[APPENDICES TO THE KĀBUL SECTION.]
E.—NAGARAHĀR, AND NĪNG-NAHĀR
Those who consult books and maps about the riverain tract between the Safed-koh (Spīn-ghur) and (Anglicé) the Kābul-river find its name in several forms, the most common being Nangrahār and Nangnahār (with variant vowels). It would be useful to establish a European book-name for the district. As European opinion differs about the origin and meaning of the names now in use, and as a good deal of interesting circumstance gathers round the small problem of a correct form (there may be two), I offer about the matter what has come into the restricted field of my own work, premising that I do this merely as one who drops a casual pebble on the cairn of observation already long rising for scholarly examination.
a. The origin and meaning of the names.
I have met with three opinions about the origin and meaning of the names found now and earlier. To each one of them obvious objection can be made. They are:—
1. That all forms now in use are corruptions of the Sanscrit word Nagarahāra, the name of the Town-of-towns which in the dū-āb of the Bārān-sū and Sūrkh-rūd left the ruins Masson describes in Wilson’s Ariana Antigua. But if this is so, why is the Town-of-towns multiplied into the nine of Na-nagrahār (Nangrahār)?[2773]
2. That the names found represent Sanscrit nawā vihāra, nine monasteries, an opinion the Gazetteer of India of 1907 has adopted from Bellew. But why precisely nine monasteries? Nine appears an understatement.
3. That Nang (Ning or Nung) -nahār verbally means nine streams, (Bābur’s Tūqūz-rūd,) an interpretation of long standing (Section b infra). But whence nang, ning, nung, for nine? Such forms are not in Persian, Turkī or Pushtu dictionaries, and, as Sir G. A. Grierson assures me, do not come into the Linguistic Survey.
b. On nang, ning, nung for nine.
Spite of their absence from the natural homes of words, however, the above sounds have been heard and recorded as symbols of the number nine by careful men through a long space of time.
The following instances of the use of “Nangnahār” show this, and also show that behind the variant forms there may be not a single word but two of distinct origin and sense.
1. In Chinese annals two names appear as those of the district and town (I am not able to allocate their application with certainty). The first is Na-kie-lo-ho-lo, the second Nang-g-lo-ho-lo and these, I understand to represent Nagara-hāra and Nang-nahār, due allowance being made for Chinese idiosyncrasy.[2774]
2. Some 900 years later (1527-30 AD.) Bābur also gives two names, Nagarahār (as the book-name of his tūmān) and Nīng-nahār.[2775] He says the first is found in several histories (B.N. f. 131b); the second will have been what he heard and also presumably what appeared in revenue accounts; of it he says, “it is nine torrents” (tūqūz-rūd).
3. Some 300 years after Bābur, Elphinstone gives two names for the district, neither of them being Bābur’s book-name, “Nangrahaur[2776] or Nungnahaur, from the nine streams which issue from the Safed-koh, nung in Pushtoo signifying nine, and nahaura, a stream” (Caubul, i, 160).
4. In 1881 Colonel H. S. Tanner had heard, in Nūr-valley on the north side of the Kābul-water, that the name of the opposite district was Nīng-nahār and its meaning Nine-streams. He did not get a list of the nine and all he heard named do not flow from Safed-koh.
5. In 1884 Colonel H. G. McGregor gives two names with their explanation, “Ningrahar and Nungnihar; the former is a corruption of the latter word[2777] which in the Afghān language signifies nine rivers or rivulets.” He names nine, but of them six only issue from Safed-koh.
6. I have come across the following instances in which the number nine is represented by other words than na (ni or nu); viz. the nenhan of the Chitrālī Kāfir and the noun of the Panjābi, recorded by Leech,—the nyon of the Khowārī and the huncha of the Boorishki, recorded by Colonel Biddulph.
The above instances allow opinion that in the region concerned and through a long period of time, nine has been expressed by nang (ning or nung) and other nasal or high palatal sounds, side by side with na (ni or nu). The whole matter may be one of nasal utterance,[2778] but since a large number of tribesmen express nine by a word containing a nasal sound, should that word not find place in lists of recognized symbols of sounds?
c. Are there two names of distinct origin?
1. Certainly it makes a well-connected story of decay in the Sanscrit word Nagarahāra to suppose that tribesmen, prone by their organism to nasal utterance, pronounced that word Nangrahār, and by force of their numbers made this corruption current,—that this was recognized as the name of the town while the Town-of-towns was great or in men’s memory, and that when through the decay of the town its name became a meaningless husk, the wrong meaning of the Nine-streams should enter into possession.
But as another and better one can be put together, this fair-seeming story may be baseless. Its substitute has the advantage of explaining the double sequence of names shown in Section b.
The second story makes all the variant names represent one or other of two distinct originals. It leaves Nagrahār to represent Nagarahāra, the dead town; it makes the nine torrents of Safed-koh the primeval sponsors of Nīng-nahār, the name of the riverain tract. Both names, it makes contemporary in the relatively brief interlude of the life of the town. For the fertilizing streams will have been the dominant factors of settlement and of revenue from the earliest times of population and government. They arrest the eye where they and their ribbons of cultivation space the riverain waste; they are obvious units for grouping into a sub-government. Their name has a counterpart in adjacent Panj-āb; the two may have been given by one dominant power, how long ago, in what tongue matters not. The riverain tract, by virtue of its place on a highway of transit, must have been inhabited long before the town Nagarahāra was built, and must have been known by a name. What better one than Nine-streams can be thought of?
2. Bellew is quoted by the Gazetteer of India (ed. 1907) as saying, in his argument in favour of nawā vihāra, that no nine streams are found to stand sponsor, but modern maps shew nine outflows from Safed-koh to the Kābul-river between the Sūrkh-rūd and Daka, while if affluents to the former stream be reckoned, more than nine issue from the range.[2779]
Against Bellew’s view that there are not nine streams, is the long persistence of the number nine in the popular name (Sect. b).
