The Bābur-nāma
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.
2700
The menace conveyed by these words would be made the more forceful by Bābur’s move to Lāhor, narrated by Aḥmad-i-yādgār. Some ill-result to Sa‘īd of independent rule by Sulaimān seems foreshadowed; was it that if Bābur’s restraining hand were withdrawn, the Badakhshīs would try to regain their lost districts and would have help in so-doing from Bābur?
2701
It is open to conjecture that if affairs in Hindūstān had allowed it, Bābur would now have returned to Kābul. Aḥmad-i-yādgār makes the expedition to be one for pleasure only, and describes Bābur as hunting and sight-seeing for a year in Lāhor, the Panj-āb and near Dihlī. This appears a mere flourish of words, in view of the purposes the expedition served, and of the difficulties which had arisen in Lāhor itself and with Sa‘īd Khān. Part of the work effected may have been the despatch of an expedition to Kashmīr.
2702
This appears a large amount.
2703
The precision with which the Rāja’s gifts are stated, points to a closely-contemporary and written source. A second such indication occurs later where gifts made to Hind-āl are mentioned.
2704
An account of the events in Multān after its occupation by Shāh Ḥasan Arghūn is found in the latter part of the T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī and in Erskine’s H. of I. i, 393 et seq.– It may be noted here that several instances of confusion amongst Bābur’s sons occur in the extracts made by Sir H. Elliot and Professor Dowson in their History of India from the less authoritative sources [e. g. v, 35 Kāmrān for Humāyūn, ‘Askarī said to be in Kābul (pp. 36 and 37); Hind-āl for Humāyūn etc.] and that these errors have slipped into several of the District Gazetteers of the United Provinces.
2705
As was said of the offering made by the Rāja of Kahlūr, the precision of statement as to what was given to Hind-āl, bespeaks a closely-contemporary written source. So too does the mention (text, infra) of the day on which Bābur began his return journey from Lāhor.
2706
Cf. G. of I. xvi, 55; Ibbetson’s Report on Karnāl.
2707
It is noticeable that no one of the three royal officers named as sent against Mohan Mundāhir, is recognizable as mentioned in the Bābur-nāma. They may all have had local commands, and not have served further east. Perhaps this, their first appearance, points to the origin of the information as independent of Bābur, but he might have been found to name them, if his diary were complete for 936 AH.
2708
The E. and D. translation writes twice as though the inability to “pull” the bows were due to feebleness in the men, but an appropriate reading would refer the difficulty to the hardening of sinews in the composite Turkish bows, which prevented the archers from bending the bows for stringing.
2709
One infers that fires were burned all night in the bivouac.
2710
At this point the A.S.B. copy (No. 137) of the Tārīkh-i-salāt̤in-i-afāghana has a remark which may have been a marginal note originally, and which cannot be supposed made by Aḥmad-i-yādgār himself because this would allot him too long a spell of life. It may show however that the interpolations about the two Tīmūrids were not inserted in his book by him. Its purport is that the Mundāhir village destroyed by Bābur’s troops in 936 AH. -1530 AD. was still in ruins at the time it was written 160 (lunar) years later (i. e. in 1096 AH. -1684-85 AD.). The better Codex (No. 3887) of the Imperial Library of Calcutta has the same passage. – Both that remark and its context show acquaintance with Samāna and Kaithal. – The writings now grouped under the title Tārīkh-i-salāt̤īn-i-afāghana present difficulties both as to date and contents (cf. Rieu’s Persian Catalogue s. n.).
2711
Presumably in Tihrind.
2712
Cf. G. B.’s H. N. trs. and the Akbar-nāma Bib. Ind. ed. and trs., Index s. nn.; Hughes’ Dictionary of Islām s. n. Intercession.
2713
A closer translation would be, “I have taken up the burden.” The verb is bardāshtan (cf. f. 349, p. 626 n. 1).
2714
See Erskine’s History of India ii, 9.
