[APPENDICES TO THE HINDŪSTĀN SECTION.]
M.—ON THE TERM BAḤRĪ QŪT̤ĀS.
That the term baḥrī qūt̤ās is interpreted by Meninski, Erskine, and de Courteille in senses so widely differing as equus maritimus, mountain-cow, and bœuf vert de mer is due, no doubt, to their writing when the qūt̤ās, the yāk, was less well known than it now is.
The word qūt̤ās represents both the yāk itself and its neck-tassel and tail. Hence Meninski explains it by nodus fimbriatus ex cauda seu crinibus equi maritimi. His “sea-horse” appears to render baḥrī qūt̤ās, and is explicable by the circumstance that the same purposes are served by horse-tails and by yāk-tails and tassels, namely, with both, standards are fashioned, horse-equipage is ornamented or perhaps furnished with fly-flappers, and the ordinary hand-fly-flappers are made, i.e. the chowries of Anglo-India.
Erskine’s “mountain-cow” (Memoirs p. 317) may well be due to his munshī’s giving the yāk an alternative name, viz. Kosh-gau (Vigne) or Khāsh-gau (Ney Elias), which appears to mean mountain-cow (cattle, oxen).[2808]
De Courteille’s Dictionary p. 422, explains qūtās (qūt̤ās) as bœuf marin (baḥrī qūt̤ās) and his Mémoires ii, 191, renders Bābur’s baḥrī qūt̤ās by bœuf vert de mer (f. 276, p. 490 and n. 8).
The term baḥrī qūt̤ās could be interpreted with more confidence if one knew where the seemingly Arabic-Turkī compound originated.[2809] Bābur uses it in Hindūstān where the neck-tassel and the tail of the domestic yāk are articles of commerce, and where, as also probably in Kābul, he will have known of the same class of yāk as a saddle-animal and as a beast of burden into Kashmīr and other border-lands of sufficient altitude to allow its survival. A part of its wide Central Asian habitat abutting on Kashmīr is Little Tibet, through which flows the upper Indus and in which tame yāk are largely bred, Skardo being a place specially mentioned by travellers as having them plentifully. This suggests that the term baḥrī qūt̤ās is due to the great river (baḥr) and that those of which Bābur wrote in Hindūstān were from Little Tibet and its great river. But baḥrī may apply to another region where also the domestic yāk abounds, that of the great lakes, inland seas such as Pangong, whence the yāk comes and goes between e.g. Yārkand and the Hindūstān border.
The second suggestion, viz. that “baḥrī qūt̤ās” refers to the habitat of the domestic yāk in lake and marsh lands of high altitude (the wild yāk also but, as Tibetan, it is less likely to be concerned here) has support in Dozy’s account of the baḥrī falcon, a bird mentioned also by Abū’l-faẓl amongst sporting birds (Āyīn-i-akbarī, Blochmann’s trs. p. 295):—“Baḥrī, espèce de faucon le meilleur pour les oiseaux de marais. Ce renseignment explique peut-être l’origine du mot. Marguerite en donne la même etymologie que Tashmend et le Père Guagix. Selon lui ce faucon aurait été appelé ainsi parce qu’il vient de l’autre côté de la mer, mais peut-être dériva-t-il de baḥrī dans le sens de marais, flaque, étang.”
Dr. E. Denison Ross’ Polyglot List of Birds (Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal ii, 289) gives to the Qarā Qīrghāwal (Black pheasant) the synonym “Sea-pheasant”, this being the literal translation of its Chinese name, and quotes from the Manchū-Chinese “Mirror” the remark that this is a black pheasant but called “sea-pheasant” to distinguish it from other black ones.
It may be observed that Bābur writes of the yāk once only and then of the baḥrī qūt̤ās so that there is no warrant from him for taking the term to apply to the wild yāk. His cousin and contemporary Ḥaidar Mīrzā, however, mentions the wild yāk twice and simply as the wild qūt̤ās.
The following are random gleanings about “baḥrī” and the yāk:—
(1) An instance of the use of the Persian equivalent daryā’ī of baḥrī, sea-borne or over-sea, is found in the Akbar-nāma (Bib. Ind. ed. ii, 216) where the African elephant is described as fīl-i-daryā’ī.
(2) In Egypt the word baḥrī has acquired the sense of northern, presumably referring to what lies or is borne across its northern sea, the Mediterranean.
(3) Vigne (Travels in Kashmīr ii, 277-8) warns against confounding the qūch-qār i.e. the gigantic moufflon, Pallas’ Ovis ammon, with the Kosh-gau, the cow of the Kaucasus, i.e. the yāk. He says, “Kaucasus (hodie Hindū-kush) was originally from Kosh, and Kosh is applied occasionally as a prefix, e.g. Kosh-gau, the yāk or ox of the mountain or Kaucasus.” He wrote from Skardo in Little Tibet and on the upper Indus. He gives the name of the female yāk as yāk-mo and of the half-breeds with common cows as bzch, which class he says is common and of “all colours”.
(4) Mr. Ney Elias’ notes (Tārīkh-i-rashīdī trs. pp. 302 and 466) on the qūt̤ās are of great interest. He gives the following synonymous names for the wild yāk, Bos Poëphagus, Khāsh-gau, the Tibetan yāk or Dong.
(5) Hume and Henderson (Lāhor to Yārkand p. 59) write of the numerous black yāk-hair tents seen round the Pangong Lake, of fine saddle yāks, and of the tame ones as being some white or brown but mostly black.
(6) Olufsen’s Through the Unknown Pamirs (p. 118) speaks of the large numbers of Bos grunniens (yāk) domesticated by the Kirghiz in the Pamirs.
(7) Cf. Gazetteer of India s.n. yāk.
(8) Shaikh Zain applies the word baḥrī to the porpoise, when paraphrasing the Bābur-nāma f. 281b.
N.—NOTES ON A FEW BIRDS.
In attempting to identify some of the birds of Bābur’s lists difficulty arises from the variety of names provided by the different tongues of the region concerned, and also in some cases by the application of one name to differing birds. The following random gleanings enlarge and, in part, revise some earlier notes and translations of Mr. Erskine’s and my own. They are offered as material for the use of those better acquainted with bird-lore and with Himālayan dialects.
a. Concerning the lūkha, lūja, lūcha, kūja (f.135 and f.278b).
The nearest word I have found to lūkha and its similars is likkh, a florican (Jerdon, ii, 615), but the florican has not the chameleon colours of the lūkha (var.). As Bābur when writing in Hindūstān, uses such “book-words” as Ar. baḥrī (qūt̤ās) and Ar. bū-qalamūn (chameleon), it would not be strange if his name for the “lūkha” bird represented Ar. awja, very beautiful, or connected with Ar. loḥ, shining splendour.
The form kūja is found in Ilminsky’s imprint p.361 (Mémoires ii, 198, koudjeh).
What is confusing to translators is that (as it now seems to me) Bābur appears to use the name kabg-i-darī in both passages (f.135 and f.278b) to represent two birds; (1) he compares the lūkha as to size with the kabg-i-darī of the Kābul region, and (2) for size and colour with that of Hindūstān. But the bird, of the Western Himālayas known by the name kabg-i-darī is the Himālayan snow-cock, Tetraogallus himālayensis, Turkī, aūlār and in the Kābul region, chīūrtika (f.249, Jerdon, ii, 549-50); while the kabg-i-darī (syn. chikor) of Hindūstān, whether of hill or plain, is one or more of much smaller birds.
The snow-cock being 28 inches in length, the lūkha bird must be of this size. Such birds as to size and plumage of changing colour are the Lophophori and Trapagons, varieties of which are found in places suiting Bābur’s account of the lūkha.
