Bābur’s pluperfect-tense “had indited”. I am indebted to my husband for help in revising the difficult Fatḥ-nāma; he has done it with consideration of the variants between the earlier English and the French translations. No doubt it could be dealt with more searchingly still by one well-versed in the Qorān and the Traditions, and thus able to explain others of its allusions. The italics denote Arabic passages in the original; many of these are from the Qorān, and in tracing them M. de Courteille’s notes have been most useful to us.

2034

Qorān, cap. 80, last sentence.

2035

Shaikh Zain, in his version of the Bābur-nāma, styles Bābur Nawāb where there can be no doubt of the application of the title, viz. in describing Shāh T̤ahmāsp’s gifts to him (mentioned by Bābur on f. 305). He uses the title also in the farmān of renunciation (f. 313b), but it does not appear in my text, “royal” (fortune) standing for it (in loco p. 555, l. 10).

2036

The possessive pronoun occurs several times in the Letter-of-victory. As there is no semblance of putting forward that letter as being Bābur’s, the pronoun seems to imply “on our side”.

2037

The Bābur-nāma includes no other than Shaikh Zain’s about Kanwā. Those here alluded to will be the announcements of success at Milwat, Pānīpat, Dībālpūr and perhaps elsewhere in Hindūstān.