2715
At this point attention is asked to the value of the Aḥmad-i-yādgār interpolation which allows Bābur a year of active life before Humāyūn’s illness and his own which followed. With no chronicle known of 936 AH. Bābur had been supposed ill all through the year, a supposition which destroys the worth of his self-sacrifice. Moreover several inferences have been drawn from the supposed year of illness which are disproved by the activities recorded in that interpolation.
2716
E. and D.’s History of India v, 187; G. B.’s Humāyūn-nāma trs. p. 28.
2717
dar khidmat-i-dīwānī-i-buyūtāt; perhaps he was a Barrack-officer. His appointment explains his attendance on Khalīfa.
2718
Khalīfa prescribed for the sick Bābur.
2719
khānwāda-i-bīgānah, perhaps, foreign dynasty.
2720
From Saṃbhal; Gul-badan, by an anachronism made some 60 years later, writes Kālanjar, to which place Humāyūn moved 5 months after his accession.
2721
I am indebted to my husband’s perusal of Sayyid Aḥmad Khān’s As̤ār-i-ṣanādīd (Dihlī ed. 1854 p. 37, and Lakhnau ed. 1895 pp. 40, 41) for information that, perhaps in 935 AH., Mahdī Khwāja set up a tall slab of white marble near Amīr Khusrau’s tomb in Dihlī, which bears an inscription in praise of the poet, composed by that Shihābu’d-dīn the Enigmatist who reached Āgra with Khwānd-amīr in Muḥarram 935 AH. (f. 339b). The inscription gives two chronograms of Khusrau’s death (725 AH.), mentions that Mahdī Khwāja was the creator of the memorial, and gives its date in the words, “The beautiful effort of Mahdī Khwāja.” – The Dihlī ed. of the As̤ār-i-ṣanādīd depicts the slab with its inscription; the Lakhnau ed. depicts the tomb, may show the slab in sitû, and contains interesting matter by Sayyid Aḥmad Khān. The slab is mentioned without particulars in Murray’s Hand-book to Bengal, p. 329.
2722
Lee’s Ibn Batuta p. 133 and Hirāman’s Tārīkh-i-gūālīārī. Cf. G. B.’s Humāyūn-nāma trs. (1902 AD.), Appendix B. —Mahdī Khwāja.
2723
In an anonymous Life of Shāh Ismā‘īl Ṣafawī, Mahdī Khwāja [who may be a son of the Mūsa Khwāja mentioned by Bābur on f. 216] is described as being, in what will be 916-7 AH., Bābur’s Dīwān-begī and as sent towards Bukhārā with 10,000 men. This was 29 years before the story calls him a young man. Even if the word jawān (young man) be read, as T. yīgīt is frequently to be read, in the sense of “efficient fighting man”, Mahdī was over-age. Other details of the story, besides the word jawān, bespeak a younger man.
2724
G. B.’s H. N. trs. p. 126; Ḥabību’s-siyar, B. M. Add. 16,679 f. 370, l. 16, lith. ed. Sec. III. iii, 372 (where a clerical error makes Bābur give Māhdī two of his full-sisters in marriage). – Another yazna of Bābur was Khalīfā’s brother Junaid Barlās, the husband of Shahr-bānū, a half-sister of Bābur.
2725
Bābur, shortly before his death, married Gul-rang to Aīsān-tīmūr and Gul-chihra to Tūkhta-būghā Chaghatāī. Cf. post, Section h, Bābur’s wives and children; and G. B.’s H. N. trs. Biographical Appendix s. nn. Dil-dār Begīm and Salīma Sult̤ān Begīm Mirān-shāhi.
2726
Cf. G. B.’s H. N. trs. p. 147.
2727
She is the only adult daughter of a Tīmūrid mother named as being such by Bābur or Gul-badan, but various considerations incline to the opinion that Dil-dār Begīm also was a Tīmūrid, hence her three daughters, all named from the Rose, were so too. Cf. references of penultimate note.
2728
It attaches interest to the Mīrzā that he can be taken reasonably as once the owner of the Elphinstone Codex (cf. JRAS. 1907, pp. 136 and 137).
