The Bābur-nāma

2519

“Friday” here stands for Anglicé, Thursday after 6 p.m.; this, only, suiting Bābur’s next explicit date Sha‘bān 1st, Saturday.

2520

The march, beginning on the Jumna, is now along the united rivers.

2521

ẓarb-zanlīk arābalār. Here the carts are those carrying the guns.

2522

From the particulars Bābur gives about the Tūs (Tons) and Karmā-nāśā, it would seem that he had not passed them last year, an inference supported by what is known of his route in that year: – He came from Gūālīār to the Kanār-passage (f. 336), there crossed the Jumna and went direct to Qanauj (f. 335), above Qanauj bridged the Ganges, went on to Bangarmāu (f. 338), crossed the Gūmtī and went to near the junction of the Ghogrā and Sardā (f. 338b). The next indication of his route is that he is at Baksara, but whether he reached it by water down the Ghogrā, as his meeting with Muḥ. Ma‘rūf Farmūlī suggests (f. 377), or by land, nothing shews. From Baksara (f. 366) he went up-stream to Chausa (f. 365b), on perhaps to Sayyidpūr, 2m. from the mouth of the Gūmtī, and there left the Ganges for Jūnpūr (f. 365). I have found nothing about his return route to Āgra; it seems improbable that he would go so far south as to near Pīāg; a more northerly and direct road to Fatḥpūr and Sarāī Bāburpūr may have been taken. – Concerning Bābur’s acts in 934 AH. the following item, (met with since I was working on 934 AH.), continues his statement (f. 338b) that he spent a few days near Aūd (Ajōdhya) to settle its affairs. The D.G. of Fyzābāa (H. E. Nevill) p. 173 says “In 1528 AD. Bābur came to Ajodhya (Aūd) and halted a week. He destroyed the ancient temple” (marking the birth-place of Rāma) “and on its site built a mosque, still known as Bābur’s Mosque… It has two inscriptions, one on the outside, one on the pulpit; both are in Persian; and bear the date 935 AH.” This date may be that of the completion of the building. – (Corrigendum: – On f. 339 n. 1, I have too narrowly restricted the use of the name Sarjū. Bābur used it to describe what the maps of Arrowsmith and Johnson shew, and not only what the Gazetteer of India map of the United Provinces does. It applies to the Sardā (f. 339) as Bābur uses it when writing of the fords.)

2523

Here the lacuna of the Ḥai. Codex ends.

2524

Perhaps, where there is now the railway station of “Nulibai” (I.S. Map). The direct road on which the army moved, avoids the windings of the river.

2525

This has been read as T. kīnt, P. dih, Eng. village and Fr. village.

2526

“Nankunpur” lying to the north of Puhari railway-station suits the distance measured on maps.

2527

These will be the women-travellers.

2528

Perhaps jungle tracts lying in the curves of the river.

2529

jīrga, which here stands for the beaters’ incurving line, witness the exit of the buffalo at the end. Cf. f. 367b for a jīrga of boats.

2530

aūzūn aūzāgh, many miles and many hours?

2531

Bulloa? (I.S. Map).

2532

Anglicé, Sunday after 6 p.m.

2533

‘alufa u qunal (f. 359b).

2534

than the Ganges perhaps; or narrowish compared with other rivers, e. g. Ganges, Ghogrā, and Jūn.

2535

yīl-tūrgī yūrt, by which is meant, I think, close to the same day a year back, and not an indefinite reference to some time in the past year.

2536

Maps make the starting-place likely to be Sayyidpūr.

2537

re-named Zamānīa, after Akbar’s officer ‘Alī-qulī Khān Khān-i-zamān, and now the head-quarters of the Zamānīa pargana of Ghāzīpūr. Madan-Benāres was in Akbar’s sarkār of Ghāzīpūr. (It was not identified by E. or by de C.) Cf. D.G. of Ghāzīpūr.

2538

In the earlier part of the Ḥai. Codex this Afghān tribal-name is written Nūḥānī, but in this latter portion a different scribe occasionally writes it Lūḥānī (Index s. n.).

2539

‘arza-dāsht, i. e. phrased as from one of lower station to a superior.

2540

His letter may have announced his and his mother Dūdū Bībī’s approach (f. 368-9).