It may be noted that the Himālayan snow-cock is still called kabg-i-darī in Afghānistān (Jerdon, ii, 550) and in Kashmīr (Vigne’s Travels in Kashmīr ii, 18). As its range is up to 18,000 feet, its Persian name describes it correctly whether read as “of the mountains” (dari), or as “royal” (darī) through its splendour.
I add here the following notes of Mr. Erskine’s, which I have not quoted already where they occur (cf. f. 135 and f. 278b):—
| On f. 135, “lokheh” is said to mean hill-chikor. | |
| On f. 278b, | to “lūjeh”, “The Persian has lūkheh.” |
| ” | to “kepki durrī”, “The kepkī deri, or durri ismuch larger than the common kepk of Persiaand is peculiar to Khorāsān. It is said to bea beautiful bird. The common kepk of Persiaand Khorāsān is the hill-chikor of India.” |
| ” | to “higher up”, “The lujeh may be the chikorof the plains which Hunter calls bartavelle orGreek partridge.” |
The following corrections are needed about my own notes:—(1) on f. 135 (p. 213) n. 7 is wrongly referred; it belongs to the first word, viz. kabg-i-darī, of p. 214; (2) on f. 279 (p. 496) n. 2 should refer to the second kabg-i-darī.
b. Birds called mūnāl (var. monāl and moonaul).
Yule writing in Hobson Jobson (p. 580) of the “moonaul” which he identifies as Lophophorus Impeyanus, queries whether, on grounds he gives, the word moonaul is connected etymologically with Sanscrit muni, an “eremite”. In continuation of his topic, I give here the names of other birds called mūnāl, which I have noticed in various ornithological works while turning their pages for other information.
Besides L. Impeyanus and Trapagon Ceriornis satyra which Yule mentions as called “moonaul”, there are L. refulgens, mūnāl and Ghūr (mountain)-mūnāl; Trapagon Ceriornis satyra, called mūnāl in Nipāl; T. C. melanocephalus, called sing (horned)-mūnāl in the N.W. Himālayas; T. himālayensis, the jer- or cher-mūnāl of the same region, known also as chikor; and Lerwa nevicola, the snow-partridge known in Garhwal as Quoir- or Qūr-mūnāl. Do all these birds behave in such a way as to suggest that mūnāl may imply the individual isolation related by Jerdon of L. Impeyanus, “In the autumnal and winter months numbers are generally collected in the same quarter of the forest, though often so widely scattered that each bird appears to be alone?” My own search amongst vocabularies of hill-dialects for the meaning of the word has been unsuccessful, spite of the long range mūnāls in the Himālayas.
c. Concerning the word chīūrtika, chourtka.
Jerdon’s entry (ii, 549, 554) of the name chourtka as a synonym of Tetraogallus himālayensis enables me to fill a gap I have left on f. 249 (p. 491 and n. 6),[2810] with the name Himālayan snow-cock, and to allow Bābur’s statement to be that he, in January 1520 AD. when coming down from the Bād-i-pīch pass, saw many snow-cocks. The Memoirs (p.282) has “chikors”, which in India is a synonym for kabg-i-darī; the Mémoires (ii, 122) has sauterelles, but this meaning of chīūrtika does not suit wintry January. That month would suit for the descent from higher altitudes of snow-cocks. Griffith, a botanist who travelled in Afghānistān cir. 1838 AD., saw myriads of cicadæ between Qilat-i-ghilzai and Ghazni, but the month was July.
d. On the qūt̤ān (f. 142, p. 224; Memoirs, p. 153; Mémoires ii, 313).
Mr. Erskine for qūt̤ān enters khawāṣil [gold-finch] which he will have seen interlined in the Elphinstone Codex (f. 109b) in explanation of qūt̤ān.
Shaikh Effendi (Kunos’ ed., p. 139) explains qūt̤ān to be the gold-finch, Steiglitz.
Ilminsky’s qūtān (p. 175) is translated by M. de Courteille as pélicane and certainly some copies of the 2nd Persian translation [Muḥ. Shīrāzi’s p. 90] have ḥawāṣil, pelican.
The pelican would class better than the small finch with the herons and egrets of Bābur’s trio; it also would appear a more likely bird to be caught “with the cord”.
That Bābur’s qūt̤ān (ḥawāṣil) migrated in great numbers is however against supposing it to be Pelicanus onocrotatus which is seen in India during the winter, because it appears there in moderate numbers only, and Blanford with other ornithologists states that no western pelican migrates largely into India.
Perhaps the qūt̤ān was Linnæus’ Pelicanus carbo of which one synonym is Carbo comoranus, the cormorant, a bird seen in India in large numbers of both the large and small varieties. As cormorants are not known to breed in that country, they will have migrated in the masses Bābur mentions.
A translation matter falls to mention here:—After saying that the aūqār (grey heron), qarqara (egret), and qūtān (cormorant) are taken with the cord, Bābur says that this method of bird-catching is unique (bū nūḥ qūsh tūtmāq ghair muqarrar dūr) and describes it. The Persian text omits to translate the tūtmāq (by P. giriftan); hence Erskine (Mems. p. 153) writes, “The last mentioned fowl” (i.e. the qūt̤ān) “is rare,” notwithstanding Bābur’s statement that all three of the birds he names are caught in masses. De Courteille (p. 313) writes, as though only of the qūtān, “ces derniers toutefois ne se prennent qu’accidentelment,” perhaps led to do so by knowledge of the circumstance that Pelicanus onocrotatus is rare in India.
O.—NOTES BY HUMĀYŪN ON SOME HINDŪSTĀN FRUITS.
The following notes, which may be accepted as made by Humāyūn and in the margin of the archetype of the Elphinstone Codex, are composed in Turkī which differs in diction from his father’s but is far closer to that classic model than is that of the producer [Jahāngīr?] of the “Fragments” (Index s.n.). Various circumstances make the notes difficult to decipher verbatim and, unfortunately, when writing in Jan. 1917, I am unable to collate with its original in the Advocates Library, the copy I made of them in 1910.
a. On the kadhil, jack-fruit, Artocarpus integrifolia (f. 283b, p. 506; Elphinstone MS. f. 235b).[2811]
The contents of the note are that the strange-looking pumpkin (qar‘, which is also Ibn Batuta’s word for the fruit), yields excellent white juice, that the best fruit grows from the roots of the tree,[2812] that many such grow in Bengal, and that in Bengal and Dihli there grows a kadhil-tree covered with hairs (Artocarpus hirsuta?).
b. On the amrit-phal, mandarin-orange, Citrus aurantium (f. 287, p. 512; Elphinstone Codex, f. 238b, l. 12).
The interest of this note lies in its reference to Bābur.
A Persian version of it is entered, without indication of what it is or of who was its translator, in one of the volumes of Mr. Erskine’s manuscript remains, now in the British Museum (Add. 26,605, p. 88). Presumably it was made by his Turkish munshi for his note in the Memoirs (p. 329).
Various difficulties oppose the translation of the Turkī note; it is written into the text of the Elphinstone Codex in two instalments, neither of them in place, the first being interpolated in the account of the amil-bīd fruit, the second in that of the jāsūn flower; and there are verbal difficulties also. The Persian translation is not literal and in some particulars Mr. Erskine’s rendering of this differs from what the Turkī appears to state.
