The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)

[The remaining entries in Kehr’s volume are a quatrain which may make jesting reference to his finished task, a librarian’s Russian entry of the number of pages (831), and the words Etablissement Orientale, Fr. v. Adelung, 1825 (the Director of the School from 1793).30

[27] That Babur-nama of the “Kamran-docket” is the mutilated and tattered basis, allowed by circumstance, of the compiled history of Babur, filled out and mended by the help of the Persian translation of 1589. Cf. Kehr’s Latin Trs. fly-leaf entry; Klaproth s.n.; A.N. trs. H.B., p. 260; JRAS. 1908, 1909, on the “Kamran-docket” where are defects needing Klaproth’s second article (1824).)

[28] For an analysis of an illustrative passage see JRAS. 1906; for facilities of re-translation see eo cap. p. xviii, where Erskine is quoted.)

[29]See A.N. trans., p. 260; Prefaces of Ilminski and de Courteille; ZDMG. xxxvii, Teufel’s art.; JRAS. 1906.)

[30] For particulars about Kehr’s Codex see Smirnov’s Catalogue of the School Library and JRAS. 1900, 1906. Like others who have made statements resting on the mistaken identity of the Bukhara Compilation, many of mine are now given to the winds.)

[31]See Gregorief’s “Russian policy regarding Central Asia”, quoted in Schuyler’s Turkistan, App. IV.

[32] The Mission was well received, started to return to Petrograd, was attacked by Turkmans, went back to Bukhara, and there stayed until it could attempt the devious route which brought it to the capital in 1725.

[33] One might say jestingly that the spirit in the book had rebelled since 1725 against enforced and changing masquerade as a phantasm of two other books!

[34] Neither Ilminski nor Smirnov mentions another “Babur-nama” Codex than Kehr’s.

[35] A Correspondent combatting my objection to publishing a second edition of the Memoirs, backed his favouring opinion by reference to ‘Umar Khayyam and Fitzgerald. Obviously no analogy exists; Erskine’s redundance is not the flower of a deft alchemy, but is the prosaic consequence of a secondary source.

[36] The manuscripts relied on for revising the first section of the Memoirs, (i.e. 899 to 908 AH.-1494 to 1502 AD.) are the Elphinstone and the Ḥaidarābād Codices. To variants from them occurring in Dr. Kehr’s own transcript no authority can be allowed because throughout this section, his text appears to be a compilation and in parts a retranslation from one or other of the two Persian translations (Wāqi‘āt-i-bāburī) of the Bābur-nāma. Moreover Dr. Ilminsky’s imprint of Kehr’s text has the further defect in authority that it was helped out from the Memoirs, itself not a direct issue from the Turkī original.

Information about the manuscripts of the Bābur-nāma can be found in the JRAS for 1900, 1902, 1905, 1906, 1907 and 1908.

The foliation marked in the margin of this book is that of the Ḥaidarābād Codex and of its facsimile, published in 1905 by the Gibb Memorial Trust.

[37] Bābur, born on Friday, Feb. 14th. 1483 (Muḥarram 6, 888 AH.), succeeded his father, ‘Umar Shaikh who died on June 8th. 1494 (Ramẓān 4, 899 AH.).

[38]pād-shāh, protecting lord, supreme. It would be an anachronism to translate pādshāh by King or Emperor, previous to 913 AH. (1507 AD.) because until that date it was not part of the style of any Tīmūrid, even ruling members of the house being styled Mīrzā. Up to 1507 therefore Bābur’s correct style is Bābur Mīrzā. (Cf. f. 215 and note.)

[39] See Āyīn-i-akbarī, Jarrett, p. 44.

[40] The Ḥai. MS. and a good many of the W.-i-B. MSS. here write Aūtrār. [Aūtrār like Tarāz was at some time of its existence known as Yāngī (New).] Tarāz seems to have stood near the modern Auliya-ātā; Ālmālīgh,—a Metropolitan see of the Nestorian Church in the 14th. century,—to have been the old capital of Kuldja, and Ālmātū (var. Ālmātī) to have been where Vernoe (Vierny) now is. Ālmālīgh and Ālmātū owed their names to the apple (ālmā). Cf. Bretschneider’s Mediæval Geography p. 140 and T.R. (Elias and Ross) s.nn.