2729
Death did not threaten when this gift was made; life in Kābul was planned for. – Here attention is asked again to the value of Aḥmad-i-yādgār’s Bāburiana for removing the impression set on many writers by the blank year 936 AH. that it was one of illness, instead of being one of travel, hunting and sight-seeing. The details of the activities of that year have the further value that they enhance the worth of Bābur’s sacrifice of life. – Ḥaidar Mīrzā also fixes the date of the beginning of illness as 937 AH.
2730
The author, or embroiderer, of that anonymous story did not know the Bābur-nāma well, or he would not have described Bābur as a wine-drinker after 933 AH. The anecdote is parallel with Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Aḥmad’s, the one explaining why the Mīrzā was selected, the other why the dāmād was dropped.
2731
Bib. Ind. i, 341; Ranking’s trs. p. 448.
2732
The night-guard; perhaps Māhīm Begīm’s brother (G. B.’s H. N. trs. pp. 27-8).
2733
G. B.’s H. N. trs. f. 34b, p. 138; Jauhar’s Memoirs of Humāyūn, Stewart’s trs. p. 82.
2734
Cf. G. B.’s H. N. trs. p. 216, Bio. App. s. n. Bega Begam.
2735
f. 128, p. 200 n. 3. Cf. Appendix U. —Bābur’s Gardens in and near Kābul.
2736
Cf. H. H. Hayden’s Notes on some monuments in Afghānistān, [Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal ii, 344]; and Journal asiatique 1888, M. J. Darmesteter’s art. Inscriptions de Caboul.
2737
ān, a demonstrative suggesting that it refers to an original inscription on the second, but now absent, upright slab, which presumably would bear Bābur’s name.
2738
Ruẓwān is the door-keeper of Paradise.
2739
Particulars of the women mentioned by Bābur, Ḥaidar, Gul-badan and other writers of their time, can be seen in my Biographical Appendix to the Begīm’s Humāyūn-nāma. As the Appendix was published in 1902, variants from it occurring in this work are corrections superseding earlier and less-informed statements.
2740
Tārīkh-i-rashīdī trs. Ney Elias and Ross p. 308.
2741
Bio. App. s. n. Gul-chihra.
2742
The story of the later uprisings against Māhīm’s son Humāyūn by his brothers, by Muḥammad-i-zamān Bāī-qarā and others of the same royal blood, and this in spite of Humāyūn’s being his father’s nominated successor, stirs surmise as to whether the rebels were not tempted by more than his defects of character to disregard his claim to supremacy; perhaps pride of higher maternal descent, this particularly amongst the Bāī-qarā group, may have deepened a disregard created by antagonisms of temperament.
2743
Until the Yāngī-ārīq was taken off the Sīr, late in the last century, for Namangān, the oasis land of Farghāna was fertilized, not from the river but by its intercepted tributaries.
2744
Ujfalvy’s translation of Yāqūt (ii, 179) reads one farsākh from the mountains instead of ‘north of the river.’
2745
Kostenko describes a division of Tāshkīnt, one in which is Ravine-lane (jar-kucha), as divided by a deep ravine; of another he says that it is cut by deep ravines (Bābur’s ‘umīq jarlār).
2746
Bābur writes as though Akhsī had one Gate only (f. 112b). It is unlikely that the town had come down to having a single exit; the Gate by which he got out of Akhsī was the one of military importance because served by a draw-bridge, presumably over the ravine-moat, and perhaps not close to that bridge.
2747
For mention of upper villages see f. 110 and note 1.
2748
Cf. f. 114 for distances which would be useful in locating Akhsī if Bābur’s yīghāch were not variable; Ritter, vii, 3 and 733; Réclus, vi, index s. n. Farghāna; Ujfalvy ii, 168, his quotation from Yāqūt and his authorities; Nalivkine’s Histoire du Khanat de Kokand, p. 14 and p. 53; Schuyler, i, 324; Kostenko, Tables of Contents for cognate general information and i, 320, for Tāshkīnt; von Schwarz, index under related names, and especially p. 345 and plates; Pumpelly, p. 18 and p. 115.
