The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)

[239]See Hughes Dictionary of Islām s.nn. Eating and Food.

[240]Cf. f. 6b and note. If ‘Umar Shaikh were Maḥmūd’s full-brother, his name might well appear here.

[241]i.e. “Not a farthing, not a half-penny.”

[242] Here the Mems. enters a statement, not found in the Turkī text, that Maḥmūd’s dress was elegant and fashionable.

[243]n:h:l:m. My husband has cleared up a mistake (Mems. p. 28 and Méms. i, 54) of supposing this to be the name of an animal. It is explained in the A.N. (i, 255. H.B. i, 496) as a Badakhshī equivalent of tasqāwal; tasqāwal var. tāshqāwal, is explained by the Farhang-i-az̤farī, a Turkī-Persian Dict. seen in the Mullā Fīroz Library of Bombay, to mean rāh band kunanda, the stopping of the road. Cf. J.R.A.S. 1900 p. 137.

[244]i.e. “a collection of poems in the alphabetical order of the various end rhymes.” (Steingass.)

[245] At this battle Daulat-shāh was present. Cf. Browne’s D.S. for Astarābād p. 523 and for Andikhūd p. 532. For this and all other references to D.S. and Ḥ.S. I am indebted to my husband.

[246] The following dates will help out Bābur’s brief narrative. Maḥmūd æt. 7, was given Astarābād in 864 AH. (1459-60 AD.); it was lost to Ḥusain at Jauz-wilāyat and Maḥmūd went into Khurāsān in 865 AH.; he was restored by his father in 866 AH.; on his father’s death (873 AH.-1469 AD.) he fled to Harāt, thence to Samarkand and from there was taken to Ḥiṣār æt. 16. Cf. D’Herbélot s.n. Abū-sa‘ad; Ḥ.S. i, 209; Browne’s D.S. p. 522.

[247] Presumably the “Hindūstān the Less” of Clavijo (Markham p. 3 and p. 113), approx. Qaṃbar-‘alī’s districts. Clavijo includes Tīrmīẕ under the name.

[248] Perhaps a Ṣufī term,—longing for the absent friend. For particulars about this man see Ḥ.S. ii, 235 and Browne’s D.S. p. 533.

[249] Here in the Ḥai. MS. is one of several blank spaces, waiting for information presumably not known to Bābur when writing. The space will have been in the archetype of the Ḥai. MS. and it makes for the opinion that the Ḥai. MS. is a direct copy of Bābur’s own. This space is not left in the Elph. MS. but that MS. is known from its scribe’s note (f. 198) down to f. 198 (Ḥai. MS. f. 243b) to have been copied from “other writings” and only subsequent to its f. 198 from Bābur’s own. Cf. JRAS 1906 p. 88 and 1907 p. 143.

[250] The T.R. (p. 330) supplies this name.

[251]Cf. f. 35b. This was a betrothal only, the marriage being made in 903 AH. Cf. Ḥ.S. ii, 260 and Gul-badan’s H.N. f. 24b.

[252] Kehr’s MS. supplies Aī (Moon) as her name but it has no authority. The Elph. MS. has what may be lā nām, no name, on its margin and over tūrūtūnchī (4th.) its usual sign of what is problematical.

[253]See Ḥ.S. ii, 250. Here Pīr-i-Muḥammad Aīlchī-būghā was drowned. Cf. f. 29.

[254] Chaghānīān is marked in Erskine’s (Mems.) map as somewhere about the head of (Fr. map 1904) the Ilyak Water, a tributary of the Kāfir-nighān.

[255]i.e. when Bābur was writing in Hindūstān.

[256] For his family see f. 55b note to Yār-‘alī Balāl.

[257]bā wujūd turklūk muhkam paidā kunanda īdī.

[258] Roebuck’s Oriental Proverbs (p. 232) explains the five of this phrase where seven might be expected, by saying that of this Seven days’ world (qy. days of Creation) one is for birth, another for death, and that thus five only are left for man’s brief life.