2541

Naṣīr Khān had been an amīr of Sl. Sikandar Lūdī. Sher Khān Sūr married his widow “Guhar Kusāīn”, bringing him a large dowry (A.N. trs. p. 327; and Tārīkh-i-sher-shāhi, E. & D.’s History of India iv, 346).

2542

He started from Chaparghatta (f. 361b, p. 650 n. 1).

2543

yīl-tūrgī yūrt.

2544

“This must have been the Eclipse of the 10th of May 1528 AD.; a fast is enjoined on the day of an eclipse” (Erskine).

2545

Karmā-nāśā means loss of the merit acquired by good works.

2546

The I.S. Map marks a main road leading to the mouth of the Karmā-nāśā and no other leading to the river for a considerable distance up-stream.

2547

Perhaps “Thora-nadee” (I.S. Map).

2548

Anglicé, Sunday after 6 p.m.

2549

aūtkān yīl.

2550

Perhaps the dū-āba between the Ganges and “Thora-nadee”.

2551

yīl-tūr … Gang-sūī-dīn mīn dastak bīla aūtūb, ba‘ẓī āt, ba‘ẓī tīwah mīnīb, kīlīb, sair qīlīlīb aīdī. Some uncertainty as to the meaning of the phrase dastak bīla aūtūb is caused by finding that while here de Courteille agrees with Erskine in taking it to mean swimming, he varies later (f. 373b) to appuyés sur une pièce de bois. Taking the Persian translations of three passages about crossing water into consideration (p. 655 after f. 363b, f. 366b (here), f. 373b), and also the circumstances that E. and de C. are once in agreement and that Erskine worked with the help of Oriental munshīs, I incline to think that dastak bīla does express swimming. – The question of its precise meaning bears on one concerning Bābur’s first swim across the Ganges (p. 655, n. 3). – Perhaps I should say, however, that if the sentence quoted at the head of this note stood alone, without the extraneous circumstances supporting the reading of dastak bīla to mean swimming, I should incline to read it as stating that Bābur went on foot through the water, feeling his footing with a pole (dastak), and that his followers rode through the ford after him. Nothing in the quoted passage suggests that the horses and camels swam. But whether the Ganges was fordable at Baksara in Bābur’s time, is beyond surmise.

2552

faṣl soz, which, manifestly, were to be laid before the envoy’s master. The articles are nowhere specified; one is summarized merely on f. 365. The incomplete sentence of the Turkī text (supra) needs their specification at this place, and an explicit statement of them would have made clearer the political relations of Bābur with Naṣrat Shāh. – A folio may have been lost from Bābur’s manuscript; it might have specified the articles, and also have said something leading to the next topic of the diary, now needing preliminaries, viz. that of the Mīrzā’s discontent with his new appointment, a matter not mentioned earlier.

2553

This suits Bābur’s series, but Gladwin and Wüstenfeld have 10th.

2554

The first is near, the second on the direct road from Buxar for Ārrah.

2555

The Ḥai. MS. makes an elephant be posted as the sole scout; others post a sardār, or post braves; none post man and beast.

2556

This should be 5th; perhaps the statement is confused through the gifts being given late, Anglicé, on Tuesday 4th, Islamicé on Wednesday night.

2557

The Mīrzā’s Tīmūrid birth and a desire in Bābur to give high status to a representative he will have wished to leave in Bihār when he himself went to his western dominions, sufficiently explain the bestowal of this sign of sovereignty.

2558

jīrgā. This instance of its use shews that Bābur had in mind not a completed circle, but a line, or in sporting parlance, not a hunting-circle but a beaters'-line. [Cf. f. 251, f. 364b and infra of the crocodile.] The word is used also for a governing-circle, a tribal-council.

2559

aūlūgh (kīma). Does aūlūgh (aūlūq, ūlūq) connect with the “bulky Oolak or baggage-boat of Bengal”? (Hobson-Jobson s. n. Woolock, oolock).

2560

De Courteille’s reading of Ilminsky’s “Bāburī” (p. 476) as Bāīrī, old servant, hardly suits the age of the boat.

2561

Bābur anticipated the custom followed e. g. by the White Star and Cunard lines, when he gave his boats names having the same terminal syllable; his is āīsh; on it he makes the quip of the har āīsh of the Farmāīsh.

