The Bābur-nāma
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2629
Chaupāra is at the Sāran end of the ferry, at the Sikandarpūr one is Chatur-mūk (Four-faces, an epithet of Brahma and Vishnu).
2630
It may be inferred from the earlier use of the phrase Gogar (or Gagar) and Sarū (Sīrū or Sīrd), on f. 338-8b, that whereas the rebels were, earlier, for crossing Sarū only, i. e. the Ghogrā below its confluence with the Sarda, they had now changed for crossing above the confluence and further north. Such a change is explicable by desire to avoid encounter with Bābur’s following, here perhaps the army of Aūd, and the same desire is manifested by their abandonment of a fort captured (f. 377b) some days before the rumour reached Bābur of their crossing Sarū and Gogar. – Since translating the passage on f. 338, I have been led, by enforced attention to the movement of the confluence of Ghogrā with Ganges (Sarū with Gang) to see that that translation, eased in obedience to distances shewn in maps, may be wrong and that Bābur’s statement that he dismounted 2-3 kurohs (4-6 m.) above Aūd at the confluence of Gogar with Sarū, may have some geographical interest and indicate movement of the two affluents such e. g. as is indicated of the Ganges and Ghogrā by tradition and by the name Burh-ganga (cf. f. 370, p. 667, n. 2).
2631
or L: knūr, perhaps Liknū or Liknūr. The capricious variation in the MSS. between L: knū and L: knūr makes the movements of the rebels difficult to follow. Comment on these variants, tending to identify the places behind the words, is grouped in Appendix T, On L: knū (Lakhnau) and L: knūr (Lakhnār).
2632
Taking guẕr in the sense it has had hitherto in the Bābur-nāma of ferry or ford, the detachment may have been intended to block the river-crossings of “Sarū and Gogar”. If so, however, the time for this was past, the rebels having taken a fort west of those rivers on Ramẓān 13th. Nothing further is heard of the detachment. – That news of the rebel-crossing of the rivers did not reach Bābur before the 18th and news of their capture of L: knū or L: knūr before the 19th may indicate that they had crossed a good deal to the north of the confluence, and that the fort taken was one more remote than Lakhnau (Oude). Cf. Appendix T.
2633
Anglicé, Wednesday after 6 p.m.
2634
These are recited late in the night during Ramẓān.
2635
kaghaẕ u ajzā', perhaps writing-paper and the various sections of the Bābur-nāma writings, viz. biographical notices, descriptions of places, detached lengths of diary, farmāns of Shaikh Zain. The lacunæ of 934 AH., 935 AH., and perhaps earlier ones also may be attributed reasonably to this storm. It is easy to understand the loss of e. g. the conclusion of the Farghāna section, and the diary one of 934 AH., if they lay partly under water. The accident would be better realized in its disastrous results to the writings, if one knew whether Bābur wrote in a bound or unbound volume. From the minor losses of 935 AH., one guesses that the current diary at least had not reached the stage of binding.
2636
The tūnglūq is a flap in a tent-roof, allowing light and air to enter, or smoke to come out.
2637
ajzā’ u kitāb. See last note but one. The kitāb (book) might well be Bābur’s composed narrative on which he was now working, as far as it had then gone towards its untimely end (Ḥai. MS. f. 216b).
2638
saqarlāt̤ kut-zīlūcha, where saqarlāt̤ will mean warm and woollen.
2639
Kharīd-town is some 4 m. s.e. of the town of Sikandarpūr.
2640
or L: knū. Cf. Appendix T. It is now 14 days since ‘Abdu’l-lāh kitābdār had left Tīr-mūhānī (f. 380) for Saṃbhal; as he was in haste, there had been time for him to go beyond Aūd (where Bāqī was) and yet get the news to Bābur on the 19th.
2641
In a way not usual with him, Bābur seems to apply three epithets to this follower, viz. mīng-begī, shaghāwal, Tāshkīndī (Index s. n.).
2642
or Kandla; cf. Revenue list f. 293; is it now Sāran Khāṣ?
2643
£18,000 (Erskine). For the total yield of Kundla (or Kandla) and Sarwār, see Revenue list (f. 293).
2644
f. 375. P. 675 n. 2 and f. 381, p. 687 n. 3.
2645
A little earlier Bābur has recorded his ease of mind about Bihār and Bengal, the fruit doubtless of his victory over Maḥmūd Lūdī and Naṣrat Shāh; he now does the same about Bihār and Sarwār, no doubt because he has replaced in Bihār, as his tributaries, the Nūḥānī chiefs and has settled other Afghāns, Jalwānīs and Farmūlīs in a Sarwār cleared of the Jalwānī (?) rebel Bīban and the Farmūlī opponents Bāyazīd and Ma‘rūf. The Farmūlī Shaikh-zādas, it may be recalled, belonged by descent to Bābur’s Kābul district of Farmūl. – The Wāqi‘āt-i-mushtāqī (E. & D.’s H. of I. iv, 548) details the position of the clan under Sikandar Lūdī.
