The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)

[2516] He had stayed behind his kinsman Khwāja Kalān. Both, as Bābur has said, were descendants of Khwāja ‘Ubaidu’l-lāh Aḥrārī. Khwāja Kalān was a grandson of Aḥrārī’s second son Yahyā; Khwāja ‘Abdu’sh-shahīd was the son of his fifth, Khwāja ‘Abdu’l-lāh (Khwājagān-khwāja). ‘Abdu’sh-shahīd returned to India under Akbar, received a fief, maintained 2,000 poor persons, left after 20 years, and died in Samarkand in 982 AH.-1574-5 AD. (A.-i-A., Blochmann’s trs. and notes, pp. 423, 539).

[2517] f. 363, f. 363b.

[2518] Not found on maps; OOjani or Ujahni about suits the measured distance.

[2519] Prayāg, Ilāhābād, Allāhābād. Between the asterisk in my text (supra) and the one following “ford” before the foliation mark f. 364, the Ḥai. MS. has a lacuna which, as being preceded and followed by broken sentences, can hardly be due to a scribe’s skip, but may result from the loss of a folio. What I have entered above between the asterisks is translated from the Kehr-Ilminsky text; it is in the two Persian translations also. Close scrutiny of it suggests that down to the end of the swimming episode it is not in order and that the account of the swim across the Ganges may be a survival of the now missing record of 934 AH. (f. 339). It is singular that the Pers. trss. make no mention of Pīāg or of Sīr-auliya; their omission arouses speculation, as to in which text, the Turkī or Persian, it was first tried to fill what remains a gap in the Ḥai. Codex. A second seeming sign of disorder is the incomplete sentence yūrtgha kīlīb, which is noted below. A third is the crowd of incidents now standing under “Tuesday”. A fourth, and an important matter, is that on grounds noted at the end of the swimming passage (p. 655 n. 3) it is doubtful whether that passage is in its right place.—It may be that some-one, at an early date after Bābur’s death, tried to fill the lacuna discovered in his manuscript, with help from loose folios or parts of them. Cf. Index s.n. swimming, and f. 377b, p. 680 n. 2.

[2520] The Chaghatāī sult̤āns will have been with ‘Askarī east of the Ganges.

[2521]tūr hawālīk; Mems. p. 406, violence of the wind; Méms. ii, 398, une température très agréable.

[2522]yūrtgha kīlīb, an incomplete sentence.

[2523]ārāl bār aīkāndūr, phrasing implying uncertainty; there may have been an island, or such a peninsula as a narrow-mouthed bend of a river forms, or a spit or bluff projecting into the river. The word ārāl represents Aīkī-sū-ārāsī, Miyān-dū-āb, Entre-eaux, Twixt-two-streams, Mesopotamia.

[2524]qūl; Pers. trss. dast andākhtan and dast. Presumably the 33 strokes carried the swimmer across the deep channel, or the Ganges was crossed higher than Pīāg.

[2525] The above account of Bābur’s first swim across the Ganges which is entered under date Jumāda II. 27th, 935 AH. (March 8th, 1529 AD.), appears misplaced, since he mentions under date Rajab 25th, 935 AH. (April 4th, 1529 AD. f. 366b), that he had swum the Ganges at Baksara (Buxar) a year before, i.e. on or close to Rajab 25th, 934 AH. (April 15th, 1528 AD.). Nothing in his writings shews that he was near Pīāg (Allāhābād) in 934 AH.; nothing indisputably connects the swimming episode with the “Tuesday” below which it now stands; there is no help given by dates. One supposes Bābur would take his first chance to swim the Ganges; this was offered at Qanauj (f. 336), but nothing in the short record of that time touches the topic. The next chance would be after he was in Aūd, when, by an unascertained route, perhaps down the Ghogrā, he made his way to Baksara where he says (f. 366b) he swam the river. Taking into consideration the various testimony noted, [Index s.n. swimming] there seems warrant for supposing that this swimming passage is a survival of the missing record of 934 AH. (f. 339). Cf. f. 377b, p. 680 and n. 2 for another surmised survival of 934 AH.

[2526] “Friday” here stands for Anglicé, Thursday after 6 p.m.; this, only, suiting Bābur’s next explicit date Sha‘bān 1st, Saturday.

[2527] The march, beginning on the Jumna, is now along the united rivers.

[2528]ẓarb-zanlīk arābalār. Here the carts are those carrying the guns.

[2529] 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.)

[2530] Here the lacuna of the Ḥai. Codex ends.

[2531] 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.

[2532] This has been read as T. kīnt, P. dih, Eng. village and Fr. village.

[2533] “Nankunpur” lying to the north of Puhari railway-station suits the distance measured on maps.

[2534] These will be the women-travellers.

[2535] Perhaps jungle tracts lying in the curves of the river.

[2536]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.

[2537]aūzūn aūzāgh, many miles and many hours?

[2538] Bulloa? (I.S. Map).

[2539] Anglicé, Sunday after 6 p.m.

[2540]‘alufa u qunal (f. 359b).

[2541] than the Ganges perhaps; or narrowish compared with other rivers, e.g. Ganges, Ghogrā, and Jūn.

[2542]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.

[2543] Maps make the starting-place likely to be Sayyidpūr.

[2544] 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.

[2545] 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.).

[2546]‘arza-dāsht, i.e. phrased as from one of lower station to a superior.

[2547] His letter may have announced his and his mother Dūdū Bībī’s approach (f. 368-9).

[2548] 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).