2562

As Vullers makes Ar. ghurfat a synonym of chaukandī, the Farmāīsh seems likely to have had a cabin, open at the sides. De Courteille understood it to have a rounded stern. [Cf. E. & D.’s History of India v, 347, 503 n.; and Gul-badan’s H. N. trs. p. 98, n. 2.]

2563

mīndīn rukhṣat āldī; phrasing which bespeaks admitted equality, that of Tīmūrid birth.

2564

i. e. subjects of the Afghān ruler of Bengal; many will have been Bihārīs and Pūrbiyas. Makhdūm-i-‘ālam was Naṣrat Shāh’s Governor in Ḥājīpūr.

2565

This might imply that the Afghāns had been prevented from joining Maḥmūd Khān Lūdī near the Son.

2566

Sl. Muḥammad Shāh Nūḥānī Afghān, the former ruler of Bihār, dead within a year. He had trained Farīd Khān Sūr in the management of government affairs; had given him, for gallant encounter with a tiger, the title Sher Khān by which, or its higher form Sher Shāh, history knows him, and had made him his young son’s “deputy”, an office Sher Khān held after the father’s death in conjunction with the boy’s mother Dūdū Bībī (Tārīkh-i-sher-shāhī, E. & D.’s History of India iv, 325 et seq.).

2567

gūz bāghī yūsūnlūq; by which I understand they were held fast from departure, as e. g. a mouse by the fascination of a snake.

2568

f. 365 mentions a letter which may have announced their intention.

2569

Ganges; they thus evaded the restriction made good on other Afghāns.

2570

Anglicé, Saturday 8th after 6 p.m.

2571

The D. G. of Shāhābād (pp. 20 and 127) mentions that “it is said Bābur marched to Ārrah after his victory over Maḥmūd Lūdī”, and that “local tradition still points to a place near the Judge’s Court as that on which he pitched his camp”.

2572

Kharīd which is now a pargana of the Ballia district, lay formerly on both sides of the Ghogrā. When the army of Kharīd opposed Bābur’s progress, it acted for Naṣrat Shāh, but this Bābur diplomatically ignored in assuming that there was peace between Bengal and himself. – At this time Naṣrat Shāh held the riverain on the left bank of the Ghogrā but had lost Kharīd of the right bank, which had been taken from him by Jūnaid Barlās. A record of his occupation still survives in Kharīd-town, an inscription dated by his deputy as for 1529 AD. (District Gazetteer of Ballia H. R. Nevill), and D. G. of Sāran (L. L. S. O’Malley), Historical Chapters.

2573

Bābur’s opinion of Naṣrat Shāh’s hostility is more clearly shewn here than in the verbal message of f. 369.

2574

This will be an unceremonious summary of a word-of-mouth message.

2575

Cf. f. 366b, p. 661 n. 2.

2576

This shews that Bābur did not recognize the Sāran riverain down to the Ganges as belonging to Kharīd. His offered escort of Turks would safe-guard the Kharīdīs if they returned to the right bank of the Ghogrā which was in Turk possession.

2577

The Ḥai. MS. has wālī, clearly written; which, as a word representing Māhīm would suit the sentence best, may make playful reference to her royal commands (f. 361b), by styling her the Governor (wālī). Erskine read the word as a place-name Dipālī, which I have not found; De Courteille omits Ilminsky’s w: ras (p. 478). The MSS. vary and are uncertain.

2578

This is the “Kadjar” of Réclus’ L’Asie antérieure and is the name of the Turkmān tribe to which the present ruling house of Persia belongs. “Turkmān” might be taken as applied to Shāh T̤aḥmāsp by Dīv Sult̤ān’s servant on f. 354.

2579

Nelumbium speciosum, a water-bean of great beauty.

2580

Shaikh Yaḥyā had been the head of the Chishtī Order. His son (d. 782 AH. -1380-1 AD.) was the author of works named by Abū’l-faẓl as read aloud to Akbar, a discursive detail which pleads in my excuse that those who know Bābur well cannot but see in his grandson’s character and success the fruition of his mental characteristics and of his labours in Hindūstān. (For Sharafu’d-dīn Munīrī, cf. Khazīnatu’l-asfiyā ii, 390-92; and Āyīn-i-akbarī s. n.)

2581

Kostenko’s Turkistān Region describes a regimen for horses which Bābur will have seen in practice in his native land, one which prevented the defect that hindered his at Munīr from accomplishing more than some 30 miles before mid-day.