2646
The MSS. write Fatḥpūr but Natḥpūr suits the context, a pargana mentioned in the Āyīn-i-akbarī and now in the ‘Azamgarh district. There seems to be no Fatḥpūr within Bābur’s limit of distance. The D. G. of ‘Azamgarh mentions two now insignificant Fatḥpūrs, one as having a school, the other a market. The name G: l: r: h (K: l: r: h) I have not found.
2647
The passage contained in this section seems to be a survival of the lost record of 934 AH. (f. 339). I have found it only in the Memoirs p. 420, and in Mr. Erskine’s own Codex of the Wāqi‘āt-i-bāburī (now B.M. Add. 26,200), f. 371 where however several circumstances isolate it from the context. It may be a Persian translation of an authentic Turkī fragment, found, perhaps with other such fragments, in the Royal Library. Its wording disassociates it from the ‘Abdu’r-raḥīm text. The Codex (No. 26,200) breaks off at the foot of a page (supra, Fatḥpūr) with a completed sentence. The supposedly-misplaced passage is entered on the next folio as a sort of ending of the Bābur-nāma writings; in a rough script, inferior to that of the Codex, and is followed by Tam, tam (Finis), and an incomplete date 98-, in words. Beneath this a line is drawn, on which is subtended the triangle frequent with scribes; within this is what seems to be a completion of the date to 980 AH. and a pious wish, scrawled in an even rougher hand than the rest. – Not only in diction and in script but in contents also the passage is a misfit where it now stands; it can hardly describe a village on the Sarū; Bābur in 935 AH. did not march for Ghāzīpūr but may have done so in 934 AH. (p. 656, n. 3); Ismā‘īl Jalwānī had had leave given already in 935 AH. (f. 377) under other conditions, ones bespeaking more trust and tried allegiance. – Possibly the place described as having fine buildings, gardens etc. is Aūd (Ajodhya) where Bābur spent some days in 934 AH. (cf. f. 363b, p. 655 n. 3).
2648
“Here my Persian manuscript closes” (This is B.M. Add. 26,200). “The two additional fragments are given from Mr. Metcalfe’s manuscript alone” (now B.M. Add. 26,202) “and unluckily, it is extremely incorrect” (Erskine). This note will have been written perhaps a decade before 1826, in which year the Memoirs of Bābur was published, after long delay. Mr. Erskine’s own Codex (No. 26,200) was made good at a later date, perhaps when he was working on his History of India (pub. 1854), by a well-written supplement which carries the diary to its usual end s. a. 936 AH. and also gives Persian translations of Bābur’s letters to Humāyūn and Khwāja Kalān.
2649
Here, as earlier, Natḥpūr suits the context better than Fatḥpūr. In the Natḥpūr pargana, at a distance from Chaupāra approximately suiting Bābur’s statement of distance, is the lake “Tal Ratoi”, formerly larger and deeper than now. There is a second further west and now larger than Tal Ratoi; through this the Ghogrā once flowed, and through it has tried within the last half-century to break back. These changes in Tal Ratoi and in the course of the Ghogrā dictate caution in attempting to locate places which were on it in Bābur’s day e. g. K: l: r: h (supra).
2650
Appendix T.
2651
This name has the following variants in the Ḥai. MS. and in Kehr’s: – Dalm-ū-ūū-ūr-ūd-ūt̤. The place was in Akbar’s sarkār of Mānikpūr and is now in the Rai Bareilly district.
2652
Perhaps Chaksar, which was in Akbar’s sarkār of Jūnpūr, and is now in the ‘Azamgarh district.