It is also against his view that he supposes there were nine monasteries, because each of the nine must have had its fertilizing water.
Bābur says there were nine; there must have been nine of significance; he knew his tūmān not only by frequent transit but by his revenue accounts. A supporting point in those accounts is likely to have been that the individual names of the villages on the nine streams would appear, with each its payment of revenue.
3. In this also is some weight of circumstance against taking Nagarahāra to be the parent of Nīng-nahār:—An earlier name of the town is said to be Udyānapūra, Garden town.[2780] Of this Bābur’s Adīnapūr is held to be a corruption; the same meaning of garden has survived on approximately the same ground in Bālā-bāgh and Roẓābād.
Nagarahāra is seen, therefore, to be a parenthetical name between others which are all derived from gardens. It may shew the promotion of a “Garden-town” to a “Chief-town”. If it did this, there was relapse of name when the Chief-town lost status. Was it ever applied beyond the delta? If it were, would it, when dead in the delta, persist along the riverain tract? If it were not, cadit quæstio; the suggestion of two names distinct in origin, is upheld.
Certainly the riverain tract would fall naturally under the government of any town flourishing in the delta, the richest and most populous part of the region. But for this very reason it must have had a name older than parenthetical Nagarahāra. That inevitable name would be appropriately Nīng-nahār (or Na-nahār) Nine-streams; and for a period Nagarahāra would be the Chief-town of the district of Na-nahār (Nine-streams).[2781]
d. Bābur’s statements about the name.
What the cautious Bābur says of his tūmān of Nīng-nahār has weight:—
1. That some histories write it Nagarahār (Ḥaidarābād Codex, f. 131b);
2. That Nīng-nahār is nine torrents, i.e. mountain streams, tūquz-rud;
3. That (the) nine torrents issue from Safed-koh (f. 132b).
Of his first statement can be said, that he will have seen the book-name in histories he read, but will have heard Nīng-nahār, probably also have seen it in current letters and accounts.
Of his second,—that it bears and may be meant to bear two senses, (a) that the tūmān consisted of nine torrents,—their lands implied; just as he says “Asfara is four būlūks” (sub-divisions f. 3b)—(b) that tūqūz rūd translates nīng-nahār.
Of his third,—that in English its sense varies as it is read with or without the definite article Turkī rarely writes, but that either sense helps out his first and second, to mean that verbally and by its constituent units Nīng-nahār is nine-torrents; as verbally and by its constituents Panj-āb is five-waters.
e. Last words.
Detailed work on the Kābul section of the Bābur-nāma has stamped two impressions so deeply on me, that they claim mention, not as novel or as special to myself, but as set by the work.
The first is of extreme risk in swift decision on any problem of words arising in North Afghānistān, because of its local concourse of tongues, the varied utterance of its unlettered tribes resident or nomad, and the frequent translation of proper names in obedience to their verbal meanings. Names lie there too in strata, relics of successive occupation—Greek, Turkī, Hindī, Pushtū and tribes galore.
The second is that the region is an exceptionally fruitful field for first-hand observation of speech, the movent ocean of the uttered word, free of the desiccated symbolism of alphabets and books.
The following books, amongst others, have prompted the above note:—
Ghoswāra Inscription, Kittoe, JASB., 1848, and Kielhorn, Indian Antiquary, 1888, p. 311.
H. Sastrī’s Rāmacārita, Introduction, p. 7 (ASB. Memoirs).
Cunningham’s Ancient India, vol. i.
Beal’s Buddhist Records, i, xxxiv, and cii, 91.
Leech’s Vocabularies, JASB., 1838.
The writings of Masson (Travels and Ariana Antiqua), Wood, Vigne, etc.
Raverty’s T̤abaqāt-i-nāsirī.
Jarrett’s Āyīn-i-akbarī.
P.R.G.S. for maps, 1879; Macnair on the Kafirs, 1884; Tanner’s On the Chugānī and neighbouring tribes of Kāfiristān, 1881.
Simpson’s Nagarahāra, JASB., xiii.
Biddulph’s Dialects of the Hindū-kush, JRAS.
Gazette of India, 1907, art. Jalalābād.
Bellew’s Races of Afghānistān.
F.—ON THE NAME DARA-I-NŪR
Some European writers have understood the name Dara-i-nūr to mean Valley of Light, but natural features and also the artificial one mentioned by Colonel H. G. Tanner (infra), make it better to read the component nūr, not as Persian nūr, light, but as Pushtū nūr, rock. Hence it translates as Valley of Rocks, or Rock-valley. The region in which the valley lies is rocky and boulder-strewn; its own waters flow to the Kābul-river east of the water of Chitrāl. It shews other names composed with nūr, in which nūr suits if it means rock, but is inexplicable if it means light, e.g. Nūr-lām (Nūr-fort), the master-fort in the mouth of Nūr-valley, standing high on a rock between two streams, as Bābur and Tanner have both described it from eye-witness,—Nūr-gal (village), a little to the north-west of the valley,—Aūlūgh-nūr (great rock), at a crossing mentioned by Bābur, higher up the Bārān-water,—and Koh-i-nūr (Rocky-mountains), which there is ground for taking as the correct form of the familiar “Kunar” of some European writers (Raverty’s Notes, p. 106). The dominant feature in these places dictates reading nūr as rock; so too the work done in Nūr-valley with boulders, of which Colonel H. G. Tanner’s interesting account is subjoined (P.R.G.S. 1881, p. 284).