The note is, tentatively, as follows:[2813]—“His honoured Majesty Firdaus-makān[2814]—may God make his proof clear!—did not favour the amrit-phal;[2815] as he considered it insipid,[2816] he likened it to the mild-flavoured[2817] orange and did not make choice of it. So much was the mild-flavoured orange despised that if any person had disgusted (him) by insipid flattery(?) he used to say, ‘He is like orange-juice.’”[2818]
“The amrit-phal is one of the very good fruits. Though its juice is not relishing (? chūchūq), it is extremely pleasant-drinking. Later on, in my own time, its real merit became known. Its tartness may be that of the orange (nāranj)and lemu.”[2819]
The above passage is followed, in the text of the Elphinstone Codex, by Bābur’s account of the jāsūn flower, and into this a further instalment of Humāyūn’s notes is interpolated, having opposite its first line the marginal remark, “This extra note, seemingly made by Humāyūn Pādshāh, the scribe has mistakenly written into the text.” Whether its first sentence refer to the amrit-phal or to the amil-bīd must be left for decision to those well acquainted with the orange-tribe. It is obscure in my copy and abbreviated in its Persian translation; summarized it may state that when the fruit is unripe, its acidity is harmful to the digestion, but that it is very good when ripe.—The note then continues as below:—
c. The kāmila, H. kauṅlā, the orange.[2820]
“There are in Bengal two other fruits of the acid kind. Though the amrit-phal be not agreeable, they have resemblance to it (?).”
“One is the kāmila which may be as large as an orange (nāranj); some took it to be a large nārangī (orange) but it is much pleasanter eating than the nārangī and is understood not to have the skin of that (fruit).”
d. The samt̤ara.[2821]
“The other is the samt̤ara which is larger than the orange (nāranj) but is not tart; unlike the amrit-phal it is not of poor flavour (kam maza) or little relish (chūchūk). In short a better fruit is not seen. It is good to see, good to eat, good to digest. One does not forget it. If it be there, no other fruit is chosen. Its peel may be taken off by the hand. However much of the fruit be eaten, the heart craves for it again. Its juice does not soil the hand at all. Its skin separates easily from its flesh. It may be taken during and after food. In Bengal the samt̤ara is rare (ghārib) (or excellent, ‘asīz). It is understood to grow in one village Sanārgām (Sonargaon) and even therein a special quarter. There seems to be no fruit so entirely good as the samt̤ara amongst fruits of its class or, rather, amongst fruits of all kinds.”
Corrigendum:—In my note on the turunj bajāurī (p. 511, n. 3) for bijaurā read bījaurā; and on p. 510, l. 2, for palm read fingers.
Addendum:—p. 510, l. 5. After yūsūnlūk add:—“The natives of Hindūstān when not wearing their ear-rings, put into the large ear-ring holes, slips of the palm-leaf bought in the bāzārs, ready for the purpose. The trunk of this tree is handsomer and more stately than that of the date.”
P.—REMARKS ON BĀBUR’S REVENUE LIST (fol. 292).
a. Concerning the date of the List.
The Revenue List is the last item of Bābur’s account of Hindūstān and, with that account, is found s.a. 932 AH., manifestly too early, (1) because it includes districts and their revenues which did not come under Bābur’s authority until subdued in his Eastern campaigns of 934 and 935 AH., (2) because Bābur’s statement is that the “countries” of the List “are now in my possession” (in loco p. 520).
The List appears to be one of revenues realized in 936 or 937 AH. and not one of assessment or estimated revenue, (1) because Bābur’s wording states as a fact that the revenue was 52 krūrs; (2) because the Persian heading of the (Persian) List is translatable as “Revenue (jama‘)[2822] of Hindūstān from what has so far come under the victorious standards”.
b. The entry of the List into European Literature.
Readers of the L. and E. Memoirs of Bābur are aware that it does not contain the Revenue List (p. 334). The omission is due to the absence of the List from the Elphinstone Codex and from the ‘Abdu’r-raḥīm Persian translation. Since the Memoirs of Bābur was published in 1826 AD., the List has come from the Bābur-nāma into European literature by three channels.
Of the three the one used earliest is Shaikh Zain’s T̤abaqāt-i-bāburī which is a Persian paraphrase of part of Bābur’s Hindūstān section. This work provided Mr. Erskine with what he placed in his History of India (London 1854, i, 540, Appendix D), but his manuscript, now B.M. Add. 26,202, is not the best copy of Shaikh Zain’s book, being of far less importance than B.M. Or. 1999, [as to which more will be said.][2823]
The second channel is Dr. Ilminsky’s imprint of the Turkī text (Kāsān 1857, p. 379), which is translated by the Mémoires de Bāber (Paris 1871, ii, 230).
The third channel is the Ḥaidarābād Codex, in the English translation of which [in loco] the List is on p. 521.
Shaikh Zain may have used Bābur’s autograph manuscript for his paraphrase and with it the Revenue List. His own autograph manuscript was copied in 998 AH. (1589-90 AD.) by Khwānd-amīr’s grandson ‘Abdu’l-lāh who may be the scribe “Mīr ‘Abdu’l-lāh” of the Āyīn-i-akbarī (Blochmann’s trs. p. 109). ‘Abdu’l-lāh’s transcript (from which a portion is now absent,) after having been in Sir Henry Elliot’s possession, has become B.M. Or. 1999. It is noticed briefly by Professor Dowson (l.c. iv, 288), but he cannot have observed that the “old, worm-eaten” little volume contains Bābur’s Revenue List, since he does not refer to it.
c. Agreement and variation in copies of the List.
The figures in the two copies (Or. 1999 and Add. 26,202) of the T̤abaqāt-i-bāburī are in close agreement. They differ, however, from those in the Ḥaidarābād Codex, not only in a negligible unit and a ten of tankas but in having 20,000 more tankas from Oudh and Baraich and 30 laks of tankas more from Trans-sutlej.
The figures in the two copies of the Bābur-nāma, viz. the Ḥaidarābād Codex and the Kehr-Ilminsky imprint are not in agreement throughout, but are identical in opposition to the variants (20,000 t. and 30 l.) mentioned above. As the two are independent, being collateral descendants of Bābur’s original papers, the authority of the Ḥaidarābād Codex in the matter of the List is still further enhanced.
d. Varia.
(1) The place-names of the List are all traceable, whatever their varied forms. About the entry L:knū [or L:knūr] and B:ks:r [or M:ks:r] a difficulty has been created by its variation in manuscripts, not only in the List but where the first name occurs s.a. 934 and 935 AH. In the Ḥaidarābād List and in that of Or. 1999 L:knūr is clearly written and may represent (approximately) modern Shahābād in Rāmpūr. Erskine and de Courteille, however, have taken it to be Lakhnau in Oudh. [The distinction of Lakhnaur from Lakhnau in the historical narrative is discussed in Appendix T.]
(2) It may be noted, as of interest, that the name Sarwār is an abbreviation of Sarjūpār which means “other side of Sarjū” (Sarū, Goghrā; E. and D.’s H. of I. i, 56, n.4).
(3) Rūp-narā[:i]n (Deo or Dev) is mentioned in Ajodhya Prasad’s short history of Tirhut and Darbhanga, the Gulzār-i-Bihār (Calcutta 1869, Cap. v, 88) as the 9th of the Brahman rulers of Tirhut and as having reigned for 25 years, from 917 to 942 Faslī(?). If the years were Ḥijrī, 917-42 AH. would be 1511-1535.[2824]
(4) Concerning the tanka the following modern description is quoted from Mr. R. Shaw’s High Tartary (London 1871, p. 464) “The tanga” (or tanka) “is a nominal coin, being composed of 25 little copper cash, with holes pierced in them and called dahcheen. These are strung together and the quantity of them required to make up the value of one of these silver ingots” (“kooroos or yamboo, value nearly £17”) “weighs a considerable amount. I once sent to get change for a kooroos, and my servants were obliged to charter a donkey to bring it home.”
