The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)

[2398] Wife of Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā.

[2399] These Highlanders of Asfara will have come by invitation sent after the victory at Panīpat; their welcome shows remembrance of and gratitude for kindness received a quarter of a century earlier. Perhaps villagers from Dikh-kat will have come too, who had seen the Pādshāh run barefoot on their hills (Index s.nn.).

[2400] Here gratitude is shewn for protection given in 910 AH.-1504 AD. to the families of Bābur and his men when on the way to Kābul. Qurbān and Shaikhī were perhaps in Fort Ajar (f. 122b, f. 126).

[2401] Perhaps these acrobats were gipsies.

[2402] This may be the one with which Sayyid Daknī was concerned (f. 346).

[2403] Bābur obviously made the distinction between pahr and pās that he uses the first for day-watches, the second for those of the night.

[2404] Anglicé, Tuesday, Dec. 21st; by Muḥammadan plan, Wednesday 22nd. Dhūlpūr is 34 m. s. of Āgra; the journey of 10hrs. 20m. would include the nooning and the time taken in crossing rivers.

[2405] The well was to fill a cistern; the 26 spouts with their 26 supports were to take water into (26?) conduits. Perhaps tāsh means that they were hewn in the solid rock; perhaps that they were on the outer side of the reservoir. They will not have been built of hewn stone, or the word would have been sangīn or tāshdīn.

[2406] One occupation of these now blank days is indicated by the date of the “Rāmpūr Dīwān”, Thursday Rabī‘ II. 15th (Dec. 27th).

[2407] The demon (or, athlete) sult̤ān of Rumelia (Rūmlū); once T̤ahmāsp’s guardian (Taẕkirat-i-T̤ahmāsp, Bib. Ind. ed. Phillott, p. 2). Some writers say he was put to death by T̤ahmāsp (æt. 12) in 933 AH.; if this were so, it is strange to find a servant described as his in 935 AH. (An account of the battle is given in the Sharaf-nāma, written in 1005 AH. by Sharaf Khān who was reared in T̤ahmāsp’s house. The book has been edited by Veliaminof-Zernof and translated into French by Charmoy; cf. Trs. vol. ii, part i, p. 555.—H. Beveridge.)

[2408] This name, used by one who was with the Shāh’s troops, attracts attention; it may show the composition of the Persian army; it may differentiate between the troops and their “Qīzīl-bāsh leader”.

[2409] Several writers give Sārū-qamsh (Charmoy, roseau jaune) as the name of the village where the battle was fought; Sharaf Khān gives ‘Umarābād and mentions that after the fight T̤ahmāsp spent some time in the meadow of Sārū-qamsh.

[2410] The number of T̤ahmāsp’s guns being a matter of interest, reference should be made to Bābur’s accounts of his own battles in which he arrayed in Rūmī (Ottoman) fashion; it will then be seen that the number of carts does not imply the number of guns (Index s.n. arāba, cart).

[2411] This cannot but represent T̤ahmāsp who was on the battle-field (see his own story infra). He was 14 years old; perhaps he was called Shāh-zāda, and not Shāh, on account of his youth, or because under guardianship (?). Readers of the Persian histories of his reign may know the reason. Bābur hitherto has always called the boy Shāh-zāda; after the victory at Jām, he styles him Shāh. Jūha Sl. (Taklū) who was with him on the field, was Governor of Ispahān.

[2412] If this Persian account of the battle be in its right place in Bābur’s diary, it is singular that the narrator should be so ill-informed at a date allowing facts to be known; the three sult̤āns he names as killed escaped to die, Kūchūm in 937 AH.-1530 AD., Abū-sa‘īd in 940 AH.-1533 AD., ‘Ubaid in 946 AH.-1539 AD. (Lane-Poole’s Muḥammadan Dynasties). It would be natural for Bābur to comment on the mistake, since envoys from two of the sult̤āns reported killed, were in Āgra. There had been time for the facts to be known: the battle was fought on Sep. 26th; the news of it was in Āgra on Nov. 23rd; envoys from both adversaries were at Bābur’s entertainment on Dec. 19th. From this absence of comment and for the reasons indicated in note 3 (infra), it appears that matter has been lost from the text.

[2413] T̤ahmāsp’s account of the battle is as follows (T.-i-T̤. p. 11):—“I marched against the Aūzbegs. The battle took place outside Jām. At the first onset, Aūzbeg prevailed over Qīzīl-bāsh. Ya‘qūb Sl. fled and Sl. Wālāma Taklū and other officers of the right wing were defeated and put to flight. Putting my trust in God, I prayed and advanced some paces.... One of my body-guard getting up with ‘Ubaid struck him with a sword, passed on, and occupied himself with another. Qūlīj Bahādur and other Aūzbegs carried off the wounded ‘Ubaid; Kūchkūnjī (Kūchūm) Khān and Jānī Khān Beg, when they became aware of this state of affairs, fled to Merv. Men who had fled from our army rejoined us that day. That night I spent on the barren plain (ṣaḥra'). I did not know what had happened to ‘Ubaid. I thought perhaps they were devising some stratagem against me.” The ‘A.-‘A. says that ‘Ubaid’s assailant, on seeing his low stature and contemptible appearance, left him for a more worthy foe.