“Some 10 miles from the source of the main stream of the Nur-valley the Dameneh stream enters, but the waters of the two never meet; they flow side by side about three-quarters of a mile apart for about 12 miles and empty themselves into the Kunar river by different mouths, each torrent hugging closely the foot of the hills at its own side of the valley. Now, except in countries where terracing has been practised continuously for thousands of years, such unnatural topography as exists in the valley of Nur is next to impossible. The forces which were sufficient to scoop out the valley in the first instance, would have kept a water-way at the lowest part, into which would have poured the drainage of the surrounding mountains; but in the Nur-valley long-continued terracing has gradually raised the centre of the valley high above the edges. The population has increased to its maximum limit and every available inch of ground is required for cultivation; the people, by means of terrace-walls built of ponderous boulders in the bed of the original single stream, have little by little pushed the waters out of their true course, until they run, where now found, in deep rocky cuttings at the foot of the hills on either side” (p. 280).
“I should like to go on and say a good deal more about boulders; and while I am about it I may as well mention one that lies back from a hamlet in Shulut, which is so big that a house is built in a fault or crack running across its face. Another pebble lies athwart the village and covers the whole of the houses from that side.”
G.—ON THE NAMES OF TWO DARA-I-NŪR WINES.
From the two names, Arat-tāshī and Sūhān (Suhār) -tāshī, which Bābur gives as those of two wines of the Dara-i-nūr, it can be inferred that he read nūr to mean rock. For if in them Turkī tāsh, rock, be replaced by Pushtū nūr, rock, two place-names emerge, Arat (-nūrī) and Sūhān (-nūrī), known in the Nūr-valley.
These may be villages where the wines were grown, but it would be quite exceptional for Bābur to say that wines are called from their villages, or indeed by any name. He says here not where they grow but what they are called.
I surmise that he is repeating a joke, perhaps his own, perhaps a standing local one, made on the quality of the wines. For whether with tāsh or with nūr (rock), the names can be translated as Rock-saw and Rock-file, and may refer to the rough and acid quality of the wines, rasping and setting the teeth on edge as does iron on stone.
The villages themselves may owe their names to a serrated edge or splintered pinnacle of weathered granite, in which local people, known as good craftsmen, have seen resemblance to tools of their trade.
H.—ON THE COUNTERMARK BIH BŪD ON COINS.
As coins of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā Bāī-qarā and other rulers do actually bear the words Bih būd, Bābur’s statement that the name of Bihbūd Beg was on the Mīrzā’s coins acquires a numismatic interest which may make serviceable the following particulars concerning the passage and the beg.[2782]
a. The Turkī passage (Elph. MS. f. 135b; Ḥaidarābād Codex f. 173b; Ilminsky p. 217).
For ease of reference the Turkī, Persian and English version are subjoined:—
(1) Yana Bihbūd Beg aīdī. Būrūnlār chuhra-jīrga-sī-dā khidmat qīlūr aīdī. Mīrzā-nīng qāzāqlīqlārīdā khidmatī bāqīb Bihbūd Beg-kā bū ‘ināyatnī qīlīb aīdī kīm tamghā u sikka-dā ānīng ātī aīdī.
(2) The Persian translation of ‘Abdu’r-raḥīm (Muḥ. Shīrāzī’s lith. ed. p. 110):—
Dīgar Bihbūd Beg būd. Auwalhā dar jīrga-i-chuhrahā khidmat mikard. Chūn dar qāzāqīhā Mīrzārā khidmat karda būd u ānrā mulāḥaẓa namūda, aīnrā ‘ināyat karda būd kah dar tamghānāt sikka[2783] nām-i-au būd.
(3) A literal English translation of the Turkī:—
Another was Bihbūd Beg. He served formerly in the chuhra-jīrga-sī (corps of braves). Looking to his service in the Mīrzā’s guerilla-times, the favour had been done to Bihbūd Beg that his name was on the stamp and coin.[2784]
b. Of Bihbūd Beg.
We have found little so far to add to what Bābur tells of Bihbūd Beg and what he tells we have not found elsewhere. The likely sources of his information are Daulat Shāh and Khwānd-amīr who have written at length of Ḥusain Bāī-qarā. Considerable search in the books of both men has failed to discover mention of signal service or public honour connected with the beg. Bābur may have heard what he tells in Harāt in 912 AH. (1506 AD.) when he would see Ḥusain’s coins presumably; but later opportunity to see them must have been frequent during his campaigns and visits north of Hindū-kush, notably in Balkh.
The sole mention we have found of Bihbūd Beg in the Ḥabību’s-siyar is that he was one of Ḥusain’s commanders at the battle of Chīkmān-sarāī which was fought with Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā Mīrānshāhī in Muḥarram 876 AH. (June-July 1471 AD.).[2785] His place in the list shews him to have had importance. “Amīr Niz̤āmu’d-dīn ‘Alī-sher’s brother Darwesh-i-‘alī the librarian (q.v. Ḥai. Codex Index), and Amīr Bihbūd, and Muḥ. ‘Alī ātāka, and Bakhshīka and Shāh Walī Qīpchāq, and Dost-i-muḥammad chuhra, and Amīr Qul-i-‘alī, and” (another).
The total of our information about the man is therefore:—
(1) That when Ḥusain[2786] from 861 to 873 AH. (1457 to 1469 AD.) was fighting his way up to the throne of Harāt, Bihbūd served him well in the corps of braves, (as many others will have done).
(2) That he was a beg and one of Ḥusain’s commanders in 876 AH. (1471 AD.).
(3) That Bābur includes him amongst Ḥusain’s begs and says of him what has been quoted, doing this circa 934 AH. (1528 AD.), some 56 years after Khwānd-amīr’s mention of him s.a. 876 AH. (1471 AD.).
c. Of the term chuhra-jīrga-sī used by Bābur.
Of this term Bābur supplies an explicit explanation which I have not found in European writings. His own book amply exemplifies his explanation, as do also Khwānd-amīr’s and Ḥaidar’s.
