The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)

Like part of the Kābul section, the Hindūstān one is in diary-form, but it is still more heavily surcharged with matter entered at a date later than the diary. It departs from the style of the preceding diary by an occasional lapse into courtly phrase and by exchange of some Turkī words for Arabic and Persian ones, doubtless found current in Hind, e.g. fauj, dīra, manzil, khail-khāna.

[1566] This is the Logar affluent of the Bārān-water (Kābul-river). Masson describes this haltingplace (iii, 174).

[1567]muḥaqqar saughāt u bīlāk or tīlāk. A small verbal point arises about bīlāk (or tīlāk). Bīlāk is said by Quatremère to mean a gift (N. et E. xiv, 119 n.) but here muḥaqqar saughāt expresses gift. Another meaning can be assigned to bīlāk here, [one had also by tīlāk,] viz. that of word-of-mouth news or communication, sometimes supplementing written communication, possibly secret instructions, possibly small domestic details. In bīlāk, a gift, the root may be bīl, the act of knowing, in tīlāk it is tīl, the act of speaking [whence tīl, the tongue, and tīl tūtmāk, to get news]. In the sentence noted, either word would suit for a verbal communication. Returning to bīlāk as a gift, it may express the nuance of English token, the maker-known of friendship, affection and so-on. This differentiates bīlāk from saughāt, used in its frequent sense of ceremonial and diplomatic presents of value and importance.

[1568] With Sa‘īd at this time were two Khānīms Sult̤ān-nigār and Daulat-sult̤ān who were Bābur’s maternal-aunts. Erskine suggested Khūb-nigār, but she had died in 907 AH. (f. 96).

[1569] Humāyūn’s non-arrival would be the main cause of delay. Apparently he should have joined before the Kābul force left that town.

[1570] The halt would be at Būt-khāk, the last station before the Adīnapūr road takes to the hills.

[1571] Discussing the value of coins mentioned by Bābur, Erskine says in his History of India (vol. i, Appendix E.) which was published in 1854 AD. that he had come to think his estimates of the value of the coins was set too low in the Memoirs (published in 1826 AD.). This sum of 20,000 shāhrukhīs he put at £1000. Cf. E. Thomas’ Pathan Kings of Dihli and Resources of the Mughal Empire.

[1572] One of Masson’s interesting details seems to fit the next stage of Bābur’s march (iii, 179). It is that after leaving Būt-khāk, the road passes what in the thirties of the 19th Century, was locally known as Bābur Pādshāh’s Stone-heap (cairn) and believed piled in obedience to Bābur’s order that each man in his army should drop a stone on it in passing. No time for raising such a monument could be fitter than that of the fifth expedition into Hindūstān when a climax of opportunity allowed hope of success.

[1573]rezāndalīk. This Erskine translates, both here and on ff. 253, 254, by defluxion, but de Courteille by rhume de cerveau. Shaikh Zain supports de Courteille by writing, not rezāndalīk, but nuzla, catarrh. De Courteille, in illustration of his reading of the word, quotes Burnes’ account of an affection common in the Panj-āb and there called nuzla, which is a running at the nostrils, that wastes the brain and stamina of the body and ends fatally (Travels in Bukhara ed. 1839, ii, 41).

[1574] Tramontana, north of Hindū-kush.

[1575] Shaikh Zain says that the drinking days were Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

[1576] The Elph. Codex (f. 208b) contains the following note of Humāyūn’s about his delay; it has been expunged from the text but is still fairly legible:—“The time fixed was after ‘Āshūrā (10th Muḥarram, a voluntary fast); although we arrived after the next-following 10th (‘āshūr, i.e. of Ṣafar), the delay had been necessary. The purpose of the letters (Bābur’s) was to get information; (in reply) it was represented that the equipment of the army of Badakhshān caused delay. If this slave (Humāyūn), trusting to his [father’s] kindness, caused further delay, he has been sorry.”

Bābur’s march from the Bāgh-i-wafā was delayed about a month; Humāyūn started late from Badakhshān; his force may have needed some stay in Kābul for completion of equipment; his personal share of blame for which he counted on his father’s forgiveness, is likely to have been connected with his mother’s presence in Kābul.