2582

The distance from Munīr to the bank of the Ganges will have been considerably longer in Bābur’s day than now because of the change of the river’s course through its desertion of the Burh-gangā channel (cf. next note).

2583

In trying to locate the site of Bābur’s coming battle with the forces of Naṣrat Shāh, it should be kept in mind that previous to the 18th century, and therefore, presumably, in his day, the Ganges flowed in the “Burh-ganga” (Old Ganges) channel which now is closely followed by the western boundary of the Ballia pargana of Dū-āba; that the Ganges and Ghogrā will have met where this old channel entered the bed of the latter river; and also, as is seen from Bābur’s narrative, that above the confluence the Ghogrā will have been confined to a narrowed channel. When the Ganges flowed in the Burh-ganga channel, the now Ballia pargana of Dū-āba was a sub-division of Bihiya and continuous with Shāhābād. From it in Bihiya Bābur crossed the Ganges into Kharīd, doing this at a place his narrative locates as some 2 miles from the confluence. Cf. D. G. of Ballia, pp. 9, 192-3, 206, 213. It may be observed that the former northward extension of Bihiya to the Burh-ganga channel explains Bābur’s estimate (f. 370) of the distance from Munīr to his camp on the Ganges; his 12k. (24m.) may then have been correct; it is now too high.

2584

De Courteille, pierrier, which may be a balista. Bābur’s writings give no indication of other than stone-ammunition for any projectile-engine or fire-arm. Cf. R. W. F. Payne-Gallwey’s Projectile-throwing engines of the ancients.

2585

Sir R. W. F. Payne-Gallwey writes in The Cross-bow (p. 40 and p. 41) what may apply to Bābur’s ẓarb-zan (culverin?) and tufang (matchlock), when he describes the larger culverin as a heavy hand-gun of from 16-18lb., as used by the foot-soldier and requiring the assistance of an attendant to work it; also when he says that it became the portable arquebus which was in extensive use in Europe by the Swiss in 1476 AD.; and that between 1510 and 1520 the arquebus described was superseded by what is still seen amongst remote tribes in India, a matchlock arquebus.

2586

The two positions Bābur selected for his guns would seem to have been opposite two ferry-heads, those, presumably, which were blocked against his pursuit of Bīban and Bāyazīd. ‘Alī-qulī’s emplacement will have been on the high bank of old alluvium of south-eastern Kharīd, overlooking the narrowed channel demanded by Bābur’s narrative, one pent in presumably by kankar reefs such as there are in the region. As illustrating what the channel might have been, the varying breadth of the Ghogrā along the ‘Azamgarh District may be quoted, viz. from 10 miles to 2/5m., the latter being where, as in Kharīd, there is old alluvium with kankar reefs preserving the banks. Cf. Reid’s Report of Settlement Operations in ‘Azamgarh, Sikandarpur, and Bhadaon. – Firishta gives Badrū as the name of one ferry (lith. ed. i. 210).

2587

Muṣt̤afa, like ‘Alī-qulī, was to take the offensive by gun-fire directed on the opposite bank. Judging from maps and also from the course taken by the Ganges through the Burh-ganga channel and from Bābur’s narrative, there seems to have been a narrow reach of the Ghogrā just below the confluence, as well as above.

2588

This ferry, bearing the common name Haldī (turmeric), is located by the course of events as at no great distance above the enemy’s encampment above the confluence. It cannot be the one of Sikandarpūr West.

2589

guẕr, which here may mean a casual ford through water low just before the Rains. As it was not found, it will have been temporary.

2590

i. e. above Bābur’s positions.

2591

sarwar (or dar) waqt.

2592

The preceding sentence is imperfect and varies in the MSS. The 1st Pers. trs., the wording of which is often explanatory, says that there were no passages, which, as there were many ferries, will mean fords. The Haldī-guẕr where ‘Askarī was to cross, will have been far below the lowest Bābur mentions, viz. Chatur-mūk (Chaupāra).

2593

This passage presupposes that guns in Kharīd could hit the hostile camp in Sāran. If the river narrowed here as it does further north, the Ghāzī mortar, which seems to have been the only one Bābur had with him, would have carried across, since it threw a stone 1,600 paces (qadam, f. 309). Cf. Reid’s Report quoted above.