2653
Ḥai. MS. J: nāra khūnd tawābī sī bīla (perhaps tawābī‘sī but not so written). The obscurity of these words is indicated by their variation in the manuscripts. Most scribes have them as Chunār and Jūnpūr, guided presumably by the despatch of a force to Chunār on receipt of the news, but another force was sent to Dalmau at the same time. The rebels were defeated s.w. of Dalmau and thence went to Mahūba; it is not certain that they had crossed the Ganges at Dalmau; there are difficulties in supposing the fort they captured and abandoned was Lakhnau (Oude); they might have gone south to near Kālpī and Ādampūr, which are at no great distance from where they were defeated by Bāqī shaghāwal, if Lakhnūr (now Shahābād in Rāmpūr) were the fort. (Cf. Appendix T.) – To take up the interpretation of the words quoted above, at another point, that of the kinsfolk or fellow-Afghāns the rebels planned to join: – these kinsfolk may have been, of Bāyazīd, the Farmūlīs in Sarwār, and of Bīban, the Jalwānīs of the same place. The two may have trusted to relationship for harbourage during the Rains, disloyal though they were to their kinsmen’s accepted suzerain. Therefore if they were once across Ganges and Jumna, as they were in Mahūba, they may have thought of working eastwards south of the Ganges and of getting north into Sarwār through territory belonging to the Chunār and Jūnpūr governments. This however is not expressed by the words quoted above; perhaps Bābur’s record was hastily and incompletely written. – Another reading may be Chunār and Jaund (in Akbar’s sarkār of Rohtās).
2654
yūlīinī tūshqāīlār. It may be observed concerning the despatch of Muḥammad-i-zamān M. and of Junaid Barlās that they went to their new appointments Jūnpūr and Chunār respectively; that their doing so was an orderly part of the winding-up of Bābur’s Eastern operations; that they remained as part of the Eastern garrison, on duty apart from that of blocking the road of Bīban and Bāyazīd.
2655
This mode of fishing is still practised in India (Erskine).
2656
Islāmicé, Saturday night; Anglicé, Friday after 6 p.m.
2657
This Tūs, “Tousin, or Tons, is a branch from the Ghogrā coming off above Faizābād and joining the Sarju or Parsarū below ‘Azamgarh” (Erskine).
2658
Kehr’s MS. p. 1132, Māng (or Mānk); Ḥai. MS. Tāīk; I.O. 218 f. 328 Bā:k; I.O. 217 f. 236b, Bīāk. Māīng in the Sult̤ānpūr district seems suitably located (D.G. of Sult̤ānpūr, p. 162).
2659
This will be the night-guard (‘asas); the librarian (kitābdār) is in Saṃbhal. I.O. 218 f. 325 inserts kitābdār after ‘Abdu’l-lāh’s name where he is recorded as sent to Saṃbhal (f. 375).
2660
He will have announced to Tāj Khān the transfer of the fort to Junaid Barlās.
2661
£3750. Parsarūr was in Akbar’s ṣūbah of Lāhor; G. of I. xx, 23, Pasrūr.
2662
The estimate may have been made by measurement (f. 356) or by counting a horse’s steps (f. 370). Here the Ḥai. MS. and Kehr’s have D: lmūd, but I.O. 218 f. 328b (D: lmūū).
2663
As on f. 361b, so here, Bābur’s wording tends to locate Ādampūr on the right (west) bank of the Jumna.
2664
Ḥai. MS. aūta, presumably for aūrta; Kehr’s p. 1133, Aūd-dāghī, which, as Bāqī led the Aūd army, is ben trovato; both Persian translations, mīāngānī, central, inner, i. e. aūrta, perhaps household troops of the Centre.
2665
Anglicé, Saturday 12th after 6 p.m.
2666
In Akbar’s sarkār of Kālanjar, now in the Hamirpūr district.
2667
£7500 (Erskine). Amrohā is in the Morādābād district.
2668
At the Chaupāra-Chaturmūk ferry (f. 376). —Corrigendum: – In the Index of the Bābur-nāma Facsimile, Mūsa Farmūlī and Mūsa Sl. are erroneously entered as if one man.
2669
i. e. riding light and fast. The distance done between Ādampūr and Āgra was some 157 miles, the time was from 12 a.m. on Tuesday morning to about 9 p.m. of Thursday. This exploit serves to show that three years of continuous activity in the plains of Hindūstān had not destroyed Bābur’s capacity for sustained effort, spite of several attacks of (malarial?) fever.
2670
Anglicé, Tuesday 12.25 a.m.
2671
He was governor of Etāwa.
2672
Islamicé, Friday, Shawwāl 18th, Anglicé, Thursday, June 24th, soon after 9 p.m.
2673
Anglicé, she arrived at mid-night of Saturday. – Gul-badan writes of Māhīm’s arrival as unexpected and of Bābur’s hurrying off on foot to meet her (Humāyūn-nāma f. 14, trs. p. 100).
2674
Māhīm’s journey from Kābul to Āgra had occupied over 5 months.