He gives the explanation (f. 15b) when describing a retainer of his father’s who afterwards became one of his own begs. It is as follows:—
“‘Alī-darwesh of Khurāsān served in the Khurāsān chuhra-jīrga-sī, one of two special corps (khāṣa tābīn) of serviceable braves (yārār yīgītlār) formed by Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā when he first began to arrange the government of Khurāsān and Samarkand and, presumably, called by him the Khurāsān corps and the Samarkand corps.”
This shews the circle to have consisted of fighting-men, such serviceable braves as are frequently mentioned by Bābur; and his words “yārār yīgīt” make it safe to say that if instead of using a Persian phrase, he had used a Turkī one, yīgīt, brave would have replaced chuhra, “young soldier” (Erskine). A considerable number of men on active service are styled chuhra, one at least is styled yīgīt, in the same way as others are styled beg.[2787]
Three military circles are mentioned in the Bābur-nāma, consisting respectively of braves, household begs (under Bābur’s own command), and great begs. Some men are mentioned who never rose from the rank of brave (yīgīt), some who became household-begs, some who went through the three grades.
Of the corps of braves Bābur conveys the information that Abū-sa‘īd founded it at a date which will have lain between 1451 and 1457 AD.; that ‘Umar Shaikh’s man ‘Alī-darwesh belonged to it; and that Ḥusain’s man Bihbūd did so also. Both men, ‘Ali-darwesh and Bihbūd, when in its circle, would appropriately be styled chuhra as men of the beg-circle were styled beg; the Dost-i-muḥammad chuhra who was a commander, (he will have had a brave’s command,) at Chīkmān-sarāī (see list supra) will also have been of this circle. Instances of the use by Bābur of the name khaṣa-tābīn and its equivalent būītīkīnī are shewn on f. 209 and f. 210b. A considerable number of Bābur’s fighting men, the braves he so frequently mentions as sent on service, are styled chuhra and inferentially belong to the same circle.[2788]
d. Of Bih būd on Ḥusain Bāī-qarā’s coins.
So far it does not seem safe to accept Bābur’s statement literally. He may tell a half-truth and obscure the rest by his brevity.
Nothing in the sources shows ground for signal and public honour to Bihbūd Beg, but a good deal would allow surmise that jesting allusion to his name might decide for Bih būd as a coin mark when choice had to be made of one, in the flush of success, in an assembly of the begs, and, amongst those begs, lovers of word-play and enigma.
The personal name is found written Bihbūd, as one word and with medial h; the mark is Bih būd with the terminal h in the Bih. There have been discussions moreover as to whether to read on the coins Bih būd, it was good, or Bih buvad, let it be, or become, good (valid for currency?).
The question presents itself; would the beg’s name have appeared on the coins, if it had not coincided in form with a suitable coin-mark?
Against literal acceptance of Bābur’s statement there is also doubt of a thing at once so ben trovato and so unsupported by evidence.
Another doubt arises from finding Bih būd on coins of other rulers, one of Iskandar Khān’s being of a later date,[2789] others, of Tīmūr, Shāhrukh and Abū-sa‘īd, with nothing to shew who counterstruck it on them.
On some of Ḥusain’s coins the sentence Bih būd appears as part of the legend and not as a counterstrike. This is a good basis for finding a half-truth in Bābur’s statement. It does not allow of a whole-truth in his statement because, as it is written, it is a coin-mark, not a name.
An interesting matter as bearing on Ḥusain’s use of Bih būd is that in 865 AH. (1461 AD.) he had an incomparable horse named Bihbūd, one he gave in return for a falcon on making peace with Mustapha Khān.[2790]
e. Of Bābur’s vassal-coinage.
The following historical details narrow the field of numismatic observation on coins believed struck by Bābur as a vassal of Ismā‘īl Ṣafawī. They are offered because not readily accessible.
The length of Bābur’s second term of rule in Transoxiana was not the three solar years of the B.M. Coin Catalogues but did not exceed eight months. He entered Samarkand in the middle of Rajab 917 AH. (c. Oct. 1st, 1511 AD.). He returned to it defeated and fled at once, after the battle of Kūl-i-malik which was fought in Ṣafar 918 AH. (mid-April to mid-May 1512 AD.). Previous to the entry he was in the field, without a fixed base; after his flight he was landless till at the end both of 920 AH. and of 1514 AD. he had returned to Kābul.
He would not find a full Treasury in Samarkand because the Aūzbegs evacuated the fort at their own time; eight months would not give him large tribute in kind. He failed in Transoxiana because he was the ally of a Shī‘a; would coins bearing the Shī‘a legend have passed current from a Samarkand mint? These various circumstances suggest that he could not have struck many coins of any kind in Samarkand.
The coins classed in the B.M. Catalogues as of Bābur’s vassalage, offer a point of difficulty to readers of his own writings, inasmuch as neither the “Sult̤ān Muḥammad” of No. 652 (gold), nor the “Sult̤ān Bābur Bahādur” of the silver coins enables confident acceptance of them as names he himself would use.
I.—ON THE WEEPING-WILLOWS OF f. 190b.
The passage omitted from f. 190b, which seems to describe something decorative done with weeping willows, (bed-i-mawallah) has been difficult to all translators. This may be due to inaccurate pointing in Bābur’s original MS. or may be what a traveller seeing other willows at another feast could explain.
The first Persian translation omits the passage (I.O. 215 f. 154b); the second varies from the Turkī, notably by changing sāch and sāj to shākh throughout (I.O. 217 f. 150b). The English and French translations differ much (Memoirs p. 206, Mémoires i, 414), the latter taking the mawallah to be mūla, a hut, against which much is clear in the various MSS.
Three Turkī sources[2791] agree in reading as follows:—
Mawallahlār-nī (or muwallah Ḥai. MS.) kīltūrdīlār. Bīlmān sāchlārī-nīng yā ‘amlī sāchlārī-nīng ārālārīgha k:msān-nī (Ilminsky, kamān) shākh-nīng (Ḥai. MS. șākh) aūzūnlūghī bīla aīnjīga aīnjīga kīsīb, qūīūb tūrlār.