2594

Anglicé, Saturday after 6p.m.

2595

yaqīn būlghān fauj, var. ta‘īn būlghān fauj, the army appointed (to cross). The boats will be those collected at the Haldī-ferry, and the army ‘Askarī’s.

2596

i. e. near ‘Alī-qulī’s emplacement.

2597

Cf. f. 303, f. 309, f. 337 and n. 4.

2598

“The yasāwal is an officer who carries the commands of the prince, and sees them enforced” (Erskine). Here he will have been the superintendent of coolies moving earth.

2599

ma‘jūn-nāk which, in these days of Bābur’s return to obedience, it may be right to translate in harmony with his psychical outlook of self-reproach, by ma‘jūn-polluted. Though he had long ceased to drink wine, he still sought cheer and comfort, in his laborious days, from inspiriting and forbidden confections.

2600

Probably owing to the less precise phrasing of his Persian archetype, Erskine here has reversed the statement, made in the Turkī, that Bābur slept in the Asāīsh (not the Farmāīsh).

2601

aūstīdā tāshlār. An earlier reading of this, viz. that stones were thrown on the intruder is negatived by Bābur’s mention of wood as the weapon used.

2602

sū sārī which, as the boats were between an island and the river’s bank, seems likely to mean that the man went off towards the main stream. Mems. p. 415, “made his escape in the river”; Méms. ii, 418, dans la direction du large.

2603

This couplet is quoted by Jahāngīr also (Tūzūk, trs. Rogers & Beveridge, i, 348).

2604

This, taken with the positions of other crossing-parties, serves to locate ‘Askarī’s “Haldī-passage” at no great distance above ‘Alī-qulī’s emplacement at the confluence, and above the main Bengal force.

2605

perhaps, towed from the land. I have not found Bābur using any word which clearly means to row, unless indeed a later rawān does so. The force meant to cross in the boats taken up under cover of night was part of Bābur’s own, no doubt.

2606

ātīsh-bāzī lit. fire-playing, if a purely Persian compound; if ātīsh be Turkī, it means discharge, shooting. The word “fire-working” is used above under the nearest to contemporary guidance known to me, viz. that of the list of persons who suffered in the Patna massacre “during the troubles of October 1763 AD.”, in which list are the names of four Lieutenants fire-workers (Calcutta Review, Oct. 1884, and Jan. 1885, art. The Patna Massacre, H. Beveridge).

2607

bī tahāshī, without protest or demur.

2608

Anglicé, Wednesday after 6 p.m.

2609

Perhaps those which had failed to pass in the darkness; perhaps those from Haldī-guẕr, which had been used by ‘Askarī’s troops. There appear to be obvious reasons for their keeping abreast on the river with the troops in Sāran, in order to convey reinforcements or to provide retreat.

2610

kīmalār aūstīdā, which may mean that he came, on the high bank, to where the boats lay below.

2611

as in the previous note, kīmalār aūstīdā. These will have been the few drawn up-stream along the enemy’s front.

2612

The reproach conveyed by Bābur’s statement is borne out by the strictures of Ḥaidar Mīrzā Dūghlāt on Bābā Sult̤ān’s neglect of duty (Tārīkh-ī-rashīdī trs. cap. lxxvii).

2613

yūsūnlūq tūshī, Pers. trss. t̤arf khūd, i.e. their place in the array, a frequent phrase.

2614

dastak bīla dosta-i-qāmīsh bīla. Cf. f. 363b and f. 366b, for passages and notes connected with swimming and dastak. Erskine twice translates dastak bīla by swimming; but here de Courteille changes from his earlier à la nage (f. 366b) to appuyés sur une pièce de bois. Perhaps the swift current was crossed by swimming with the support of a bundle of reeds, perhaps on rafts made of such bundles (cf. Illustrated London News, Sep. 16th, 1916, for a picture of Indian soldiers so crossing on rafts).

2615

perhaps they were in the Burh-ganga channel, out of gun-fire.

2616

If the Ghogrā flowed at this point in a narrow channel, it would be the swifter, and less easy to cross than where in an open bed.

2617

chīrīk-aīlī, a frequent compound, but one of which the use is better defined in the latter than the earlier part of Bābur’s writings to represent what then answered to an Army Service Corps. This corps now crosses into Sāran and joins the fighting force.