[41]Mughūl u Aūzbeg jihatdīn. I take this, the first offered opportunity of mentioning (1) that in transliterating Turkī words I follow Turkī lettering because I am not competent to choose amongst systems which e.g. here, reproduce Aūzbeg as Ūzbeg, Özbeg and Euzbeg; and (2) that style being part of an autobiography, I am compelled, in pressing back the Memoirs on Bābur’s Turkī mould, to retract from the wording of the western scholars, Erskine and de Courteille. Of this compulsion Bābur’s bald phrase Mughūl u Aūzbeg jihatdīn provides an illustration. Each earlier translator has expressed his meaning with more finish than he himself; ‘Abdu’r-raḥīm, by az jihat ‘ubūr-i (Mughūl u) Aūzbeg, improves on Bābur, since the three towns lay in the tideway of nomad passage (‘ubūr) east and west; Erskine writes “in consequence of the incursions” etc. and de C. “grace aux ravages commis” etc.

[42] Schuyler (ii, 54) gives the extreme length of the valley as about 160 miles and its width, at its widest, as 65 miles.

[43] Following a manifestly clerical error in the Second W.-i-B. the Akbar-nāma and the Mems. are without the seasonal limitation, “in winter.” Bābur here excludes from winter routes one he knew well, the Kīndīrlīk Pass; on the other hand Kostenko says that this is open all the year round. Does this contradiction indicate climatic change? (Cf. f. 54b and note; A.N. Bib. Ind. ed. i, 85 (H. Beveridge i, 221) and, for an account of the passes round Farghāna, Kostenko’s Turkistān Region, Tables of Contents.)

[44] Var. Banākat, Banākas̤, Fīākat, Fanākand. Of this place Dr. Rieu writes (Pers. cat. i, 79) that it was also called Shāsh and, in modern times, Tāshkīnt. Bābur does not identify Fanākat with the Tāshkīnt of his day but he identifies it with Shāhrukhiya (cf. Index s.nn.) and distinguishes between Tāshkīnt-Shāsh and Fanākat-Shāhrukhiya. It may be therefore that Dr. Rieu’s Tāshkīnt-Fanākat was Old Tāshkīnt,—(Does Fanā-kīnt mean Old Village?) some 14 miles nearer to the Saiḥūn than the Tāshkīnt of Bābur’s day or our own.

[45] hech daryā qātīlmās. A gloss of dīgar (other) in the Second W.-i-B. has led Mr. Erskine to understand “meeting with no other river in its course.” I understand Bābur to contrast the destination of the Saiḥūn which he [erroneously] says sinks into the sands, with the outfall of e.g. the Amū into the Sea of Aral.

Cf. First W.-i-B. I.O. MS. 215 f. 2; Second W.-i-B. I.O. MS. 217 f. 1b and Ouseley’s Ibn Haukal p. 232-244; also Schuyler and Kostenko l.c.

[46] Bābur’s geographical unit in Central Asia is the township or, with more verbal accuracy, the village i.e. the fortified, inhabited and cultivated oasis. Of frontiers he says nothing.

[47]i.e. they are given away or taken. Bābur’s interest in fruits was not a matter of taste or amusement but of food. Melons, for instance, fresh or stored, form during some months the staple food of Turkistānīs. Cf. T.R. p. 303 and (in Kāshmīr) 425; Timkowski’s Travels of the Russian Mission i, 419 and Th. Radloff’s Réceuils d’Itinéraires p. 343.

N.B. At this point two folios of the Elphinstone Codex are missing.

[48] Either a kind of melon or the pear. For local abundance of pears see Āyīn-i-akbarī, Blochmann p. 6; Kostenko and Von Schwarz.

[49]qūrghān, i.e. the walled town within which was the citadel (ark).

[50]Tūqūz tarnau sū kīrār, bū ‘ajab tūr kīm bīr yīrdīn ham chīqmās. Second W.-i-B. I.O. 217 f. 2, nuh jū’ī āb dar qila‘ dar mī āyid u īn ‘ajab ast kah hama az yak jā ham na mī bar āyid. (Cf. Mems. p. 2 and Méms. i, 2.) I understand Bābur to mean that all the water entering was consumed in the town. The supply of Andijān, in the present day, is taken both from the Āq Būrā (i.e. the Aūsh Water) and, by canal, from the Qarā Daryā.

[51]khandaqnīng tāsh yānī. Second W.-i-B. I.O. 217 f. 2 dar kīnār sang bast khandaq. Here as in several other places, this Persian translation has rendered Turkī tāsh, outside, as if it were Turkī tāsh, stone. Bābur’s adjective stone is sangīn (f. 45b l. 8). His point here is the unusual circumstance of a high-road running round the outer edge of the ditch. Moreover Andijān is built on and of loess. Here, obeying his Persian source, Mr. Erskine writes “stone-faced ditch”; M. de C. obeying his Turkī one, “bord extérieur.”

[52]qīrghāwal āsh-kīnasī bīla. Āsh-kīna, a diminutive of āsh, food, is the rice and vegetables commonly served with the bird. Kostenko i, 287 gives a recipe for what seems āsh-kīna.