2749
This Turkī-Persian Dictionary was compiled by Mīrzā Mahdī Khān. Nādir Shāh’s secretary and historian, whose life of his master Sir William Jones translated into French (Rieu’s Turkī Cat. p. 264b).
2750
The Pādshāh-nāma whose author, ‘Abdu’l-ḥamīd, the biographer of Shāh-jahān, died in 1065 AH. (1655 AD.) mentions the existence of lacunæ in a copy of the Bābur-nāma, in the Imperial Library and allowed by his wording to be Bābur’s autograph MS. (i, 42 and ii, 703).
2751
Akbar-nāma, Bib. Ind. ed. i, 305; H. B. i, 571.
2752
Ḥai. MS. f. 118b; aūshāl bāghdā sū āqīb kīlā dūr aīdī. Bābur-nāma, sū āqīb, water flowed and aūshal is rare, but in the R.P. occurs 7 times.
2753
gūzūm āwīqī-ghā bārīb tūr. B.N. f. 117b, gūzūm āwīqū-ghā bārdī.
2754
kūrā dūr mīn, B.N. f. 83, tūsh kūrdūm and tūsh kūrār mīn.
2755
ablaq suwār bīlān; P. suwār for T. ātlīq or ātlīq kīshī; bīlān for B.N. bīla, and an odd use of piebald (ablaq).
2756
masnad, B.N. takht, throne. Masnad betrays Hindūstān.
2757
Hamrā‘īlārī (sic) bir bir gā (sic) maṣlaḥat qīlā dūrlār. Maṣlaḥat for B.N. kīngāsh or kīngāīsh; hamrāh, companion, for mīnīng bīla bār, etc.
2758
bāghlāmāq and f. 119b bāghlāghānlār; B.N. ālmāk or tūtmāq to seize or take prisoner.
2759
dīwār for tām.
2760
f. 119, āt-tīn aūzlār-nī tāshlāb; B.N. tūshmāk, dismount. Tāshlāmaq is not used in the sense of dismount by B.
2761
pādshāh so used is an anachronism (f. 215); Bābur Mīrzā would be correct.
2762
z̤āhirān; B.N. yāqīn.
2763
Ilminsky’s imprint stops at dīb; he may have taken kīm-dīb for signs of quotation merely. (This I did earlier, JRAS 1902, p. 749.)
2764
Aligarh ed. p. 52; Rogers’ trs. i, 109.
2765
Cf. f. 63b, n. 3.
2766
Another but less obvious objection will be mentioned later.
2767
Julien notes (Voyages des pélerins Bouddhistes, ii, 96), “Dans les annales des Song on trouve Nang-go-lo-ho, qui répond exactement à l’orthographe indienne Nangarahāra, que fournit l’inscription découvert par le capitaine Kittoe” (JASB. 1848). The reference is to the Ghoswāra inscription, of which Professor Kielhorn has also written (Indian Antiquary, 1888), but with departure from Nangarahāra to Nagarahāra.
2768
The scribe of the Ḥaidarābād Codex appears to have been somewhat uncertain as to the spelling of the name. What is found in histories is plain, N: g: r: hār. The other name varies; on first appearance (fol. 131b) and also on fols. 144 and 154b, there is a vagrant dot below the word, which if it were above would make Nīng-nahār. In all other cases the word reads N: g: nahār. Nahār is a constant component, as is also the letter g(or k).
2769
Some writers express the view that the medial r in this word indicates descent from Nagarahāra, and that the medial n of Elphinstone’s second form is a corruption of it. Though this might be, it is true also that in local speech r and n often interchange, e. g. Chighār- and Chighān-sarāī, Sūhār and Sūhān (in Nūr-valley).
2770
This asserts n to be the correct consonant, and connects with the interchange of n and r already noted.