The English and French translations differ from the Turkī and from one another:—
(Memoirs, p. 206) They brought in branching willow-trees. I do not know if they were in the natural state of the tree, or if the branches were formed artificially, but they had small twigs cut the length of the ears of a bow and inserted between them.
(Mémoires i, 434) On façonna des huttes (mouleh). Ils les établissent en taillant des baguettes minces, de la longeur du bout recourbé de l’arc, qu’on place entre des branches naturelles ou façonnées artificiellement, je l’ignore.
The construction of the sentence appears to be thus:—Mawal-lahlār-nī kīltūrdīlār, they brought weeping-willows; k:msān-nī qūīūbtūrlār, they had put k:msān-nī; aīnjīga aīnjīga kīsīb, cut very fine (or slender); shākh (or șākh)-nīng aūzūnlūghī, of the length of a shākh, bow, or șākh ...; bīlmān sāchlārī-nīng yā ‘amlī sāchlārī-nīng ārālārīgha, to (or at) the spaces of the sāchlār whether their (i.e. the willows') own or artificial sāchlār.
These translations clearly indicate felt difficulty. Mr. Erskine does not seem to have understood that the trees were Salix babylonica. The crux of the passage is the word k:msān-nī, which tells what was placed in the spaces. It has been read as kamān, bow, by all but the scribes of the two good Turkī MSS. and as in a phrase horn of a bow. This however is not allowed by the Turkī, for the reason that k:msān-nī is not in the genitive but in the accusative case. (I may say that Bābur does not use nī for nīng; he keeps strictly to the prime uses of each enclitic,
nī accusative, nīng genitive.) Moreover, if k:msān-nī be taken as a genitive, the verbs qūīūb-tūrlār and kīsīb have no object, no other accusative appearing in the sentence than k:msān-nī.
A weighty reason against changing sāch into shākh is that Dr. Ilminsky has not done so. He must have attached meaning to sāch since he uses it throughout the passage. He was nearer the region wherein the original willows were seen at a feast. Unfortunately nothing shows how he interpreted the word.
Sāchmāq is a tassel; is it also a catkin and were there decorations, kimsān-nī (things kimsa, or flowers Ar. kim, or something shining, kimcha, gold brocade) hung in between the catkins?
Ilminsky writes mu’lah (with ḥamza) and this de Courteille translates by hut. The Ḥai. MS. writes muwallah (marking the ẓamma).
In favour of reading mawallah (mulah) as a tree and that tree Salix babylonica the weeping-willow, there are annotations in the Second Persian translation and, perhaps following it, in the Elphinstone MS. of nām-i-dirakht, name of a tree, dīdān-i-bed, sight of the willow, bed-i-mawallah, mournful-willow. Standing alone mawallah means weeping-willow, in this use answering to majnūn the name Panj-ābīs give the tree, from Leila’s lover the distracted i.e. Majnūn (Brandis).
The whole question may be solved by a chance remark from a traveller witnessing similar festive decoration at another feast in that conservative region.
J.—ON BĀBUR’S EXCAVATED CHAMBER AT QANDAHĀR (f. 208b).
Since making my note (f. 208b) on the wording of the passage in which Bābur mentions excavation done by him at Qandahār, I have learned that he must be speaking of the vaulted chamber containing the celebrated inscriptions about which much has been written.[2792]
The primary inscription, the one commemorating Bābur’s final possession of Qandahār, gives the chamber the character of a Temple of Victory and speaks of it as Rawāq-i-jahān namāī, World-shewing-portal,[2793] doubtless because of its conspicuous position and its extensive view, probably also in allusion to its declaration of victory. Mīr Ma‘ṣūm writes of it as a Pesh-t̤āq, frontal arch, which, coupled with Mohan Lall’s word arch (t̤āq)
suggests that the chamber was entered through an arch pierced
in a parallelogram smoothed on the rock and having resemblance to the pesh-tāq of buildings, a suggestion seeming the more probable that some inscriptions are on the “wings” of the arch. But by neither of the above-mentioned names do Mohan Lall and later travellers call the chamber or write of the place; all describe it by its approach of forty steps, Chihil-zīna.[2794]
The excavation has been chipped out of the white-veined limestone of the bare ridge on and below which stood Old Qandahār.[2794] It does not appear from the descriptions to have been on the summit of the ridge; Bellew says that the forty steps start half-way up the height. I have found no estimate of the height of the ridge, or statement that the steps end at the chamber. The ridge however seems to have been of noticeably dominating height. It rises steeply to the north and there ends in the naze of which Bābur writes. The foot of the steps is guarded by two towers. Mohan Lall, unaccustomed to mountains, found their ascent steep and dizzy. The excavated chamber of the inscriptions, which Bellew describes as “bow-shaped and dome-roofed”, he estimated as 12 feet at the highest point,
12 feet deep and 8 feet wide. Two sculptured beasts guard the entrance; Bellew calls them leopards but tigers would better symbolize the watch and ward of the Tiger Bābur. In truth the whole work, weary steps of approach, tiger guardians, commemorative chamber, laboriously incised words, are admirably symbolic of his long-sustained resolve and action, taken always with Hindūstān as the goal.
There are several inscriptions of varying date, within and without the chamber. Mohan Lall saw and copied them; Darmesteter worked on a copy; the two English observers Lumsden and Bellew made no attempt at correct interpretation. In the versions all give there are inaccuracies, arising from obvious causes, especially from want of historical data. The last word has not been said; revision awaits photography and the leisured expert. A part of the needed revision has been done by Beames, who deals with the geography of what Mīr Ma‘ṣūm himself added under Akbar after he had gone as Governor to Qandahār in 1007 AH. (1598 AD.). This commemorates not Bābur’s but Akbar’s century of cities.