[53] b. 1440; d. 1500 AD.

[54] Yūsuf was in the service of Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā Shāhrukhī (d. 837 AH.-1434 AD.). Cf. Daulat Shāh’s Memoirs of the Poets (Browne) pp. 340 and 350-1. (H.B.)

[55]gūzlār aīl bīzkāk kūb būlūr. Second W.-i-B. (I.O. 217 f. 2) here and on f. 4 has read Turkī gūz, eye, for Turkī gūz or goz, autumn. It has here a gloss not in the Ḥaidarābād or Kehr’s MSS. (Cf. Mems. p. 4 note.) This gloss may be one of Humāyūn’s numerous notes and may have been preserved in the Elphinstone Codex, but the fact cannot now be known because of the loss of the two folios already noted. (See Von Schwarz and Kostenko concerning the autumn fever of Transoxiana.)

[56] The Pers. trss. render yīghāch by farsang; Ujfalvy also takes the yīghāch and the farsang as having a common equivalent of about 6 kilomètres. Bābur’s statements in yīghāch however, when tested by ascertained distances, do not work out into the farsang of four miles or the kilomètre of 8 kil. to 5 miles. The yīghāch appears to be a variable estimate of distance, sometimes indicating the time occupied on a given journey, at others the distance to which a man’s voice will carry. (Cf. Ujfalvy Expédition scientifique ii, 179; Von Schwarz p. 124 and de C.’s Dict. s.n. yīghāch. In the present instance, if Bābur’s 4 y. equalled 4 f. the distance from Aūsh to Andijān should be about 16 m.; but it is 33 m. 1-3/4 fur. i.e. 50 versts. Kostenko ii, 33.) I find Bābur’s yīghāch to vary from about 4 m. to nearly 8 m.

[57]āqār sū, the irrigation channels on which in Turkistān all cultivation depends. Major-General Gérard writes, (Report of the Pamir Boundary Commission, p. 6,) “Osh is a charming little town, resembling Islāmābād in Kāshmīr,—everywhere the same mass of running water, in small canals, bordered with willow, poplar and mulberry.” He saw the Āq Būrā, the White wolf, mother of all these running waters, as a “bright, stony, trout-stream;” Dr. Stein saw it as a “broad, tossing river.” (Buried Cities of Khotan, p. 45.) Cf. Réclus vi, cap. Farghāna; Kostenko i, 104; Von Schwarz s.nn.

[58]Aūshnīng faẓīlatīdā khailī aḥādis̤ wārid dūr. Second W.-i-B. (I.O. 217 f. 2) Faẓīlat-i-Aūsh aḥadis̤ wārid ast. Mems. (p. 3) “The excellencies of Ush are celebrated even in the sacred traditions.” Méms. (i, 2) “On cite beaucoup de traditions qui célèbrent l’excellence de ce climat.” Aūsh may be mentioned in the traditions on account of places of pilgrimage near it; Bābur’s meaning may be merely that its excellencies are traditional. Cf. Ujfalvy ii, 172.

[59] Most travellers into Farghāna comment on Bābur’s account of it. One much discussed point is the position of the Barā Koh. The personal observations of Ujfalvy and Schuyler led them to accept its identification with the rocky ridge known as the Takht-i-sulaimān. I venture to supplement this by the suggestion that Bābur, by Barā Koh, did not mean the whole of the rocky ridge, the name of which, Takht-i-sulaimān, an ancient name, must have been known to him, but one only of its four marked summits. Writing of the ridge Madame Ujfalvy says, “Il y a quatre sommets dont le plus élevé est le troisième comptant par le nord.” Which summit in her sketch (p. 327) is the third and highest is not certain, but one is so shewn that it may be the third, may be the highest and, as being a peak, can be described as symmetrical i.e. Bābur’s mauzūn. For this peak an appropriate name would be Barā Koh.

If the name Barā Koh could be restricted to a single peak of the Takht-i-sulaimān ridge, a good deal of earlier confusion would be cleared away, concerning which have written, amongst others, Ritter (v, 432 and 732); Réclus (vi. 54); Schuyler (ii, 43) and those to whom these three refer. For an excellent account, graphic with pen and pencil, of Farghāna and of Aūsh see Madame Ujfalvy’s De Paris à Samarcande cap. v.

[60]rūd. This is a precise word since the Āq Būrā (the White Wolf), in a relatively short distance, falls from the Kūrdūn Pass, 13,400 ft. to Aūsh, 3040 ft. and thence to Andijān, 1380 ft. Cf. Kostenko i, 104; Huntingdon in Pumpelly’s Explorations in Turkistān p. 179 and the French military map of 1904.