(5) The following interesting feature of Shaikh Zain’s T̤abaqāt-i-bāburī has been mentioned to me by my husband:—Its author occasionally reproduces Bābur’s Turkī words instead of paraphrasing them in Persian, and does this for the noticeable passage in which Bābur records his dissatisfied view of Hindūstān (f. 290b, in loco p. 518), prefacing his quotation with the remark that it is best and will be nearest to accuracy not to attempt translation but to reproduce the Pādshāh’s own words. The main interest of the matter lies in the motive for reproducing the ipsissima verba. Was that motive deferential? Did the revelation of feeling and opinion made in the quoted passage clothe it with privacy so that Shaikh Zain reserved its perusal from the larger public of Hindūstān who might read Persian but not Turkī? Some such motive would explain the insertion untranslated of Bābur’s letters to Humāyūn and to Khwāja Kalān which are left in Turkī by ‘Abdu’r-raḥīm Mīrzā.[2825]
Q.—CONCERNING THE “RĀMPŪR DĪWĀN”.
Pending the wide research work necessary to interpret Bābur’s Hindūstān poems which the Rāmpūr manuscript preserves, the following comments, some tentative and open to correction, may carry further in making the poems publicly known, what Dr. E. Denison Ross has effected by publishing his Facsimile of the manuscript.[2826] It is legitimate to associate comment on the poems with the Bābur-nāma because many of them are in it with their context of narrative; most, if not all, connect with it; some without it, would be dull and vapid.
a. An authorized English title.
The contents of the Rāmpūr MS. are precisely what Bābur describes sending to four persons some three weeks after the date attached to the manuscript,[2827] viz. “the Translation and whatnot of poems made on coming to Hindūstān”;[2828] and a similar description may be meant in the curiously phrased first clause of the colophon, but without mention of the Translation (of the Wālidiyyah-risāla).[2829] Hence, if the poems, including the Translation, became known as the Hindūstān Poems or Poems made in Hindūstān, such title would be justified by their author’s words. Bābur does not call the Hindūstān poems a dīwān even when, as in the above quotation, he speaks of them apart from his versified translation of the Tract. In what has come down to us of his autobiography, he applies the name Dīwān to poems of his own once only, this in 925 AH. (f. 237b) when he records sending “my dīwān” to Pūlād Sl. Aūzbeg.
b. The contents of the Rāmpūr MS.
There are three separate items of composition in the manuscript, marked as distinct from one another by having each its ornamented frontispiece, each its scribe’s sign (mīm) of Finis, each its division from its neighbour by a space without entry. The first and second sections bear also the official sign [ṣaḥḥ] that the copy has been inspected and found correct.
(1) The first section consists of Bābur’s metrical translation of Khwāja ‘Ubaidu’l-lāh Aḥrārī’s Parental Tract (Wālidiyyah-risāla), his prologue in which are his reasons for versifying the Tract and his epilogue which gives thanks for accomplishing the task. It ends with the date 935 (Ḥai. MS. f. 346). Below this are mīm and ṣaḥḥ, the latter twice; they are in the scribe’s handwriting, and thus make against supposing that Bābur wrote down this copy of the Tract or its archetype from which the official ṣaḥḥ will have been copied. Moreover, spite of bearing two vouchers of being a correct copy, the Translation is emended, in a larger script which may be that of the writer of the marginal quatrain on the last page of the [Rāmpūr] MS. and there attested by Shāh-i-jahān as Bābur’s autograph entry. His also may have been the now expunged writing on the half-page left empty of text at the end of the Tract. Expunged though it be, fragments of words are visible.[2830]
(2) The second section has in its frontispiece an inscription illegible (to me) in the Facsimile. It opens with a masnawī of 41 couplets which is followed by a ghazel and numerous poems in several measures, down to a triad of rhymed couplets (matla‘?), the whole answering to descriptions of a Dīwān without formal arrangement. After the last couplet are mīm and ṣaḥḥ in the scribe’s hand-writing, and a blank quarter-page. Mistakes in this section have been left uncorrected, which supports the view that its ṣaḥḥ avouches the accuracy of its archetype and not its own.[2831]
(3) The third section shows no inscription on its frontispiece. It opens with the masnawī of eight couplets, found also in the Bābur-nāma (f. 312), one of earlier date than many of the poems in the second section. It is followed by three rubā‘ī which complete the collection of poems made in Hindūstān. A prose passage comes next, describing the composition and transposition-in-metre of a couplet of 16 feet, with examples in three measures, the last of which ends in l. 4 of the photograph.—While fixing the date of this metrical game, Bābur incidentally allows that of his Treatise on Prosody to be inferred from the following allusive words:—“When going to Saṃbhal (f. 330b) in the year (933 AH.) after the conquest of Hindūstān (932 AH.), two years after writing the ‘Arūẓ, I composed a couplet of 16 feet.”—From this the date of the Treatise is seen to be 931 AH., some two years later than that of the Mubīn. The above metrical exercise was done about the same time as another concerning which a Treatise was written, viz. that mentioned on f. 330b, when a couplet was transposed into 504 measures (Section f, p. lxv).—The Facsimile, it will be noticed, shows something unusual in the last line of the prose passage on Plate XVIII B, where the scattering of the words suggests that the scribe was trying to copy page per page.
The colophon (which begins on l. 5 of the photograph) is curiously worded, as though the frequent fate of last pages had befallen its archetype, that of being mutilated and difficult for a scribe to make good; it suggests too that the archetype was verse.[2832] Its first clause, even if read as Hind-stān jānibī ‘azīmat qīlghānī (i.e. not qīlghālī, as it can be read), has an indirectness unlike Bābur’s corresponding “after coming to Hindūstān” (f. 357b), and is not definite; (2) bū aīrdī (these were) is not the complement suiting aūl dūrūr (those are); (3) Bābur does not use the form dūrūr in prose; (4) the undue space after dūrūr suggests connection with verse; (5) there is no final verb such as prose needs. The meaning, however, may be as follows:—The poems made after resolving on (the) Hindūstān parts (jānibī?) were these I have written down (taḥrīr qīldīm), and past events are those I have narrated (taqrīr) in the way that (nī-chūk kīm) (has been) written in these folios (aūrāq) and recorded in those sections (ajzā').—From this it would appear that sections of the Bābur-nāma (f. 376b, p. 678) accompanied the Hindūstān poems to the recipient of the message conveyed by the colophon.
Close under the colophon stands Ḥarara-hu Bābur and the date Monday, Rabī‘ II. 15th 935 (Monday, December 27th 1528 AD.), the whole presumably brought over from the archetype. To the question whether a signature in the above form would be copied by a scribe, the Elphinstone Codex gives an affirmative answer by providing several examples of notes, made by Humāyūn in its archetype, so-signed and brought over either into its margin or interpolated in its text. Some others of Humāyūn’s notes are not so-signed, the scribe merely saying they are Humāyūn Pādshāh’s.—It makes against taking the above entry of Bābur’s name to be an autograph signature, (1) that it is enclosed in an ornamented border, as indeed is the case wherever it occurs throughout the manuscript; (2) that it is followed by the scribe’s mīm. [See end of following section.]
c. The marginal entries shown in the photograph.
The marginal note written length-wise by the side of the text is signed by Shāh-i-jahān and attests that the rubā‘ī and the signature to which it makes reference are in Bābur’s autograph hand-writing. His note translates as follows:—This quatrain and blessed name are in the actual hand-writing of that Majesty (ān ḥaẓrat) Firdaus-makānī Bābur Pādshāh Ghāzī—May God make his proof clear!—Signed (Ḥararā-hu), Shāh-i-jahān son of Jahāngīr Pādshāh son of Akbar Pādshāh son of Humāyūn Pādshāh son of Bābur Pādshāh.[2833]
The second marginal entry is the curiously placed rubā‘ī, which is now the only one on the page, and now has no signature attaching to it. It has the character of a personal message to the recipient of one of more books having identical contents. That these two entries are there while the text seems so clearly to be written by a scribe, is open to the explanation that when (as said about the colophon, p. lx) the rectangle of text was made good from a mutilated archetype, the original margin was placed round the rifacimento? This superposition would explain the entries and seal-like circles, discernible against a strong light, on the reverse of the margin only, through the rifacimento page. The upper edge of the rectangle shows sign that the margin has been adjusted to it [so far as one can judge from a photograph]. Nothing on the face of the margin hints that the text itself is autograph; the words of the colophon, taḥrīr qīldīm (i.e. I have written down) cannot hold good against the cumulative testimony that a scribe copied the whole manuscript.—The position of the last syllable [nī] of the rubā‘ī shows that the signature below the colophon was on the margin before the diagonal couplet of the rubā‘ī was written,—therefore when the margin was fitted, as it looks to have been fitted, to the rifacimento. If this be the order of the two entries [i.e. the small-hand signature and the diagonal couplet], Shāh-i-jahān’s “blessed name” may represent the small-hand signature which certainly shows minute differences from the writing of the text of the MS. in the name Bābur (q.v. passim in the Rāmpūr MS.).
d. The Bāburī-khat̤t̤ (Bābūr’s script).