It is the primary inscription only which concerns this Appendix. This is one in relief in the dome of the chamber, recording in florid Persian that Abū’l-ghāzī Bābur took possession of Qandahār on Shawwāl 13th 928 AH. (Sep. 1st 1522 AD.), that in the same year he commanded the construction of this Rawāq-i-jahān-namāī, and that the work had been completed by his son Kāmrān at the time he made over charge of Qandahār to his brother ‘Askarī in 9 ... (mutilated). After this the gravure changes in character.
In the above, Bābur’s title Abū’l-ghāzī fixes the date of the inscription as later than the battle of Kanwāha (f. 324b), because it was assumed in consequence of this victory over a Hindū, in March 1527 (Jumāda II 933 AH.).
The mutilated date 9 ... is given by Mohan Lall as 952 AH. but this does not suit several circumstances, e.g. it puts completion too far beyond the time mentioned as consumed by the work, nine years,—and it was not that at which Kāmrān made over charge to ‘Askarī, but followed the expulsion of both full-brothers from Qandahār by their half-brother Humāyūn.
The mutilated date 9 ... is given by Darmesteter as 933 AH. but this again does not fit the historical circumstance that Kāmrān was in Qandahār after that date and till 937 AH. This date (937 AH.) we suggest as fitting to replace the lost figures, (1) because in that year and after his father’s death, Kāmrān gave the town to ‘Askarī and went himself to Hindūstān, and (2) because work begun in 928 AH. and recorded as occupying 70-80 men for nine years would be complete in 937 AH.[2795] The inscription would be one of the last items of the work.
The following matters are added here because indirectly connected with what has been said and because not readily accessible.
a. Birth of Kāmrān.
Kāmrān’s birth falling in a year of one of the Bābur-nāma gaps, is nowhere mentioned. It can be closely inferred as 914 or 915 AH. from the circumstances that he was younger than Humāyūn born late in 913 AH., that it is not mentioned in the fragment of the annals of 914 AH., and that he was one of the children enumerated by Gul-badan as going with her father to Samarkand in 916 AH. (Probably the children did not start with their father in the depth of winter across the mountains.) Possibly the joyful name Kāmrān is linked to the happy issue of the Mughūl rebellion of 914 AH. Kāmrān would thus be about 18 when left in charge of Kābul and Qandahār by Bābur in 932 AH. before the start for the fifth expedition to Hindūstān.
A letter from Bābur to Kāmrān in Qandahār is with Kehr’s Latin version of the Bābur-nāma, in Latin and entered on the lining of the cover. It is shewn by its main topic viz. the despatch of Ibrāhīm Lūdī’s son to Kāmrān’s charge, to date somewhere close to Jan. 3rd 1527 (Rabī‘u’l-awwal 29th 933 AH.) because on that day Bābur writes of the despatch (Ḥai. Codex f. 306b foot).
Presumably the letter was with Kāmrān’s own copy of the Bābur-nāma. That copy may have reached Humāyūn’s hands
(JRAS 1908 p. 828 et seq.). The next known indication of the letter is given in St. Petersburg by Dr. Kehr. He will have seen it or a copy of it with the B.N. Codex he copied (one of unequaled correctness), and he, no doubt, copied it in its place on the fly-leaf or board of his own transcript, but if so, it has disappeared.
Fuller particulars of it and of other items accompanying it are given in JRAS 1908 p. 828 et seq.
K.—AN AFGHĀN LEGEND.
My husband’s article in the Asiatic Quarterly Review of April 1901 begins with an account of the two MSS. from which it is drawn, viz. I.O. 581 in Pushtū, I.O. 582 in Persian. Both are mainly occupied with an account of the Yūsuf-zāī. The second opens by telling of the power of the tribe in Afghānistān and of the kindness of Malik Shāh Sulaimān, one of their chiefs, to Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā Kābulī, (Bābur’s paternal uncle,) when he was young and in trouble, presumably as a boy ruler.
It relates that one day a wise man of the tribe, Shaikh ‘Us̤mān saw Sulaimān sitting with the young Mīrzā on his knee and warned him that the boy had the eyes of Yazīd and would destroy him and his family as Yazīd had destroyed that of the Prophet. Sulaimān paid him no attention and gave the Mīrzā his daughter in marriage. Subsequently the Mīrzā having invited the Yūsuf-zāī to Kābul, treacherously killed Sulaimān and 700 of his followers. They were killed at the place called Siyāh-sang near Kābul; it is still known, writes the chronicler in about 1770 AD. (1184 AH.), as the Grave of the Martyrs. Their tombs are revered and that of Shaikh ‘Us̤mān in particular.
Shāh Sulaimān was the eldest of the seven sons of Malik Tāju’d-dīn; the second was Sult̤ān Shāh, the father of Malik Aḥmad. Before Sulaimān was killed he made three requests of Aūlūgh Beg; one of them was that his nephew Aḥmad’s life might be spared. This was granted.
Aūlūgh Beg died (after ruling from 865 to 907 AH.), and Bābur defeated his son-in-law and successor M. Muqīm (Arghūn, 910 AH.). Meantime the Yūsuf-zāī had migrated to Pashāwar but later on took Sawād from Sl. Wais (Ḥai. Codex ff. 219, 220b, 221).
When Bābur came to rule in Kābul, he at first professed friendship for the Yūsuf-zāī but became prejudiced against them through their enemies the Dilazāk[2796] who gave force to their charges by a promised subsidy of 70,000 shāhrukhī. Bābur therefore determined, says the Yūsuf-zāī chronicler, to kill Malik[2797] Aḥmad and so wrote him a friendly invitation to Kābul. Aḥmad agreed to go, and set out with four brothers who were famous musicians. Meanwhile the Dilazāk had persuaded Bābur to put Aḥmad to death at once, for they said Aḥmad was so clever and eloquent that if allowed to speak, he would induce the Pādshāh to pardon him.