2675
Hindū Beg qūchīn had been made Humāyūn’s retainer in 932 AH. (f. 297), and had taken possession of Saṃbhal for him. Hence, as it seems, he was ordered, while escorting the ladies from Kābul, to go to Saṃbhal. He seems to have gone before waiting on Bābur, probably not coming into Āgra till now. – It may be noted here that in 933 AH. he transformed a Hindū temple into a Mosque in Saṃbhal; it was done by Bābur’s orders and is commemorated by an inscription still existing on the Mosque, one seeming not to be of his own composition, judging by its praise of himself. (JASB. Proceedings, May 1873, p. 98, Blochmann’s art. where the inscription is given and translated; and Archæological Survey Reports, xii, p. 24-27, with Plates showing the Mosque).
2676
Cf. f. 375, f. 377, with notes concerning ‘Abdu’l-lāh and Tīr-mūhānī. I have not found the name Tīr-mūhānī on maps; its position can be inferred from Bābur’s statement (f. 375) that he had sent ‘Abdu’l-lāh to Saṃbhal, he being then at Kunba or Kunīa in the Nurhun pargana. – The name Tīr-mūhānī occurs also in Gorakhpūr. – It was at Tīr-mūhānī (Three-mouths) that Khwānd-amīr completed the Ḥabībū’s-siyar (lith. ed. i, 83; Rieu’s Pers. Cat. p. 1079). If the name imply three water-mouths, they might be those of Ganges, Ghogrā and Dāhā.
2677
nīm-kāra. E. and de C. however reverse the rôles.
2678
The Tārīkh-i-gūālīārī (B.M. Add. 16, 709, p. 18) supplements the fragmentary accounts which, above and s. a. 936 AH., are all that the Bābur-nāma now preserves concerning Khwāja Rāḥīm-dād’s misconduct. It has several mistakes but the gist of its information is useful. It mentions that the Khwāja and his paternal-uncle Mahdī Khwāja had displeased Bābur; that Raḥīm-dād resolved to take refuge with the ruler of Mālwā (Muḥammad Khīljī) and to make over Gūālīār to a Rājpūt landholder of that country; that upon this Shaikh Muḥammad Ghaus̤ went to Āgra and interceded with Bābur and obtained his forgiveness for Raḥīm-dād. Gūālīār was given back to Raḥīm-dād but after a time he was superseded by Abū’l-fatḥ [Shaikh Gūran]. For particulars about Mahdī Khwāja and a singular story told about him by Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Aḥmad in the T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī, vide Gul-badan’s Ḥumāyūn-nāma, Appendix B, and Translator’s Note p. 702, Section f.
2679
He may have come about the misconduct of his nephew Raḥīm-dād.
2680
The ‘Īdu’l-kabīr, the Great Festival of 10th Ẕū’l-ḥijja.
2681
About £1750 (Erskine).
2682
Perhaps he was from the tract in Persia still called Chaghatāī Mountains. One Ibrāhīm Chaghatāī is mentioned by Bābur (f. 175b) with Turkmān begs who joined Ḥusain Bāī-qarā. This Ḥasan-i-‘alī Chaghatāī may have come in like manner, with Murād the Turkmān envoy from ‘Irāq (f. 369 and n. 1).
2683
Several incidents recorded by Gul-badan (writing half a century later) as following Māhīm’s arrival in Āgra, will belong to the record of 935 AH. because they preceded Humāyūn’s arrival from Badakhshān. Their omission from Bābur’s diary is explicable by its minor lacunæ. Such are: – (1) a visit to Dhūlpūr and Sīkrī the interest of which lies in its showing that Bībī Mubārika had accompanied Māhīm Begīm to Āgra from Kābul, and that there was in Sīkrī a quiet retreat, a chaukandī, where Bābur “used to write his book”; – (2) the arrival of the main caravan of ladies from Kābul, which led Bābur to go four miles out, to Naugrām, in order to give honouring reception to his sister Khān-ẓāda Begīm; – (3) an excursion to the Gold-scattering garden (Bāgh-i-zar-afshān), where seated among his own people, Bābur said he was “bowed down by ruling and reigning”, longed to retire to that garden with a single attendant, and wished to make over his sovereignty to Humāyūn; – (4) the death of Dil-dār’s son Alwār (var. Anwār) whose birth may be assigned to the gap preceding 932 AH. because not chronicled later by Bābur, as is Farūq’s. As a distraction from the sorrow for this loss, a journey was “pleasantly made by water” to Dhūlpūr.
2684
Cf. f. 381b n. 2. For his earlier help to Raḥīm-dād see f. 304. For Biographies of him see Blochmann’s A. – i-A. trs. p. 446, and Badāyūnī’s Muntakhabu-'t-tawārīkh (Ranking’s and Lowe’s trss.).