[259] The cognomen Aīlchī-būghā, taken with the bearer’s recorded strength of fist, may mean Strong man of Aīlchī (the capital of Khutan). One of Tīmūr’s commanders bore the name. Cf. f. 21b for būghū as athlete.

[260] Hazārāspī seems to be Mīr Pīr Darwesh Hazārāspī. With his brother, Mīr ‘Alī, he had charge of Balkh. See Rauzatu’ṣ-ṣafā B.M. Add. 23506, f. 242b; Browne’s D.S. p. 432. It may be right to understand a hand-to-hand fight between Hazārāspī and Aīlchī-būghā. The affair was in 857 AH. (1453 AD.).

[261]yārāq sīz, perhaps trusting to fisticuffs, perhaps without mail. Bābur’s summary has confused the facts. Muḥ. Aīlchī-būghā was sent by Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā from Ḥiṣār with 1,000 men and did not issue out of Qūndūz. (Ḥ.S. ii, 251.) His death occurred not before 895 AH.

[262]See T.R. s.nn. Mīr Ayūb and Ayūb.

[263] This passage is made more clear by f. 120b and f. 125b.

[264] He is mentioned in ‘Alī-sher Nawā’ī’s Majālis-i-nafā’is; see B.M. Add. 7875, f. 278 and Rieu’s Turkish Catalogue.

[265] ? full of splits or full handsome.

[266] This may have occurred after Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā’s death whose son Abā-bikr was. Cf. f. 28. If so, over-brevity has obscured the statement.

[267]mīnglīgh aīldīn dūr, perhaps of those whose hereditary Command was a Thousand, the head of a Mīng (Pers. Hazāra), i.e. of the tenth of a tūmān.

[268]qūrghān-nīng tāshīdā yāngī tām qūpārīb sālā dūr. I understand, that what was taken was a new circumvallation in whole or in part. Such double walls are on record. Cf. Appendix A.

[269]bahādurlūq aūlūsh, an actual portion of food.

[270]i.e. either unmailed or actually naked.

[271] The old English noun strike expresses the purpose of the sar-kob. It is “an instrument for scraping off what rises above the top” (Webster, whose example is grain in a measure). The sar-kob is an erection of earth or wood, as high as the attacked walls, and it enabled besiegers to strike off heads appearing above the ramparts.

[272]i.e. the dislocation due to ‘Umar Shaikh’s death.

[273]Cf. f. 13. The Ḥ.S. (ii, 274) places his son, Mīr Mughūl, in charge, but otherwise agrees with the B.N.

[274]Cf. Clavijo, Markham p. 132. Sir Charles Grandison bent the knee on occasions but illustrated MSS. e.g. the B.M. Tawārīkh-i-guzīda Naṣrat-nāma show that Bābur would kneel down on both knees. Cf. f. 123b for the fatigue of the genuflection.

[275] I have translated kūrūshūb thus because it appears to me that here and in other places, stress is laid by Bābur upon the mutual gaze as an episode of a ceremonious interview. The verb kūrūshmak is often rendered by the Persian translators as daryāftan and by the L. and E. Memoirs as to embrace. I have not found in the B.N. warrant for translating it as to embrace; qūchūshmāq is Bābur’s word for this (f. 103). Daryāftan, taken as to grasp or see with the mind, to understand, well expresses mutual gaze and its sequel of mutual understanding. Sometimes of course, kūrūsh, the interview does not imply kūrūsh, the silent looking in the eyes with mutual understanding; it simply means se voyer e.g. f. 17. The point is thus dwelt upon because the frequent mention of an embrace gives a different impression of manners from that made by “interview” or words expressing mutual gaze.

[276]dābān. This word Réclus (vi, 171) quoting from Fedschenko, explains as a difficult rocky defile; art, again, as a dangerous gap at a high elevation; bel, as an easy low pass; and kūtal, as a broad opening between low hills. The explanation of kūtal does not hold good for Bābur’s application of the word (f. 81b) to the Sara-tāq.

[277]Cf. f. 4b and note. From Bābur’s special mention of it, it would seem not to be the usual road.

[278] The spelling of this name is uncertain. Variants are many. Concerning the tribe see T.R. p. 165 n.