So early as 910 AH. the year of his conquest of Kābul, Bābur devised what was probably a variety of nakhsh, and called it the Bāburī-khat̤t̤ (f. 144b), a name used later by Ḥaidar Mīrzā, Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Aḥmad and ‘Abdu’l-qādir Badāyūnī. He writes of it again (f. 179) s.a. 911 AH. when describing an interview had in 912 AH. with one of the Harāt Qāẓīs, at which the script was discussed, its specialities (mufradāt) exhibited to, and read by the Qāẓī who there and then wrote in it.[2834] In what remains to us of the Bābur-nāma it is not mentioned again till 935 AH. (fol. 357b) but at some intermediate date Bābur made in it a copy of the Qorān which he sent to Makka.[2835] In 935 AH. (f. 357b) it is mentioned in significant association with the despatch to each of four persons of a copy of the Translation (of the Wālidiyyah-risāla) and the Hindūstān poems, the significance of the association being that the simultaneous despatch with these copies of specimens of the Bāburī-khat̤t̤ points to its use in the manuscripts, and at least in Hind-āl’s case, to help given for reading novel forms in their text. The above are the only instances now found in the Bābur-nāma of mention of the script.
The little we have met with—we have made no search—about the character of the script comes from the Abūshqa, s.n. sīghnāq, in the following entry:—
Sīghnāq ber nū‘ah khat̤t̤ der Chaghatāīda khat̤t̤ Bāburī u ghairī kibī ki Bābur Mīrzā ash‘ār’nda kīlūr bait
Khūblār khat̤t̤ī naṣīb’ng būlmāsā Bābur nī tāng?
Bāburī khat̤t̤ī aīmās dūr khat̤t̤ sīghnāqī mū dūr?[2836]
The old Osmanli-Turkish prose part of this appears to mean:—“Sīghnāq is a sort of hand-writing, in Chaghatāī the Bāburī-khat̤t̤ and others resembling it, as appears in Bābur Mīrzā’s poems. Couplet”:—
Without knowing the context of the couplet I make no attempt to translate it because its words khat̤t̤ or khaṭ and
sīghnāq lend themselves to the kind of pun (īhām) “which consists in the employment of a word or phrase having more than one appropriate meaning, whereby the reader is often left in doubt as to the real significance of the passage.”[2837] The rest of the rubā‘ī may be given [together with the six other quotations of Bābur’s verse now known only through the Abūshqa], in early Taẕkirātu ‘sh-shu‘āra of date earlier than 967 AH.
The root of the word sīghnāq will be sīq, pressed together, crowded, included, etc.; taking with this notion of compression, the explanations feine Schrift of Shaikh Effendi (Kunos) and Vambéry’s pétite écriture, the Sīghnāqī and Bāburī Scripts are allowed to have been what that of the Rāmpūr MS. is, a small, compact, elegant hand-writing.—A town in the Caucasus named Sīghnākh, “située à peu près à 800 mètres d’altitude, commença par être une forteresse et un lieu de refuge, car telle est la signification de son nom tartare.”[2838] Sīghnāqī is given by de Courteille (Dict. p. 368) as meaning a place of refuge or shelter.
The Bāburī-khat̤t̤ will be only one of the several hands Bābur is reputed to have practised; its description matches it with other niceties he took pleasure in, fine distinctions of eye and ear in measure and music.
e. Is the Rāmpūr MS. an example of the Bāburī-khat̤t̤?
Though only those well-acquainted with Oriental manuscripts dating before 910 AH. (1504 AD.) can judge whether novelties appear in the script of the Rāmpūr MS. and this particularly in its head-lines, there are certain grounds for thinking that though the manuscript be not Bābur’s autograph, it may be in his script and the work of a specially trained scribe.
I set these grounds down because although the signs of a scribe’s work on the manuscript seem clear, it is “locally” held to be Bābur’s autograph. Has a tradition of its being in the Bāburī-khat̤t̤ glided into its being in the khat̤t̤-i-Bābur? Several circumstances suggest that it may be written in the Bāburī-khat̤t̤:—(1) the script is specially associated with the four transcripts of the Hindūstān poems (f. 357b), for though many letters must have gone to his sons, some indeed are mentioned in the Bābur-nāma, it is only with the poems that specimens of it are recorded as sent; (2) another matter shows his personal interest in the arrangement of manuscripts, namely, that as he himself about a month after the four books had gone off, made a new ruler, particularly on account of the head-lines of the Translation, it may be inferred that he had made or had adopted the one he superseded, and that his plan of arranging the poems was the model for copyists; the Rāmpūr MS. bearing, in the Translation section, corrections which may be his own, bears also a date earlier than that at which the four gifts started; it has its headlines ill-arranged and has throughout 13 lines to the page; his new ruler had 11; (3) perhaps the words taḥrīr qīldīm used in the colophon of the Rāmpūr MS. should be read with their full connotation of careful and elegant writing, or, put modestly, as saying, “I wrote down in my best manner,” which for poems is likely to be in the Bāburī-khat̤t̤.[2839]
Perhaps an example of Bābur’s script exists in the colophon, if not in the whole of the Mubīn manuscript once owned by Berézine, by him used for his Chréstomathie Turque, and described by him as “unique”. If this be the actual manuscript Bābur sent into Mā warā’u’n-nahr (presumably to Khwāja Aḥrārī’s family), its colophon which is a personal message addressed to the recipients, is likely to be autograph.
f. Metrical amusements.
(1) Of two instances of metrical amusements belonging to the end of 933 AH. and seeming to have been the distractions of illness, one is a simple transposition “in the fashion of the circles” (dawā’ir) into three measures (Rāmpūr MS. Facsimile, Plate XVIII and p. 22); the other is difficult because of the high number of 504 into which Bābur says (f. 330b) he cut up the following couplet:—
Gūz u qāsh u soz u tīlīnī mū dī?
Qad u khadd u saj u bīlīnī mū dī?
All manuscripts agree in having 504, and Bābur wrote a tract (risāla) upon the transpositions.[2840] None of the modern treatises on Oriental Prosody allow a number so high to be practicable, but Maulānā Saifī of Bukhārā, of Bābur’s own time (f. 180b) makes 504 seem even moderate, since after giving much detail about rubā‘ī measures, he observes, “Some say there are 10,000” (Arūẓ-i-Saifī, Ranking’s trs. p. 122). Presumably similar possibilities were open for the couplet in question. It looks like one made for the game, asks two foolish questions and gives no reply, lends itself to poetic license, and, if permutation of words have part in such a game, allows much without change of sense. Was Bābur’s cessation of effort at 504 capricious or enforced by the exhaustion of possible changes? Is the arithmetical statement 9 × 8 × 7 = 504 the formula of the practicable permutations?
