P. 401.—Under date Thursday 25th Bābur mentions an appointment to read fiqah sabaqī to him. Erskine translated this by “Sacred extracts from the Qorān” (I followed this). But “lessons in theology” may be a better rendering—as more literal and as allowing for the use of other writings than the Qorān. A correspondent Mr. G. Yazdānī (Gov. Epigraphist for Muslim Inscriptions, Haidarabad) tells us that it is customary amongst Muslims to recite religious books on Thursdays.
P. 404 l. 7 fr. ft.—Bābā Qashqa (or Qāshqā)’s family-group is somewhat interesting as that of loyal and capable men of Mughūl birth who served Bābur and Humāyūn. It must have joined Bābur in what is now the gap between 914 and 925 AH. because not mentioned earlier and because he is first mentioned in 925 AH. without introductory particulars. The following details supplement Bābur-nāma information about the group:—(1) Of Bāba Qashqa’s murder by Muḥammad-i-zamān Bāī-qarā Gul-hadan (f. 23) makes record, and Badāyūnī (Bib. Ind. ed. i, 450) says that (cir. 952 AH.) when Bābā’s son Ḥājī Muḥ. Khān Kūkī had pursued and overtaken the rebel Kāmrān, the Mīrzā asked, as though questioning the Khān’s ground of hostility to himself, “But did I kill thy father Bābā Qashqa?” (Pidrat Bābā Qashqa magar man kushta am?).—(2) Of the death of Bābā Qashqa’s brother “Kūkī”, Abū’l-faẓl records that he was killed in Hindūstān by Muḥammad Sl. M. Bāī-qarā (952 AH.), and that Kūkī’s nephew Shāh Muḥ. (see p. 668) retaliated (955 AH.) by arrow-shooting one of Muḥ. Sl. Mīrzā’s sons. This was done when Shāh Muḥ. was crossing Mīnār-pass on his return journey from sharing Humāyūn’s exile in Persia (see Jauhar).—(3) Hājī Muḥ. Khān Kūkī and Shāh Muḥammad Khān appear to have been sons of Bābā Qashqa and nephews of “KŪKĪ” (supra). They were devoted servants of Humāyūn but were put to death by him in 958 AH.-1551 AD. (cf. Erskine’s H. of I. Humāyūn).—(4) About the word Kūkī dictionaries afford no warrant for taking it to mean foster-brother (kokah). Chīngīz Khān had a beg known as Kūk or Kouk (or Gūk) and one of his own grandsons used the same style. It may link the Bābā Qashqā group with the Chīngīz Khānid Kūkī, either as descendants or as hereditary adherents, or as both. (See Abū’l-ghāzī’s Shajarat-i-Turk, trs. Désmaisons, Index s.n. Kouk and also its accounts of the origin of several tribal groups.)
P. 416.—The line quoted by ‘Abdu’l-lāh is from the Anwār-i-suhailī, Book II, Story i. Eastwick translates it and its immediate context thus:—
“People follow the faith of their kings.
My heart is like a tulip scorched and by sighings flame;
In all thou seest, their hearts are scorched and stained the same.” (H.B.)
The offence of the quotation appears to have been against Khalīfa, and might be a suggestion that he followed Bābur in breach of Law by using wine.
P. 487 n. 2.—The following passages complete the note on wulsa quoted by Erskine from Col. Mark Wilks’ Historical Sketches and show how the word is used:—“During the absence of Major Lawrence from Trichinopoly, the town had been completely depopulated by the removal of the whole Wulsa to seek for food elsewhere, and the enemy had been earnestly occupied in endeavouring to surprise the garrison.” (Here follows Erskine’s quotation see in loco p. 487). “The people of a district thus deserting their homes are called the Wulsa of that district, a state of utmost misery, involving precaution against incessant war and unpitying depredation—so peculiar a description as to require in any of the languages of Europe a long circumlocution, is expressed in all the languages of Deckan and the south of India by a single word. No proofs can be accumulated from the most profound research which shall describe the immemorial condition of the people of India with more precision than this single word. It is a bright distinction that the Wulsa never departs on the approach of a British army when this is unaccompanied by Indian allies.”—By clerical error in the final para. of my note ūlvash is entered for ūlvan [Molesworth, any desolating calamity].
P. 540 n. 4.—An explanation of Bābur’s use of Shāh-zāda as T̤ahmāsp’s title may well be that this title answers to the Tīmūrid one Mīr-zāda, Mīrzā. If so, Bābur’s change to “SHĀH” (p. 635) may recognize supremacy by victory, such as he had claimed for himself in 913 AH. when he changed his Tīmūrid “MĪRZĀ” for “Pādshāh”.
P. 557.—Ḥusain Kashīfī, also, quotes Firdausī’s couplet in the Anwār-i-suhaili (Cap. I, Story XXI), a book dedicated to Shaikh Aḥmad Suhaīlī (p. 277) and of earlier date than the Bābur-nāma. Its author died in 910 AH.-1505 AD.
P. 576 n. 1.—Tod’s statement (quoted in my n. 1) that “the year of Rānā Sangā’s defeat (933 AH.) was the last of his existence” cannot be strictly correct because Bābur’s statement (p. 598) of intending attack on him in Chitor allows him to have been alive in 934 AH. (1528 AD.). The death occurred, “not without suspicion of poison,” says Tod, when the Rānā had moved against Irij then held for Bābur; it will have been long enough before the end of 934 AH. to allow an envoy from his son Bikramājīt to wait on Bābur in that year (pp. [603], 612). Bābur’s record of it may safely be inferred lost with the once-existent matter of 934 AH.
P. 631.—My husband has ascertained that the “Sayyid Daknī” of p. 631 is Sayyid Shāh T̤āhir Daknī (Deccani) the Shiite apostle of Southern India, who in 935 AH. was sent to Bābur with a letter from Burhān Niz̤ām Shāh of Ahṃadnagar, in which (if there were not two embassies) congratulation was made on the conquest of Dihlī and help asked against Bahādur Shāh Gujrātī. A second but earlier mention of “Sayyid Daknī” (Zaknī, Ruknī?) Shīrāzī is on p. 619. Whether the two entries refer to Shāh T̤āhir nothing makes clear. The cognomen Shīrāzī disassociates them. It is always to be kept in mind that preliminary events are frequently lost in gaps; one such will be the arrivals of the various envoys, mentioned on p. 630, whose places of honour are specified on p. 631. Much is on record about Sayyid Shāh T̤āhir Daknī and particulars of his life are available in the histories by Badāyūnī (Ranking trs.) and (Firishta Nawal Kishor ed. p. 105); B.M. Harleyan MS. No. 199 contains his letters (see Rieu’s Pers. Cat. p. 395).