2685
Beyond this broken passage, one presumably at the foot of a page in Bābur’s own manuscript, nothing of his diary is now known to survive. What is missing seems likely to have been written and lost. It is known from a remark of Gul-badan’s (H.N. p. 103) that he “used to write his book” after Māhīm’s arrival in Āgra, the place coming into her anecdote being Sīkrī.
2686
Jauhar’s Humāyūn-nāma and Bāyazīd Bīyāt’s work of the same title were written under the same royal command as the Begīm’s. They contribute nothing towards filling the gap of 936 AH.; their authors, being Humāyūn’s servants, write about him. It may be observed that criticism of these books, as recording trivialities, is disarmed if they were commanded because they would obey an order to set down whatever was known, selection amongst their contents resting with Abū’l-faẓl. Even more completely must they be excluded from a verdict on the literary standard of their day. – Abū’l-faẓl must have had a source of Bāburiana which has not found its way into European libraries. A man likely to have contributed his recollections, directly or transmitted, is Khwāja Muqīm Harāwī. The date of Muqīm’s death is conjectural only, but he lived long enough to impress the worth of historical writing on his son Niz̤āmu'-d-dīn Aḥmad. (Cf. E. and D.’s H. of I. art. T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī v, 177 and 187; T̤. – i-A. lith. ed. p. 193; and for Bāyazīd Bīyāt’s work, JASB. 1898, p. 296.)
2687
Ibn Batuta (Lee’s trs. p. 133) mentions that after his appointment to Gūālīār, Raḥīm-dād fell from favour … but was restored later, on the representation of Muḥammad Ghaus̤; held Gūālīār again for a short time, (he went to Bahādur Shāh in Gujrāt) and was succeeded by Abū’l-fatḥ (i. e. Shaikh Gūran) who held it till Bābur’s death.
2688
Its translation and explanatory noting have filled two decades of hard-working years. Tanti labores auctoris et traductoris!
2689
I am indebted to my husband for acquaintance with Niz̤āmu'-d-dīn Aḥmad’s record about Bābur and Kashmīr.
2690
In view of the vicissitudes to which under Humāyūn the royal library was subjected, it would be difficult to assert that this source was not the missing continuation of Bābur’s diary.
2691
E. and D.’s H. of I. art. Tārīkh-i Khān-i-jahān Lūdī v, 67. For Aḥmad-i-yādgār’s book and its special features vide l. c. v, 2, 24, with notes; Rieu’s Persian Catalogue iii, 922a; JASB. 1916, H. Beveridge’s art. Note on the Tārīkh-i-salāt̤īn-i-afāghana.
2692
Humāyūn’s last recorded act in Hindūstān was that of 933 AH. (f. 329b) when he took unauthorized possession of treasure in Dihlī.
2693
Tārīkh-i-rashīdī trs. p. 387.
2694
T. – i-R. trs. p. 353 et seq. and Mr. Ney Elias’ notes.
2695
Abū’l-faẓl’s record of Humāyūn’s sayings and minor doings at this early date in his career, can hardly be anything more accurate than family-tradition.
2696
The statement that Khalīfa was asked to go so far from where he was of the first importance as an administrator, leads to consideration of why it was done. So little is known explicitly of Bābur’s intentions about his territories after his death that it is possible only to put that little together and read between its lines. It may be that he was now planning an immediate retirement to Kābul and an apportionment during life of his dominions, such as Abū-sa‘īd had made of his own. If so, it would be desirable to have Badakhshān held in strength such as Khalīfa’s family could command, and especially desirable because as Barlās Turks, that family would be one with Bābur in desire to regain Transoxiana. Such a political motive would worthily explain the offer of the appointment.
2697
The “Shāh” of this style is derived from Sulaimān’s Badakhshī descent through Shāh Begīm; the “Mīrzā” from his Mīrān-shāhī descent through his father Wais Khān Mīrzā. The title Khān Mīrzā or Mīrzā Khān, presumably according to the outlook of the speaker, was similarly derived from forbears, as would be also Shāh Begīm’s; (her personal name is not mentioned in the sources).
2698
Sa‘īd, on the father’s, and Bābur, on the mother’s side, were of the same generation in descent from Yūnas Khān; Sulaimān was of a younger one, hence his pseudo-filial relation to the men of the elder one.
2699
Sa‘īd was Shāh Begīm’s grandson through her son Aḥmad, Sulaimān her great-grandson through her daughter Sult̤ān-Nigār, but Sulaimān could claim also as the heir of his father who was nominated to rule by Shāh Begīm; moreover, he could claim by right of conquest on the father’s side, through Abū-sa‘īd the conqueror, his son Maḥmūd long the ruler, and so through Maḥmūd’s son Wais Khān Mīrzā.