The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)

[61] Whether Bābur’s words, bāghāt, bāghlār and bāghcha had separate significations, such as orchard, vineyard and ordinary garden i.e. garden-plots of small size, I am not able to say but what appears fairly clear is that when he writes bāghāt u bāghlār he means all sorts of gardens, just as when he writes begāt u beglār, he means begs of all ranks.

[62] Madame Ujfalvy has sketched a possible successor. Schuyler found two mosques at the foot of Takht-i-sulaimān, perhaps Bābur’s Jauza Masjid.

[63]aūl shāh-jū’īdīn sū qūyārlār.

[64] Ribbon Jasper, presumably.

[65] Kostenko (ii, 30), 71-3/4 versts i.e. 47 m. 4-1/2 fur. by the Postal Road.

[66] Instead of their own kernels, the Second W.-i-B. stuffs the apricots, in a fashion well known in India by khūbānī, with almonds (maghz-i badām). The Turkī wording however allows the return to the apricots of their own kernels and Mr. Rickmers tells me that apricots so stuffed were often seen by him in the Zar-afshān Valley. My husband has shewn me that Niz̤āmī in his Haft Paikar appears to refer to the other fashion, that of inserting almonds:—

“I gave thee fruits from the garden of my heart,

Plump and sweet as honey in milk;

Their substance gave the lusciousness of figs,

In their hearts were the kernels of almonds.”

[67] What this name represents is one of a considerable number of points in the Bābur-nāma I am unable to decide. Kīyīk is a comprehensive name (cf. Shaw’s Vocabulary); āq kīyīk might mean white sheep or white deer. It is rendered in the Second W.-i-B., here, by ahū-i-wāriq and on f. 4, by ahū-i-safed. Both these names Mr. Erskine has translated by “white deer,” but he mentions that the first is said to mean argālī i.e. ovis poli, and refers to Voyages de Pallas iv, 325.

[68] Concerning this much discussed word, Bābur’s testimony is of service. It seems to me that he uses it merely of those settled in towns (villages) and without any reference to tribe or nationality. I am not sure that he uses it always as a noun; he writes of a Sārt kīshī, a Sārt person. His Asfara Sārts may have been Turkī-speaking settled Turks and his Marghīnānī ones Persian-speaking Tājiks. Cf. Shaw’s Vocabulary; s.n. Sārt; Schuyler i, 104 and note; Nalivkine’s Histoire du Khanat de Khokand p. 45 n. Von Schwarz s.n.; Kostenko i, 287; Petzbold’s Turkistan p. 32.

[69] Shaikh Burhānu’d-dīn ‘Alī Qīlīch: b. circa 530 AH. (1135 AD.) d. 593 AH. (1197 AD.). See Hamilton’s Hidāyat.

[70] The direct distance, measured on the map, appears to be about 65 m. but the road makes détour round mountain spurs. Mr. Erskine appended here, to the “farsang” of his Persian source, a note concerning the reduction of Tatar and Indian measures to English ones. It is rendered the less applicable by the variability of the yīghāch, the equivalent for a farsang presumed by the Persian translator.

[71] Ḥai. MS. Farsī-gū’ī. The Elph. MS. and all those examined of the W.-i-B. omit the word Farsī; some writing kohī (mountaineer) for gū’ī. I judge that Bābur at first omitted the word Farsī, since it is entered in the Ḥai. MS. above the word gū’ī. It would have been useful to Ritter (vii, 733) and to Ujfalvy (ii, 176). Cf. Kostenko i, 287 on the variety of languages spoken by Sārts.

[72] Of the Mirror Stone neither Fedtschenko nor Ujfalvy could get news.

[73] Bābur distinguishes here between Tāshkīnt and Shāhrukhiya. Cf. f. 2 and note to Fanākat.

[74] He left the hill-country above Sūkh in Muḥarram 910 AH. (mid-June 1504 AD.).

[75] For a good account of Khujand see Kostenko i, 346.

[76] Khujand to Andijān 187 m. 2 fur. (Kostenko ii, 29-31) and, helped out by the time-table of the Transcaspian Railway, from Khujand to Samarkand appears to be some 154 m. 5-1/4 fur.

[77] Both men are still honoured in Khujand (Kostenko i, 348). For Khwāja Kamāl’s Life and Dīwān, see Rieu ii, 632 and Ouseley’s Persian Poets p. 192. Cf. f. 83b and note.

[78]kūb artūq dūr, perhaps brought to Hindūstān where Bābur wrote the statement.

[79] Turkish arrow-flight, London, 1791, 482 yards.

[80] I have found the following forms of this name,—Ḥai. MS., M:nūgh:l; Pers. trans. and Mems., Myoghil; Ilminsky, M:tugh:l; Méms. Mtoughuil; Réclus, Schuyler and Kostenko, Mogul Tau; Nalivkine, “d’apres Fedtschenko,” Mont Mogol; Fr. Map of 1904, M. Muzbek. It is the western end of the Kurāma Range (Kīndīr Tau), which comes out to the bed of the Sīr, is 26-2/3 miles long and rises to 4000 ft. (Kostenko, i, 101). Von Schwarz describes it as being quite bare; various writers ascribe climatic evil to it.

[81] Pers. trans. ahū-i-safed. Cf. f. 3b note.