On Aḥmad’s arrival in Kābul, he is said to have learned that Bābur’s real object was his death. His companions wanted to tie their turbans together and let him down over the wall of the fort, but he rejected their proposal as too dangerous for him and them, and resolved to await his fate. He told his companions however, except one of the musicians, to go into hiding in the town.
Next morning there was a great assembly and Bābur sat on the daïs-throne. Aḥmad made his reverence on entering but Bābur’s only acknowledgment was to make bow and arrow ready to shoot him. When Aḥmad saw that Bābur’s intention was to shoot him down without allowing him to speak, he unbuttoned his jerkin and stood still before the Pādshāh. Bābur, astonished, relaxed the tension of his bow and asked Aḥmad what he meant. Aḥmad’s only reply was to tell the Pādshāh not to question him but to do what he intended. Bābur again asked his meaning and again got the same reply.
Bābur put the same question a third time, adding that he could not dispose of the matter without knowing more. Then Aḥmad opened the mouth of praise, expatiated on Bābur’s excellencies and said that in this great assemblage many of his subjects were looking on to see the shooting; that his jerkin being very thick, the arrow might not pierce it; the shot might fail and the spectators blame the Pādshāh for missing his mark; for these reasons he had thought it best to bare his breast. Bābur was so pleased by this reply that he resolved to pardon Aḥmad at once, and laid down his bow.
Said he to Aḥmad, “What sort of man is Buhlūl Lūdī?” “A giver of horses,” said Aḥmad.
“And of what sort his son Sikandar?” “A giver of robes.”
“And of what sort is Bābur?” “He,” said Aḥmad, “is a giver of heads.”
“Then,” rejoined Bābur, “I give you yours.”
The Pādshāh now became quite friendly with Aḥmad, came down from his throne, took him by the hand and led him into another room where they drank together. Three times did Bābur have his cup filled, and after drinking a portion, give the rest to Aḥmad. At length the wine mounted to Bābur’s head; he grew merry and began to dance. Meantime Aḥmad’s musician played and Aḥmad who knew Persian well, poured out an eloquent harangue. When Bābur had danced for some time, he held out his hands to Aḥmad for a reward (bakhshīsh), saying, “I am your performer.” Three times did he open his hands, and thrice did Aḥmad, with a profound reverence, drop a gold coin into them. Bābur took the coins, each time placing his hand on his head. He then took off his robe and gave it to Aḥmad; Aḥmad took off his own coat, gave it to Adu the musician, and put on what the Pādshāh had given.
Aḥmad returned safe to his tribe. He declined a second invitation to Kābul, and sent in his stead his brother Shāh Manṣūr. Manṣūr received speedy dismissal as Bābur was displeased at Aḥmad’s not coming. On his return to his tribe Manṣūr advised them to retire to the mountains and make a strong sangur. This they did; as foretold, Bābur came into their country with a large army. He devastated their lands but could make no impression on their fort. In order the better to judge of its character, he, as was his wont, disguised himself as a Qalandar, and went with friends one dark night to the Mahūra hill where the stronghold was, a day’s journey from the Pādshāh’s camp at Dīārūn.
It was the ‘Īd-i-qurbān and there was a great assembly and feasting at Shāh Manṣūr’s house, at the back of the Mahūra-mountain, still known as Shāh Manṣūr’s throne. Bābur went in his disguise to the back of the house and stood among the crowd in the courtyard. He asked servants as they went to and fro about Shāh Manṣūr’s family and whether he had a daughter. They gave him straightforward answers.
At the time Musammat Bībī Mubāraka, Shāh Manṣur’s daughter was sitting with other women in a tent. Her eye fell on the qalandars and she sent a servant to Bābur with some cooked meat folded between two loaves. Bābur asked who had sent it; the servant said it was Shāh Manṣūr’s daughter Bībī Mubāraka. “Where is she?” “That is she, sitting in front of you in the tent.” Bābur Pādshāh became entranced with her beauty and asked the woman-servant, what was her disposition and her age and whether she was betrothed. The servant replied by extolling her mistress, saying that her virtue equalled her beauty, that she was pious and brimful of rectitude and placidity; also that she was not betrothed. Bābur then left with his friends, and behind the house hid between two stones the food that had been sent to him.
He returned to camp in perplexity as to what to do; he saw he could not take the fort; he was ashamed to return to Kābul with nothing effected; moreover he was in the fetters of love. He therefore wrote in friendly fashion to Malik Aḥmad and asked for the daughter of Shāh Manṣūr, son of Shāh Sulaimān. Great objection was made and earlier misfortunes accruing to Yūsuf-zāī chiefs who had given daughters to Aūlūgh Beg and Sl. Wais (Khān Mīrzā?) were quoted. They even said they had no daughter to give. Bābur replied with a “beautiful” royal letter, told of his visit disguised to Shāh Manṣūr’s house, of his seeing Bībī Mubāraka and as token of the truth of his story, asked them to search for the food he had hidden. They searched and found. Aḥmad and Manṣūr were still averse, but the tribesmen urged that as before they had always made sacrifice for the tribe so should they do now, for by giving the daughter in marriage, they would save the tribe from Bābur’s anger. The Maliks then said that it should be done “for the good of the tribe”.
When their consent was made known to Bābur, the drums of joy were beaten and preparations were made for the marriage; presents were sent to the bride, a sword of his also, and the two Maliks started out to escort her. They are said to have come from Thana by M‘amūra (?), crossed the river at Chakdara, taken a narrow road between two hills and past Talāsh-village to the back of Tīrī (?) where the Pādshāh’s escort met them. The Maliks returned, spent one night at Chakdara and next morning reached their homes at the Mahūra sangur.
Meanwhile Runa the nurse who had control of Malik Manṣūr’s household, with two other nurses and many male and female servants, went on with Bībī Mubāraka to the royal camp. The bride was set down with all honour at a large tent in the middle of the camp.