Humāyūn’s note is quoted in Turkī by one MS. of the Persian text (B.M. W.-i-B. 16,623 f. 128); and from certain indications in Muḥammad Shīrāzī’s lithograph (p. 163), appears to be in his archetype the Udaipūr Codex; but it is not with all MSS. of the Persian text e.g. not with I.O. 217 and 218. A portion of it is in Kehr’s MS. (p. 1086).

[1577] Bird’s-dome [f. 145b, n.] or The pair (qūsh) of domes.

[1578]gūn khūd kīch būlūb aīdī; a little joke perhaps at the lateness both of the day and the army.

[1579] Shaikh Zain’s maternal-uncle.

[1580] Shaikh Zain’s useful detail that this man’s pen-name was Sharaf distinguishes him from Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ the author of the Shaibānī-nāma.

[1581]gosha, angle (cf.gosha-i-kār, limits of work). Parodies were to be made, having the same metre, rhyme, and refrain as the model couplet.

[1582] I am unable to attach sense to Bābur’s second line; what is wanted is an illustration of two incompatible things. Bābur’s reflections [infra] condemned his verse. Shaikh Zain describes the whole episode of the verse-making on the raft, and goes on with, “He (Bābur) excised this choice couplet from the pages of his Acts (Wāqi‘āt) with the knife of censure, and scratched it out from the tablets of his noble heart with the finger-nails of repentance. I shall now give an account of this spiritual matter” (i.e. the repentance), “by presenting the recantations of his Solomon-like Majesty in his very own words, which are weightier than any from the lips of Aesop.” Shaikh Zain next quotes the Turkī passage here translated in b. Mention of the Mubīn.

[1583] The Mubīn (q.v. Index) is mentioned again and quoted on f. 351b. In both places its name escaped the notice of Erskine and de Courteille, who here took it for mīn, I, and on f. 351b omitted it, matters of which the obvious cause is that both translators were less familiar with the poem than it is now easy to be. There is amplest textual warrant for reading Mubīn in both the places indicated above; its reinstatement gives to the English and French translations what they have needed, namely, the clinch of a definite stimulus and date of repentance, which was the influence of the Mubīn in 928 AH. (1521-2 AD.). The whole passage about the peccant verse and its fruit of contrition should be read with others that express the same regret for broken law and may all have been added to the diary at the same time, probably in 935 AH. (1529 AD.). They will be found grouped in the Index s.n. Bābur.

[1584]mūndīn būrūn, by which I understand, as the grammatical construction will warrant, before writing the Mubīn. To read the words as referring to the peccant verse, is to take the clinch off the whole passage.

[1585]i.e. of the Qorān on which the Mubīn is based.

[1586] Dropping down-stream, with wine and good company, he entirely forgot his good resolutions.

[1587] This appears to refer to the good thoughts embodied in the Mubīn.

[1588] This appears to contrast with the “sublime realities” of the Qorān.

[1589] In view of the interest of the passage, and because this verse is not in the Rāmpūr Dīwān, as are many contained in the Hindūstān section, the Turkī original is quoted. My translation differs from those of Mr. Erskine and M. de Courteille; all three are tentative of a somewhat difficult verse.

[1590] The Qorān puts these sayings into the mouths of Adam and Eve.

[1591] Ḥai. MS. tīndūrūb; Ilminsky, p. 327, yāndūrūb; W.-i-B. I.O. 217, f. 175, sard sākhta.

[1592] Of ‘Alī-masjid the Second Afghān War (official account) has a picture which might be taken from Bābur’s camp.

[1593] Shaikh Zain’s list of the drinking-days (f. 252 note) explains why sometimes Bābur says he preferred ma‘jūn. In the instances I have noticed, he does this on a drinking-day; the preference will be therefore for a confection over wine. December 9th was a Saturday and drinking-day; on it he mentions the preference; Tuesday Nov. 21st was a drinking day, and he states that he ate ma‘jūn.

[1594] presumably the karg-khāna of f. 222b, rhinoceros-home in both places. A similar name applies to a tract in the Rawalpindi District,—Bābur-khāna, Tiger-home, which is linked to the tradition of Buddha’s self-sacrifice to appease the hunger of seven tiger-cubs. [In this Bābur-khāna is the town Kacha-kot from which Bābur always names the river Hārū.]

[1595] This is the first time on an outward march that Bābur has crossed the Indus by boat; hitherto he has used the ford above Attock, once however specifying that men on foot were put over on rafts.

[1596] f. 253.