[82] These words translate into Cervus marāl, the Asiatic Wapiti, and to this Bābur may apply them. Dictionaries explain marāl as meaning hind or doe but numerous books of travel and Natural History show that it has wider application as a generic name, i.e. deer. The two words būghū and marāl appear to me to be used as e.g. drake and duck are used. Marāl and duck can both imply the female sex, but also both are generic, perhaps primarily so. Cf. for further mention of būghū-marāl f. 219 and f. 276. For uses of the word marāl, see the writings e.g. of Atkinson, Kostenko (iii, 69), Lyddeker, Littledale, Selous, Ronaldshay, Church (Chinese Turkistan), Biddulph (Forsyth’s Mission).

[83]Cf. f. 2 and note.

[84] Schuyler (ii, 3), 18 m.

[85] Ḥai. MS. Hamesha bū deshttā yīl bār dūr. Marghīnānghā kīm sharqī dūr, hamesha mūndīn yīl bārūr; Khujandghā kīm gharībī dūr, dā’im mūndīn yīl kīlūr.

This is a puzzling passage. It seems to say that wind always goes east and west from the steppe as from a generating centre. E. and de C. have given it alternative directions, east or west, but there is little point in saying this of wind in a valley hemmed in on the north and the south. Bābur limits his statement to the steppe lying in the contracted mouth of the Farghāna valley (pace Schuyler ii, 51) where special climatic conditions exist such as (a) difference in temperature on the two sides of the Khujand narrows and currents resulting from this difference,—(b) the heating of the narrows by sun-heat reflected from the Mogol-tau,—and (c) the inrush of westerly wind over Mīrzā Rabāt̤. Local knowledge only can guide a translator safely but Bābur’s directness of speech compels belief in the significance of his words and this particularly when what he says is unexpected. He calls the Hā Darwesh a whirling wind and this it still is. Thinkable at least it is that a strong westerly current (the prevailing wind of Farghāna) entering over Mīrzā Rabāt̤ and becoming, as it does become, the whirlwind of Hā Darwesh on the hemmed-in steppe,—becoming so perhaps by conflict with the hotter indraught through the Gates of Khujand—might force that indraught back into the Khujand Narrows (in the way e.g. that one Nile in flood forces back the other), and at Khujand create an easterly current. All the manuscripts agree in writing to (ghā) Marghīnān and to (ghā) Khujand.

It may be observed that, looking at the map, it appears somewhat strange that Bābur should take, for his wind objective, a place so distant from his (defined) Hā Darwesh and seemingly so screened by its near hills as is Marghīnān. But that westerly winds are prevalent in Marghīnān is seen e.g. in Middendorff’s Einblikke in den Farghāna Thal (p. 112). Cf. Réclus vi, 547; Schuyler ii, 51; Cahun’s Histoire du Khanat de Khokand p. 28 and Sven Hedin’s Durch Asien’s Wüsten s.n. būrān.

[86]bādiya; a word perhaps selected as punning on bād, wind.

[87]i.e. Akhsī Village. This word is sometimes spelled Akhsīkīs̤ but as the old name of the place was Akhsī-kīnt, it may be conjectured at least that the s̤ā’ī mas̤allas̤a of Akhsīkīs̤ represents the three points due for the nūn and tā of kīnt. Of those writing Akhsīkīt may be mentioned the Ḥai. and Kehr’s MSS. (the Elph. MS. here has a lacuna) the Z̤afar-nāma (Bib. Ind. i, 44) and Ibn Haukal (Ouseley p. 270); and of those writing the word with the s̤ā’ī muṣallas̤a (i.e. as Akhsīkīs̤), Yāqūt’s Dict, i, 162, Reinaud’s Abū’l-feda I. ii, 225-6, Ilminsky (p. 5) departing from his source, and I.O. Cat. (Ethé) No. 1029. It may be observed that Ibn Haukal (Ouseley p. 280) writes Banākaṣ for Banākat. For As̤īru’d-dīn Akhsīkītī, see Rieu ii, 563; Daulat Shāh (Browne) p. 121 and Ethé I.O. Cat. No. 1029.

[88] Measured on the French military map of 1904, this may be 80 kil. i.e. 50 miles.

[89] Concerning several difficult passages in the rest of Bābur’s account of Akhsī, see Appendix A.

[90] The W.-i-B. here translates būghū-marāl by gazawn and the same word is entered, under-line, in the Ḥai. MS. Cf. f. 3b and note and f. 4 and note.

[91]postīn pesh b:r:h. This obscure Persian phrase has been taken in the following ways:—

(a) W.-i-B. I.O. 215 and 217 (i.e. both versions) reproduce the phrase. (b) W.-i-B. MS., quoted by Erskine, p. 6 note, (postīn-i mīsh burra). (c) Leyden’s MS. Trs., a sheepskin mantle of five lambskins. (d) Mems., Erskine, p. 6, a mantle of five lambskins. (e) The Persian annotator of the Elph. MS., underlining pesh, writes, panj, five. (f) Klaproth (Archives, p. 109), pustini pisch breh, d.h. gieb den vorderen Pelz. (g) Kehr, p. 12 (Ilminsky p. 6) postin bīsh b:r:h. (h) De. C, i, 9, fourrure d’agneau de la première qualité.

The “lambskins” of L. and E. carry on a notion of comfort started by their having read sayāh, shelter, for Turkī sā’ī, torrent-bed; de C. also lays stress on fur and warmth, but would not the flowery border of a mountain stream prompt rather a phrase bespeaking ornament and beauty than one expressing warmth and textile softness? If the phrase might be read as postīn pesh perā, what adorns the front of a coat, or as postīn pesh bar rah, the fine front of the coat, the phrase would recall the gay embroidered front of some leathern postins.

[92] Var. tabarkhūn. The explanation best suiting its uses, enumerated here, is Redhouse’s second, the Red Willow. My husband thinks it may be the Hyrcanian Willow.