[2186] Leaving Īrij, Bābur will have recrossed the Betwa and have left its valley to go west to Bāndīr (Bhander) on the Pahūj (Indian Atlas, Sheet 69 S.W.).
[2187] beneficent, or Muḥassan, comely.
[2188] The one man of this name mentioned in the B.N. is an amīr of Sl. Ḥusain Bāī-qarā.
[2189] It seems safe to take Kachwa [Kajwa] as the Kajwarra of Ibn Batūta, and the Kadwāha (Kadwaia) of the Indian Atlas, Sheet 52 N.E. and of Luard’s Gazetteer of Gwalior (i, 247), which is situated in 24° 58’ N. and 77° 57’ E. Each of the three names is of a place standing on a lake; Ibn Batūta’s lake was a league (4 m.) long, Bābur’s about 11 miles round; Luard mentions no lake, but the Indian Atlas marks one quite close to Kadwāha of such form as to seem to have a tongue of land jutting into it from the north-west, and thus suiting Bābur’s description of the site of Kachwa. Again,—Ibn Batūta writes of Kajwarra as having, round its lake, idol-temples; Luard says of Kadwāha that it has four idol-temples standing and nine in ruins; there may be hinted something special about Bābur’s Kachwa by his remark that he encouraged its people, and this speciality may be interaction between Muḥammadanism and Hindūism serving here for the purpose of identification. For Ibn Batūta writes of the people of Kajwarra that they were jogīs, yellowed by asceticism, wearing their hair long and matted, and having Muḥammadan followers who desired to learn their (occult?) secrets. If the same interaction existed in Bābur’s day, the Muḥammadan following of the Hindū ascetics may well have been the special circumstance which led him to promise protection to those Hindūs, even when he was out for Holy-war. It has to be remembered of Chandīrī, the nearest powerful neighbour of Kadwāha, that though Bābur’s capture makes a vivid picture of Hindūism in it, it had been under Muḥammadan rulers down to a relatively short time before his conquest. The jogīs of Kachwa could point to long-standing relations of tolerance by the Chandīrī Governors; this, with their Muḥammadan following, explains the encouragement Bābur gave them, and helps to identify Kachwa with Kajarra. It may be observed that Bābur was familiar with the interaction of the two creeds, witness his “apostates”, mostly Muḥammadans following Hindū customs, witness too, for the persistent fact, the reports of District-officers under the British Rāj. Again,—a further circumstance helping to identify Kajwarra, Kachwa and Kadwāha is that these are names of the last important station the traveller and the soldier, as well perhaps as the modern wayfarer, stays in before reaching Chandīrī. The importance of Kajwarra is shewn by Ibn Batūta, and of Kadwāha by its being a maḥāll in Akbar’s sarkār of Bāyawān of the ṣūba of Āgra. Again,—Kadwāha is the place nearest to Chandīrī about which Bābur’s difficulties as to intermediate road and jungle would arise. That intermediate road takes off the main one a little south of Kadwāha and runs through what looks like a narrow valley and broken country down to Bhamor, Bhurānpūr and Chandīrī. Again,—no bar to identification of the three names is placed by their differences of form, in consideration of the vicissitudes they have weathered in tongue, script, and transliteration. There is some ground, I believe, for surmising that their common source is kajūr, the date-fruit. [I am indebted to my husband for the help derived from Ibn Batūta, traced by him in Sanguinetti’s trs. iv, 33, and S. Lee’s trs. p. 162.]
(Two places similar in name to Kachwa, and situated on Bābur’s route viz. Kocha near Jhansi, and Kuchoowa north of Kadwāha (Sheet 69 S.W.) are unsuitable for his “Kachwa”, the first because too near Bandīr to suit his itinerary, the second because too far from the turn off the main-road mentioned above, because it has no lake, and has not the help in identification detailed above of Kadwāha.)
[2190] qūrūghīr which could mean also reserved (from the water?).
[2191] qāzān. There seems to have been one only; how few Bābur had is shewn again on f. 337.
[2192] Indian Atlas, Sheet 52 N.E. near a tributary of the Betwa, the Or, which appears to be Bābur’s Burhānpūr-water.
[2193] The bed of the Betwa opposite Chandīrī is 1050 ft. above the sea; the walled-town (qūrghān) of Chandīrī is on a table-land 250 ft. higher, and its citadel is 230 ft. higher again (Cunningham’s Archeological Survey Report, 1871 A.D. ii, 404).
[2194] The plan of Chandīrī illustrating Cunningham’s Report (see last note) allows surmise about the road taken by Bābur, surmise which could become knowledge if the names of tanks he gives were still known. The courtesy of the Government of India allows me to reproduce that plan [Appendix R, Chandīrī and Gwālīāwar].