That night and on the following day the wives of the officers came to visit her but she paid them no attention. So, they said to one another as they were returning to their tents, “Her beauty is beyond question, but she has shewn us no kindness, and has not spoken to us; we do not know what mystery there is about her.”
Now Bībī Mubāraka had charged her servants to let her know when the Pādshāh was approaching in order that she might receive him according to Malik Aḥmad’s instructions. They said to her, “That was the pomp just now of the Pādshāh’s going to prayers at the general mosque.” That same day after the Mid-day Prayer, the Pādshāh went towards her tent. Her servants informed her, she immediately left her divan and advancing, lighted up the carpet by her presence, and stood respectfully with folded hands. When the Pādshāh entered, she bowed herself before him. But her face remained entirely covered. At length the Pādshāh seated himself on the divan and said to her, “Come Afghāniya, be seated.” Again she bowed before him, and stood as before. A second time he said, “Afghāniya, be seated.” Again she prostrated herself before him and came a little nearer, but still stood. Then the Pādshāh pulled the veil from her face and beheld incomparable beauty. He was entranced, he said again, “O, Afghāniya, sit down.” Then she bowed herself again, and said, “I have a petition to make. If an order be given, I will make it.” The Pādshāh said kindly, “Speak.” Whereupon she with both hands took up her dress and said, “Think that the whole Yūsuf-zāī tribe is enfolded in my skirt, and pardon their offences for my sake.” Said the Pādshāh, “I forgive the Yūsuf-zāī all their offences in thy presence, and cast them all into thy skirt. Hereafter I shall have no ill-feeling to the Yūsuf-zāī.” Again she bowed before him; the Pādshāh took her hand and led her to the divan.
When the Afternoon Prayer time came and the Pādshāh rose from the divan to go to prayers, Bībī Mubāraka jumped up and fetched him his shoes.[2798] He put them on and said very pleasantly, “I am extremely pleased with you and your tribe and I have pardoned them all for your sake.” Then he said with a smile, “We know it was Malik Aḥmad taught you all these ways.” He then went to prayers and the Bībī remained to say hers in the tent.
After some days the camp moved from Dīārūn and proceeded by Bajaur and Tankī to Kābul.[2799]...
Bībī Mubāraka, the Blessed Lady, is often mentioned by Gul-badan; she had no children; and lived an honoured life, as her chronicler says, until the beginning of Akbar’s reign, when she died. Her brother Mīr Jamāl rose to honour under Bābur, Humāyūn and Akbar.
L.—ON MĀHĪM’S ADOPTION OF HIND-ĀL.
The passage quoted below about Māhīm’s adoption of the unborn Hind-āl we have found so far only in Kehr’s transcript of the Bābur-nāma (i.e. the St. Petersburg Foreign Office Codex). Ilminsky reproduced it (Kāsān imprint p. 281) and de Courteille translated it (ii, 45), both with endeavour at emendation. It is interpolated in Kehr’s MS. at the wrong place, thus indicating that it was once marginal or apart from the text.
I incline to suppose the whole a note made by Humāyūn, although part of it might be an explanation made by Bābur, at a later date, of an over-brief passage in his diary. Of such passages there are several instances. What is strongly against its being Bābur’s where otherwise it might be his, is that Māhīm, as he always calls her simply, is there written of as Ḥaẓrat Wālida, Royal Mother and with the honorific plural. That plural Bābur uses for his own mother (dead 14 years before 925 AH.) and never for Māhīm. The note is as follows:—
“The explanation is this:—As up to that time those of one birth (tūqqān, womb) with him (Humāyūn), that is to say a son Bār-būl, who was younger than he but older than the rest, and three daughters, Mihr-jān and two others, died in childhood, he had a great wish for one of the same birth with him.[2800] I had said ‘What it would have been if there had been one of the same birth with him!’ (Humāyūn). Said the Royal Mother, ‘If Dil-dār Āghācha bear a son, how is it if I take him and rear him?’ ‘It is very good’ said I.”
So far doubtfully might be Bābur’s but it may be Humāyūn’s written as a note for Bābur. What follows appears to be by some-one who knew the details of Māhīm’s household talk and was in Kābul when Dil-dār’s child was taken from her.
“Seemingly women have the custom of taking omens in the following way:—When they have said, ‘Is it to be a boy? is it to be a girl?’ they write ‘Alī or Ḥasan on one of two pieces of paper and Fāt̤ima on the other, put each paper into a ball of clay and throw both into a bowl of water. Whichever opens first is taken as an omen; if the man’s, they say a man-child will be born; if the woman’s, a girl will be born. They took the omen; it came out a man.”
“On this glad tidings we at once sent letters off.[2801] A few days later God’s mercy bestowed a son. Three days before the news[2802] and three days after the birth, they[2803] took the child from its mother, (she) willy-nilly, brought it to our house[2804] and took it in their charge. When we sent the news of the birth, Bhīra was being taken. They named him Hind-āl for a good omen and benediction.”[2805]
The whole may be Humāyūn’s, and prompted by a wish to remove an obscurity his father had left and by sentiment stirred through reminiscence of a cherished childhood.
Whether Humāyūn wrote the whole or not, how is it that the passage appears only in the Russian group of Bāburiana?
An apparent answer to this lies in the following little mosaic of circumstances:—The St. Petersburg group of Bāburiana[2806] is linked to Kāmrān’s own copy of the Bābur-nāma by having with it a letter of Bābur to Kāmrān and also what may be a note indicating its passage into Humāyūn’s hands (JRAS 1908 p. 830). If it did so pass, a note by Humāyūn may have become associated with it, in one of several obvious ways. This would be at a date earlier than that of the Elphinstone MS. and would explain why it is found in Russia and not in Indian MSS.[2807]