(2) To improvise verse having a given rhyme and topic must have demanded quick wits and much practice. Bābur gives at least one example of it (f. 252b) but Jahāngīr gives a fuller and more interesting one, not only because a rubā‘ī of Bābur’s was the model but from the circumstances of the game:[2841]—It was in 1024 AH. (1615 AD.) that a letter reached him from Māwarā’u’n-nahr written by Khwāja Hāshim Naqsh-bandī [who by the story is shown to have been of Aḥrārī’s line], and recounting the long devotion of his family to Jahāngīr’s ancestors. He sent gifts and enclosed in his letter a copy of one of Bābur’s quatrains which he said Ḥaẓrat Firdaus-makānī had written for Ḥaẓrat Khwājagī (Aḥrārī’s eldest son; f. 36b, p. 62 n. 2). Jahāngīr quotes a final hemistich only, “Khwājagīra mānda’īm, Khwājagīrā banda’īm” and thereafter made an impromptu verse upon the one sent to him.
A curious thing is that the line he quotes is not part of the quatrain he answered, but belongs to another not appropriate for a message between darwesh and pādshāh, though likely to have been sent by Bābur to Khwājagī. I will quote both because the matter will come up again for who works on the Hindūstān poems.[2842]
(1) The quatrain from the Hindūstān Poems is:—
Dar hawā’ī nafs gumrah ‘umr ẓāi‘ karda’īm [kanda’īm?];
Pesh ahl-i-allāh az af‘āl-i-khūd sharmanda’īm;
Yak naz̤r bā mukhlaṣān-i-khasta-dil farmā ki mā
Khwājagīrā mānda’īm u Khwājagīrā banda’īm.
(2) That from the Akbar-nāma is:—
Darweshānrā agarcha nah as khweshānīm,
Lek az dil u jān mu‘taqid eshānīm;
Dūr ast magū‘ī shāhī az darweshī,
Shāhīm walī banda-i-darweshānīm.
The greater suitability of the second is seen from Jahāngīr’s answering impromptu for which by sense and rhyme it sets the model; the meaning, however, of the fourth line in each may be identical, namely, “I remain the ruler but am the servant of the darwesh.” Jahāngīr’s impromptu is as follows:—
Āī ānki marā mihr-i-tū besh az besh ast,
Az daulat yād-i-būdat āī darwesh ast;
Chandānki’z muẕẖ dahāt dilam shād shavad
Shadīm az ānki lat̤if az ḥadd besh ast.
He then called on those who had a turn for verse to “speak one” i.e. to improvise on his own; it was done as follows:—
Dārīm agarcha shaghal-i-shāhī dar pesh,
Har laḥz̤a kunīm yād-i-darweshān besh;
Gar shād shavad’z mā dil-i-yak darwesh,
Ānra shumarīm ḥaṣil-i-shāhī khwesh.
R.—CHANDĪRĪ AND GŪĀLĪĀR.
The courtesy of the Government of India enables me to reproduce from the Archæological Survey Reports of 1871, Sir Alexander Cunningham’s plans of Chandīrī and Gūālīār, which illustrate Bābur’s narrative on f. 333, p. 592, and f. 340, p. 607.
A. Cunningham del.
S.—CONCERNING THE BĀBUR-NĀMA DATING OF 935 AH.
The dating of the diary of 935 AH. (f. 339 et seq.) is several times in opposition to what may be distinguished as the “book-rule” that the 12 lunar months of the Ḥijra year alternate in length between 30 and 29 days (intercalary years excepted), and that Muḥarram starts the alternation with 30 days. An early book stating the rule is Gladwin’s Bengal Revenue Accounts; a recent one, Ranking’s ed. of Platts’ Persian Grammar.
As to what day of the week was the initial day of some of the months in 935 AH. Bābur’s days differ from Wüstenfeld’s who gives the full list of twelve, and from Cunningham’s single one of Muḥarram 1st.
It seems worth while to draw attention to the flexibility, within limits, of Bābur’s dating, [not with the object of adversely criticizing a rigid and convenient rule for common use, but as supplementary to that rule from a somewhat special source], because he was careful and observant, his dating was contemporary, his record, as being de die in diem, provides a check of consecutive narrative on his dates, which, moreover, are all held together by the external fixtures of Feasts and by the marked recurrence of Fridays observed. Few such writings as the Bābur-nāma diaries appear to be available for showing variation within a year’s limit.
In 935 AH. Bābur enters few full dates, i.e. days of the week and month. Often he gives only the day of the week, the safest, however, in a diary. He is precise in saying at what time of the night or the day an action was done; this is useful not only as helping to get over difficulties caused by minor losses of text, but in the more general matter of the transference of a Ḥijra night-and-day which begins after sunset, to its Julian equivalent, of a day-and-night which begins at 12 a.m. This sometimes difficult transference affords a probable explanation of a good number of the discrepant dates found in Oriental-Occidental books.
Two matters of difference between the Bābur-nāma dating and that of some European calendars are as follows:—
a. Discrepancy as to the day of the week on which Muḥ. 935 AH. began.
This discrepancy is not a trivial matter when a year’s diary is concerned. The record of Muḥ. 1st and 2nd is missing from the Bābur-nāma; Friday the 3rd day of Muḥarram is the first day specified; the 1st was a Wednesday therefore. Erskine accepted this day; Cunningham and Wüstenfeld give Tuesday. On three grounds Wednesday seems right—at any rate at that period and place:—(1) The second Friday in Muḥarram was ‘Āshūr, the 10th (f. 240); (2) Wednesday is in serial order if reckoning be made from the last surviving date of 934 AH. with due allowance of an intercalary day to Ẕū’l-ḥijja (Gladwin), i.e. from Thursday Rajab 12th (April 2nd 1528 AD. f. 339, p. 602); (3) Wednesday is supported by the daily record of far into the year.
b. Variation in the length of the months of 935 AH.
There is singular variation between the Bābur-nāma and Wüstenfeld’s Tables, both as to the day of the week on which months began, and as to the length of some months. This variation is shown in the following table, where asterisks mark agreement as to the days of the week, and the capital letters, quoted from W.’s Tables, denote A, Sunday; B, Tuesday, etc. (the bracketed names being of my entry).
| _Bābur-nāma._ | _Wüstenfeld_ | |
| Days. | Days. | |
| Muḥarram | 29 Wednesday | 30 C (Tuesday) |
| Ṣafar | 30 Thursday | 29 E (Thursday)* |
| Rabī‘ I. | 30 Saturday | 30 F (Friday) |
| Ra”bīiII. | 29 Monday | 29 A (Sunday) |
| Jumadā I. | 30 Tuesday | 30 B (Monday) |
| Jum”adāII. | 29 Thursday | 29 D (Wednesday) |
| Rajab | 29 Friday | 30 E (Thursday) |
| Sha‘bān | 30 Saturday* | 29 G (Saturday)* |
| Ramẓān | 29 Monday | 30 A (Sunday) |
| Shawwal | 30 Tuesday* | 29 C (Tuesday)* |
| Ẕū’l-qa‘da | 29 Thursday | 30 D (Wednesday) |
| Ẕū’l-ḥijja | 30 Friday* | 29 T (Friday)* |
The table shows that notwithstanding the discrepancy discussed in section a, of Bābur’s making 935 AH. begin on a Wednesday, and Wüstenfeld on a Tuesday, the two authorities agree as to the initial week-day of four months out of twelve, viz. Ṣafar, Sha‘bān, Shawwal and Ẕū’l-ḥijja.
Again:—In eight of the months the Bābur-nāma reverses the “book-rule” of alternative Muḥarram 30 days, Ṣafar 29 days et seq. by giving Muḥarram 29, Ṣafar 30. (This is seen readily by following the initial days of the week.) Again:—these eight months are in pairs having respectively 29 and 30 days, and the year’s total is 364.—Four months follow the fixed rule, i.e. as though the year had begun Muḥ. 30 days, Ṣafar 29 days—namely, the two months of Rabī‘ and the two of Jumāda.—Ramẓān to which under “book-rule” 30 days are due, had 29 days, because, as Bābur records, the Moon was seen on the 29th.—In the other three instances of the reversed 30 and 29, one thing is common, viz. Muḥarram, Rajab, Ẕū’l-qa‘da (as also Ẕū’l-ḥijja) are “honoured” months.—It would be interesting if some expert in this Musalmān matter would give the reasons dictating the changes from rule noted above as occurring in 935 AH.
c. Varia.