[2414] Not only does some comment from Bābur seem needed on an account of deaths he knew had not occurred, but loss of matter may be traced by working backward from his next explicit date (Friday 19th), to do which shows fairly well that the “same day” will be not Tuesday the 16th but Thursday the 18th. Ghīāṣu’d-dīn’s reception was on the day preceding Friday 19th, so that part of Thursday’s record (as shewn by “on this same day”), the whole of Wednesday’s, and (to suit an expected comment by Bābur on the discrepant story of the Aūzbeg deaths) part of Tuesday’s are missing. The gap may well have contained mention of Ḥasan Chalabī’s coming (f. 357), or explain why he had not been at the feast with his younger brother.

[2415]qūrchī, perhaps body-guard, life-guardsman.

[2416] As on f. 350b (q.v. p. 628 n. 1) aūn altī gūnlūk bŭljār (or, m:ljār) bīla.

[2417] A sub-division of the Ballia district of the United Provinces, on the right bank of the Ghogrā.

[2418]i.e. in 16 days; he was 24 or 25 days away.

[2419] The envoy had been long in returning; Kanwā was fought in March, 1527; it is now the end of 1528 AD.

[2420] Rabī‘ II. 20th—January 1st 1529 AD.; Anglicé, Friday, after 6p.m.

[2421] This “Bengalī” is territorial only; Naṣrat Shāh was a Sayyid’s son (f.271).

[2422] Ismā‘īl Mītā (f. 357) who will have come with Mullā Maẕhab.

[2423]mī‘ād, cf. f. 350b and f. 354b. Ghīāṣu’d-dīn may have been a body-guard.

[2424] Lūdī Afghāns and their friends, including Bīban and Bāyazīd.

[2425]yūllūq tūrālīk; Memoirs, p. 398, “should act in every respect in perfect conformity to his commands”; Mémoires ii, 379, “chacun suivant son rang et sa dignité.”

[2426]tawāchī. Bābur’s uses of this word support Erskine in saying that “the tawāchī is an officer who corresponds very nearly to the Turkish chāwush, or special messenger” (Zenker, p. 346, col. iii) “but he was also often employed to act as a commissary for providing men and stores, as a commissioner in superintending important affairs, as an aide-de-camp in carrying orders, etc.”

[2427] Here the Ḥai. MS. has the full-vowelled form, būljār. Judging from what that Codex writes, būljār may be used for a rendezvous of troops, m:ljār or b:ljār for any other kind of tryst (f. 350, p. 628 n. 1; Index s.nn.), also for a shelter.

[2428]yāwūshūb aīdī, which I translate in accordance with other uses of the verb, as meaning approach, but is taken by some other workers to mean “near its end”.

[2429] Though it is not explicitly said, Chīn-tīmūr may have been met with on the road; as the “also” (ham) suggests.

[2430] To the above news the Akbar-nāma adds the important item reported by Humāyūn, that there was talk of peace. Bābur replied that, if the time for negotiation were not past, Humāyūn was to make peace until such time as the affairs of Hindūstān were cleared off. This is followed in the A. N. by a seeming quotation from Bābur’s letter, saying in effect that he was about to leave Hindūstān, and that his followers in Kābul and Tramontana must prepare for the expedition against Samarkand which would be made on his own arrival. None of the above matter is now with the Bābur-nāma; either it was there once, was used by Abū’l-faz̤l and lost before the Persian trss. were made; or Abū’l-faẓl used Bābur’s original, or copied, letter itself. That desire for peace prevailed is shewn by several matters:—T̤ahmāsp, the victor, asked and obtained the hand of an Aūzbeg in marriage; Aūzbeg envoys came to Āgra, and with them Turk Khwājas having a mission likely to have been towards peace (f. 357b); Bābur’s wish for peace is shewn above and on f. 359 in a summarized letter to Humāyūn. (Cf. Abū’l-ghāzī’s Shajarat-i-Turk [Histoire des Mongols, Désmaisons’ trs. p. 216]; Akbar-nāma, H. B.’s trs. i, 270.)

A here-useful slip of reference is made by the translator of the Akbar-nāma (l.c. n. 3) to the Fragment (Mémoires ii, 456) instead of to the Bābur-nāma translation (Mémoires ii, 381). The utility of the slip lies in its accompanying comment that de C.’s translation is in closer agreement with the Akbar-nāma than with Bābur’s words. Thus the Akbar-nāma passage is brought into comparison with what it is now safe to regard as its off-shoot, through Turkī and French, in the Fragment. When the above comment on their resemblance was made, we were less assured than now as to the genesis of the Fragment (Index s.n. Fragment).

[2431] Hind-āl’s guardian (G. B.’s Humāyūn-nāma trs. p. 106, n. 1).

[2432] Nothing more about Humāyūn’s expedition is found in the B. N.; he left Badakhshān a few months later and arrived in Āgra, after his mother (f. 380b), at a date in August of which the record is wanting.

[2433] under 6 m. from Āgra. Gul-badan (f. 16) records a visit to the garden, during which her father said he was weary of sovereignty. Cf. f. 331b, p. 589 n. 2.

[2434]kūrnīsh kīlkān kīshīlār.

[2435] MSS. vary or are indecisive as to the omitted word. I am unable to fill the gap. Erskine has “Sir Māwineh (or hair-twist)” (p. 399), De Courteille, Sir-mouïneh (ii, 382). Mūīna means ermine, sable and other fine fur (Shamsu’l-lūghāt, p 274, col. 1).

[2436] His brother Ḥaẓrat Makhdūmī Nūrā (Khwāja Khāwand Maḥmūd) is much celebrated by Ḥaidar Mīrzā, and Bābur describes his own visit in the words he uses of the visit of an inferior to himself. Cf. Tārīkh-i-rashīdī trs. pp. 395, 478; Akbar-nāma trs., i, 356, 360.