[2305] The great, or elder trio were daughters of Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā, Bābur’s paternal-aunts therefore, of his dutiful attendance on whom, Gul-badan writes.
[2306] “Lesser,” i.e. younger in age, lower in rank as not being the daughters of a sovereign Mīrzā, and held in less honour because of a younger generation.
[2307] Gul-badan mentions the arrival in Hindūstān of a khānīm of this name, who was a daughter of Sl. Maḥmūd Khān Chaghatāī, Bābur’s maternal-uncle; to this maternal relationship the word chīcha (mother) may refer. Yīnkā, uncle’s or elder brother’s wife, has occurred before (ff. 192, 207), chīcha not till now.
[2308] Cf. f. 344b and n.5 concerning the surmised movements of this set of envoys.
[2309] This promise was first proffered in Gūālīār (f.343).
[2310] These may be Bāī-qarā kinsfolk or Mīrān-shāhīs married to them. No record of Shāh Qāsim’s earlier mission is preserved; presumably he was sent in 934 AH. and the record will have been lost with much more of that year’s. Khwānd-amīr may well have had to do with this second mission, since he could inform Bābur of the discomfort caused in Herī by the near leaguer of ‘Ubaidu’l-lāh Aūzbeg.
[2311] Albatta aūzūmīznī har nu‘ qīlīb tīgūrkūmīz dūr. The following versions of this sentence attest its difficulty:—Wāqi‘āt-i-bāburī, 1st trs. I.O. 215 f. 212, albatta khūdrā ba har nū‘ī ka bāshad dar ān khūb khẉāhīm rasānad; and 2nd trs. I.O. 217 f. 238b, albatta dar har nu‘ karda khūdrā mī rasānīm; Memoirs p. 388, “I would make an effort and return in person to Kābul”; Mémoires ii, 356, je ferais tous mes efforts pour pousser en avant. I surmise, as Pāyanda-i-ḥasan seems to have done (1st Pers. trs. supra), that the passage alludes to Bābur’s aims in Hindūstān which he expects to touch in the coming spring. What seems likely to be implied is what Erskine says and more, viz. return to Kābul, renewal of conflict with the Aūzbeg and release of Khurāsān kin through success. As is said by Bābur immediately after this, T̤ahmāsp of Persia had defeated ‘Ubaidu’l-lah Aūzbeg before Bābur’s letter was written.
[2312] Sīmāb yīmāknī bunyād qīldīm, a statement which would be less abrupt if it followed a record of illness. Such a record may have been made and lost.
[2313] The preliminaries to this now somewhat obscure section will have been lost in the gap of 934 AH. They will have given Bābur’s instructions to Khwāja Dost-i-khāwand and have thrown light on the unsatisfactory state of Kābul, concerning which a good deal comes out later, particularly in Bābur’s letter to its Governor Khwāja Kalān. It may be right to suppose that Kāmrān wanted Kābul and that he expected the Khwāja to bring him an answer to his request for it, whether made by himself or for him, through some-one, his mother perhaps, whom Bābur now sent for to Hindūstān.
[2314] 934 AH.-August 26th 1528 AD.