(1) On f. 367 Saturday is entered as the 1st day of Sha‘bān and Wednesday as the 4th, but on f. 368b stands Wednesday 5th, as suits the serial dating. If the mistake be not a mere slip, it may be due to confusion of hours, the ceremony chronicled being accomplished on the eve of the 5th, Anglicé, after sunset on the 4th.
(2) A fragment only survives of the record of Ẕū’l-ḥijja 935 AH. It contains a date, Thursday 7th, and mentions a Feast which will be that of the ‘Īdu’l-kabīr on the 10th (Sunday). Working on from this to the first-mentioned day of 936 AH. viz. Tuesday, Muḥarram 3rd, the month (which is the second of a pair having 29 and 30 days) is seen to have 30 days and so to fit on to 936 AH. The series is Sunday 10th, 17th, 24th (Sat. 30th) Sunday 1st, Tuesday 3rd.
Two clerical errors of mine in dates connecting with this Appendix are corrected here:—(1) On p. 614 n. 5, for Oct. 2nd read Oct. 3rd; (2) on p. 619 penultimate line of the text, for Nov. 28th read Nov. 8th.
T.—ON L:KNŪ (LAKHNAU) AND L:KNŪR (LAKHNŪR, NOW SHĀHĀBĀD IN RĀMPŪR).
One or other of the above-mentioned names occurs eight times in the Bābur-nāma (s.a. 932, 934, 935 AH.), some instances being shown by their context to represent Lakhnau in Oudh, others inferentially and by the verbal agreement of the Ḥaidarābād Codex and Kehr’s Codex to stand for Lakhnūr (now Shāhābād in Rāmpūr). It is necessary to reconsider the identification of those not decided by their context, both because there is so much variation in the copies of the ‘Abdu’r-raḥīm Persian translation that they give no verbal help, and because Mr. Erskine and M. de Courteille are in agreement about them and took the whole eight to represent Lakhnau. This they did on different grounds, but in each case their agreement has behind it a defective textual basis.—Mr. Erskine, as is well known, translated the ‘Abdu’r-raḥīm Persian text without access to the original Turkī but, if he had had the Elphinstone Codex when translating, it would have given him no help because all the eight instances occur on folios not preserved by that codex. His only sources were not-first-rate Persian MSS. in which he found casual variation from terminal nū to nūr, which latter form may have been read by him as nūū (whence perhaps the old Anglo-Indian transliteration he uses, Luknow).[2843]—M. de Courteille’s position is different; his uniform Lakhnau obeyed the same uniformity in his source the Kāsān Imprint, and would appear to him the more assured for the concurrence of the Memoirs. His textual basis, however, for these words is Dr. Ilminsky’s and not Kehr’s. No doubt the uniform Lakhnū of the Kāsān Imprint is the result of Dr. Ilminsky’s uncertainty as to the accuracy of his single Turkī archetype [Kehr’s MS.], and also of his acceptance of Mr. Erskine’s uniform Luknow.[2844]—Since the Ḥaidarābād Codex became available and its collation with Kehr’s Codex has been made, a better basis for distinguishing between the L:knū and L:knūr of the Persian MSS. has been obtained.[2845] The results of the collation are entered in the following table, together with what is found in the Kāsān Imprint and the Memoirs. [N.B. The two sets of bracketed instances refer each to one place; the asterisks show where Ilminsky varies from Kehr.]
| Ḥai. MS. | Kehr’s MS. | Kāsān Imprint. | Memoirs. | ||||
| 1. |  | f. 278b | L:knūr | L:knū | L:knū, | p. 361 | Luknow. |
| 2. | f. 338 | L:knū | " | ” | p. 437 | " | |
| 3. | f. 292b | L:knūr | L:knūr | ” | p. 379* | not entered. | |
| 4. | f. 329 | L:knūr | L:knūr | ” | p. 362* | Luknow. | |
| 5. | f. 334 | L:knū | L:knū | ” | p. 432* | " | |
| 6. |  | f. 376 | L:knū | L:knūr | ” | p. 486* | " |
| 7. | f. 376b | L:knūr | " | ” | p. 487* | " | |
| 8. | f. 377b | L:knū | " | ” | p. 488* | " | |
The following notes give some grounds for accepting the names as the two Turkī codices agree in giving them:—
The first and second instances of the above table, those of the Ḥai. Codex f. 278b and f. 338, are shown by their context to represent Lakhnau.
The third (f. 292b) is an item of Bābur’s Revenue List. The Turkī codices are supported by B.M. Or. 1999, which is a direct copy of Shaikh Zain’s autograph T̤ābaqāt-i-bāburī, all three having L:knūr. Kehr’s MS. and Or. 1999 are descendants of the second degree from the original List; that the Ḥai. Codex is a direct copy is suggested by its pseudo-tabular arrangement of the various items.—An important consideration supporting L:knūr, is that the List is in Persian and may reasonably be accepted as the one furnished officially for the Pādshāh’s information when he was writing his account of Hindūstān (cf. Appendix P, p. liv). This official character disassociates it from any such doubtful spelling by the foreign Pādshāh as cannot but suggest itself when the variants of e.g. Dalmau and Bangarmau are considered. L:knūr is what three persons copying independently read in the official List, and so set down that careful scribes i.e. Kehr and ‘Abdu’l-lāh (App. P) again wrote L:knūr.[2846]—Another circumstance favouring L:knūr (Lakhnūr) is that the place assigned to it in the List is its geographical one between Saṃbhal and Khairābād.—Something for [or perhaps against] accepting Lakhnūr as the sarkār of the List may be known in local records or traditions. It had been an important place, and later on it paid a large revenue to Akbar [as part of Saṃbhal].—It appears to have been worth the attention of Bīban Jalwānī (f. 329).—Another place is associated with L:knūr in the Revenue List, the forms of which are open to a considerable number of interpretations besides that of Baksar shown in loco on p. 521. Only those well acquainted with the United Provinces or their bye-gone history can offer useful suggestion about it. Maps show a “Madkar” 6 m. south of old Lakhnūr; there are in the United Provinces two Baksars and as many other Lakhnūrs (none however being so suitable as what is now Shāhābād). Perhaps in the archives of some old families there may be help found to interpret the entry L:knūr u B:ks:r (var.), a conjecture the less improbable that the Gazetteer of the Province of Oude (ii, 58) mentions a farmān of Bābur Pādshāh’s dated 1527 AD. and upholding a grant to Shaikh Qāẓī of Bīlgrām.
The fourth instance (f. 329) is fairly confirmed as Lakhnūr by its context, viz. an officer received the district of Badāyūn from the Pādshāh and was sent against Bīban who had laid siege to L:knūr on which Badāyūn bordered.—At the time Lakhnau may have been held from Bābur by Shaikh Bāyazīd
Farmūlī in conjunction with Aūd. Its estates are recorded as still in Farmūlī possession, that of the widow of “Kala Pahār” Farmūlī.—(See infra.)
The fifth instance (f. 334) connects with Aūd (Oudh) because royal troops abandoning the place L:knū were those who had been sent against Shaikh Bāyazīd in Aūd.
