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.