[2195] He is said to have been Governor of Chandīrī in 1513 AD.
[2196] Here and in similar passages the word m:ljār or m:lchār is found in MSS. where the meaning is that of T. būljār. It is not in any dictionary I have seen; Mr. Irvine found it “obscure” and surmised it to mean “approach by trenches”, but this does not suit its uses in the Bābur-nāma of a military post, and a rendezvous. This surmise, containing, as it does, a notion of protection, links m:ljār in sense with Ar. malja'. The word needs expert consideration, in order to decide whether it is to be received into dictionaries, or to be rejected because explicable as the outcome of unfamiliarity in Persian scribes with T. būljār or, more Persico with narrowed vowels, bŭljăr. Shaw in his Vocabulary enters būljāq (būljār?), “a station for troops, a rendezvous, see malja',” thus indicating, it would seem, that he was aware of difficulty about m:ljār and būljāq (būljār?). There appears no doubt of the existence of a Turkī word būljār with the meanings Shaw gives to būljāq; it could well be formed from the root būl, being, whence follows, being in a place, posted. Maljā has the meaning of a standing-place, as well as those of a refuge and an asylum; both meanings seem combined in the m:ljār of f. 336b, where for matchlockmen a m:ljār was ordered “raised”. (Cf. Irvine’s Army of the Indian Moghuls p. 278.)
[2197] yāghdā; Pers. trs. sar-āshīb. Bābur’s remark seems to show that for effect his mortar needed to be higher than its object. Presumably it stood on the table-land north of the citadel.
[2198] shātū. It may be noted that this word, common in accounts of Bābur’s sieges, may explain one our friend the late Mr. William Irvine left undecided (l.c. p. 278), viz. shāt̤ūr. On p. 281 he states that nardubān is the name of a scaling-ladder and that Bābur mentions scaling ladders more than once. Bābur mentions them however always as shātū. Perhaps shāt̤ūr which, as Mr. Irvine says, seems to be made of the trunks of trees and to be a siege appliance, is really shātū u ... (ladder and ...) as in the passage under note and on f. 216b, some other name of an appliance following.
[2199] The word here preceding tūra has puzzled scribes and translators. I have seen the following variants in MSS.;—nūkrī or tūkrī, b:krī or y:krī, būkrī or yūkrī, būkrāī or yūkrāī, in each of which the k may stand for g. Various suggestions might be made as to what the word is, but all involve reading the Persian enclitic ī (forming the adjective) instead of Turkī līk. Two roots, tīg and yūg, afford plausible explanations of the unknown word; appliances suiting the case and able to bear names formed from one or other of these roots are wheeled mantelet, and head-strike (P. sar-kob). That the word is difficult is shewn not only by the variants I have quoted, but by Erskine’s reading naukarī tūra, “to serve the tūras,” a requisite not specified earlier by Bābur, and by de Courteille’s paraphrase, tout ce qui est nécessaire aux touras.
[2200] Sl. Nāṣiru’d-dīn was the Khīljī ruler of Mālwā from 906 to 916 A.H. (1500-1510 AD.).
[2201] He was a Rājpūt who had been prime-minister of Sl. Maḥmūd II. Khīljī (son of Nāṣīru’d-dīn) and had rebelled. Bābur (like some other writers) spells his name Mindnī, perhaps as he heard it spoken.
[2202] Presumably the one in the United Provinces. For Shamsābād in Gūālīār see Luard l.c. i, 286.
[2203] chīqtī; Pers. trs. bar āmad and, also in some MSS. namī bar āmad; Mems. p. 376, “averse to conciliation”; Méms. ii, 329, “s'élevèrent contre cette proposition.” So far I have not found Bābur using the verb chīqmāq metaphorically. It is his frequent verb to express “getting away”, “going out of a fort”. It would be a short step in metaphor to understand here that Medinī’s men “got out of it”, i.e. what Bābur offered. They may have left the fort also; if so, it would be through dissent.
[2204] f. 332.