The remaining three instances (f. 376, f. 376b, f. 377b) appear to concern one place, to which Bīban and Bāyazīd were rumoured to intend going, which they captured and abandoned. As the table of variants shows, Kehr’s MS. reads Lakhnūr in all three places, the Ḥai. MS. once only, varying from itself as it does in Nos. 1 and 2.—A circumstance supporting Lakhnūr is that one of the messengers sent to Bābur with details of the capture was the son of Shāh Muḥ. Dīwāna whose record associates him rather with Badakhshān, and with Humāyūn and Saṃbhal [perhaps with Lakhnūr itself] than with Bābur’s own army.—Supplementing my notes on these three instances, much could be said in favour of reading Lakhnūr, about time and distance done by the messengers and by ‘Abdu’l-lah kitābdār, on his way to Saṃbhal and passing near Lakhnūr; much too about the various rumours and Bābur’s immediate counter-action. But to go into it fully would need lengthy treatment which the historical unimportance of the little problem appears not to demand.—Against taking the place to be Lakhnau there are the considerations (a) that Lakhnūr was the safer harbourage for the Rains and less near the westward march of the royal troops returning from the battle of the Goghrā; (b) that the fort of Lakhnau was the renowned old Machchi-bawan (cf. Gazetteer of the Province of Oude, 3 vols., 1877, ii, 366).—So far as I have been able to fit dates and transactions together, there seems no reason why the two Afghāns should not have gone to Lakhnūr, have crossed the Ganges near it, dropped down south [perhaps even intending to recross at Dalmau] with the intention of getting back to the Farmūlīs and Jalwānīs perhaps in Sārwār, perhaps elsewhere to Bāyazīd’s brother Ma‘rūf.
U.—THE INSCRIPTIONS ON BĀBUR’S MOSQUE IN AJODHYA (OUDH).
Thanks to the kind response made by the Deputy-Commissioner of Fyzābād to my husband’s enquiry about two inscriptions mentioned by several Gazetteers as still existing on “Bābur’s Mosque” in Oudh, I am able to quote copies of both.[2847]
a. The inscription inside the Mosque is as follows:—
1. Ba farmūda-i-Shāh Bābur ki ‘ādilash
Banā’īst tā kākh-i-gardūn mulāqī,
2. Banā kard īn muhbit̤-i-qudsiyān
Amīr-i-sa‘ādat-nishān Mīr Bāqī
3. Bavad khair bāqī! chū sāl-i-banā’īsh
‘Iyān shud ki guftam,—Buvad khair bāqī (935).
The translation and explanation of the above, manifestly made by a Musalmān and as such having special value, are as follows:—[2848]
1. By the command of the Emperor Bābur whose justice is an edifice reaching up to the very height of the heavens,
2. The good-hearted Mīr Bāqī built this alighting-place of angels;[2849]
3. Bavad khāir bāqī! (May this goodness last for ever!)[2850]
The year of building it was made clear likewise when I said, Buvad khair bāqī ( = 935).[2851]
The explanation of this is:—
1st couplet:—The poet begins by praising the Emperor Bābur under whose orders the mosque was erected. As justice is the (chief) virtue of kings, he naturally compares his (Bābur’s) justice to a palace reaching up to the very heavens, signifying thereby that the fame of that justice had not only spread in the wide world but had gone up to the heavens.
2nd couplet:—In the second couplet, the poet tells who was entrusted with the work of construction. Mr Bāqī was evidently some nobleman of distinction at Bābur’s Court.—The noble height, the pure religious atmosphere, and the scrupulous cleanliness and neatness of the mosque are beautifully suggested by saying that it was to be the abode of angels.
3rd couplet:—The third couplet begins and ends with the expression Buvad khair bāqī. The letters forming it by their numerical values represent the number 935, thus:—
| B = 2, v = 6, d = 4 | total 12 |
| Kh = 600, ai = 10, r = 200 | ” 810 |
| B = 2, ā = 1, q = 100, r = 10 | ” 113 |
| ___ | |
| Total 935 | |
The poet indirectly refers to a religious commandment (dictum?) of the Qorān that a man’s good deeds live after his death, and signifies that this noble mosque is verily such a one.
b. The inscription outside the Mosque is as follows:—
1. Ba nām-i-anki dānā hast akbar
Ki khāliq-i-jamla ‘ālam lā-makānī
2. Durūd Muṣt̤afá ba‘d az sitāyish
Ki sarwar-i-aṃbiyā’ dū jahānī
3. Fasāna dar jahān Bābur qalandar
Ki shud dar daur gītī kāmrānī.[2852]
The explanation of the above is as follows:—
In the first couplet the poet praises God, in the second Muḥammad, in the third Bābur.—There is a peculiar literary beauty in the use of the word lā-makānī in the 1st couplet. The author hints that the mosque is meant to be the abode of God, although He has no fixed abiding-place.—In the first hemistich of the 3rd couplet the poet gives Bābur the appellation of qalandar, which means a perfect devotee, indifferent to all worldly pleasures. In the second hemistich he gives as the reason for his being so, that Bābur became and was known all the world over as a qalandar, because having become Emperor of India and having thus reached the summit of worldly success, he had nothing to wish for on this earth.[2853]
The inscription is incomplete and the above is the plain interpretation which can be given to the couplets that are to hand. Attempts may be made to read further meaning into them but the language would not warrant it.
V.—BĀBUR’S GARDENS IN AND NEAR KĀBUL.
The following particulars about gardens made by Bābur in or near Kābul, are given in Muḥammad Amīr of Kazwīn’s Pādshāh-nāma (Bib. Ind. ed. p. 585, p. 588).
Ten gardens are mentioned as made:—the Shahr-ārā (Town-adorning) which when Shāh-i-jahān first visited Kābul in the 12th year of his reign (1048 AH.-1638 AD.) contained very fine plane-trees Bābur had planted, beautiful trees having magnificent trunks,[2854]—the Chār-bāgh,—the Bāgh-i-jalau-khāna,[2855]—the Aūrta-bāgh (Middle-garden),—the Ṣaurat-bāgh,—the Bāgh-i-mahtāb (Moonlight-garden),—the Bāgh-i-āhū-khāna (Garden-of-the-deer-house),—and three smaller ones. Round these gardens rough-cast walls were made (renewed?) by Jahāngīr (1016 AH.).
The above list does not specify the garden Bābur made and selected for his burial; this is described apart (l.c. p. 588) with details of its restoration and embellishment by Shāh-i-jahān the master-builder of his time, as follows:—
The burial-garden was 500 yards (gaz) long; its ground was in 15 terraces, 30 yards apart(?). On the 15th terrace is the tomb of Ruqaiya Sult̤ān Begam[2856]; as a small marble platform (chabūṭra) had been made near it by Jahāngīr’s command, Shāh-i-jahān ordered (both) to be enclosed by a marble screen three yards high.—Bābur’s tomb is on the 14th terrace. In accordance with his will, no building was erected over it, but Shāh-i-jahān built a small marble mosque on the terrace below.[2857] It was begun in the 17th year (of Shāh-i-jahān’s reign) and was finished in the 19th, after the conquest of Balkh and Badakhshān, at a cost of 30,000 rūpīs. It is admirably constructed.—From the 12th terrace running-water flows along the line (rasta) of the avenue;[2858] but its 12 water-falls, because not constructed with cemented stone, had crumbled away and their charm was lost; orders were given therefore to renew them entirely and lastingly, to make a small reservoir below each fall, and to finish with Kābul marble the edges of the channel and the waterfalls, and the borders of the reservoirs.—And on the 9th terrace there was to be a reservoir 11 x 11 yards, bordered with Kābul marble, and on the 10th terrace one 15 x 15, and at the entrance to the garden another 15 x 15, also with a marble border.—And there was to be a gateway adorned with gilded cupolas befitting that place, and beyond (pesh) the gateway a square station,[2859] one side of which should be the garden-wall and the other three filled with cells; that running-water should pass through the middle of it, so that the destitute and poor people who might gather there should eat their food in those cells, sheltered from the hardship of snow and rain.[2860]