2771
Since writing the above I have seen Laidlaw’s almost identical suggestion of a nasal interpolated in Nagarahāra (JASB. 1848, art. on Kittoe). The change is of course found elsewhere; is not Tānk for Tāq an instance?
2772
These affluents I omit from main consideration as sponsors because they are less obvious units of taxable land than the direct affluents of the Kābul-river, but they remain a reserve force of argument and may or may not have counted in Bābur’s nine.
2773
Cunningham, i, 42. My topic does not reach across the Kābul-river to the greater Udyānapūra of Beal’s Buddhist Records (p. 119) nor raise the question of the extent of that place.
2774
The strong form Nīng-nahār is due to euphonic impulse.
2775
Some discussion about these coins has already appeared in JRAS. 1913 and 1914 from Dr. Codrington, Mr. M. Longworth Dames and my husband.
2776
This variant from the Turkī may be significant. Should tamghānat(-i-)sikka be read and does this describe countermarking?
2777
It will be observed that Bābur does not explicitly say that Ḥusain put the beg’s name on the coin.
2778
Ḥabību’s-siyar lith. ed. iii, 228; Ḥaidarābād Codex text and trs. f. 26b and f. 169; Browne’s Daulat Shāh p. 533.
2779
Ḥusain born 842 AH. (1438 AD.); d. 911 AH. (1506 AD.).
2780
Cf. f. 7b note to braves (yīgītlār). There may be instances, in the earlier Farghāna section where I have translated chuhra wrongly by page. My attention had not then been fixed on the passage about the coins, nor had I the same familiarity with the Kābul section. For a household page to be clearly recognizable as such from the context, is rare – other uses of the word are translated as their context dictates.
2781
They can be traced through my Index and in some cases their careers followed. Since I translated chuhra-jīrga-si on f. 15b by cadet-corps, I have found in the Kābul section instances of long service in the corps which make the word cadet, as it is used in English, too young a name.
2782
This Mr. M. Longworth Dames pointed out in JRAS. 1913.
2783
Habību’s-siyar lith. ed. iii, 219; Ferté trs. p. 28. For the information about Ḥusain’s coins given in this appendix I am indebted to Dr. Codrington and Mr. M. Longworth Dames.
2784
Elphinstone MS. f. 150b; Ḥaidarābād MS. f. 190b; Ilminsky, imprint p. 241.
2785
Muḥ. Ma‘ṣūm Bhakkarí’s Tārīkh-i-sind 1600, Malet’s Trs. 1855, p. 89; Mohan Lall’s Journal 1834, p. 279 and Travels 1846, p. 311; Bellew’s Political Mission to Afghānistān 1857, p. 232; Journal Asiatique 1890, Darmesteter’s La grande inscription de Qandahār; JRAS. 1898, Beames’ Geography of the Qandahār inscription. Murray’s Hand-book of the Panjab etc. 1883 has an account which as to the Inscriptions shares in the inaccuracies of its sources (Bellew & Lumsden).
2786
The plan of Qandahār given in the official account of the Second Afghān War, makes Chihil-zīna appear on the wrong side of the ridge, n.w. instead of n.e.
2787
destroyed in 1714 AD. It lay 3 m. west of the present Qandahār (not its immediate successor). It must be observed that Darmesteter’s insufficient help in plans and maps led him to identify Chihil-zīna with Chihil-dukhtarān (Forty-daughters).
2788
Tārīkh-i-rashīdī trs. p. 387; Akbar-nāma trs. i, 290.
2789
Ḥai. Codex, Index sn.n.
2790
It is needless to say that a good deal in this story may be merely fear and supposition accepted as occurrence.
2791
Always left beyond the carpet on which a reception is held.
2792
This is not in agreement with Bābur’s movements.
2793
i. e. Humāyūn wished for a full-brother or sister, another child in the house with him. The above names of his brother and sister are given elsewhere only by Gulbadan (f. 6b).
2794
The “we” might be Māhīm and Humāyūn, to Bābur in camp.
2795