[34] The point of the verse seems to be that light is regarded as something spread like a carpet on the ground, and that to place the foot upon it is to insult the sun. Compare Price, p. 33; but Manohar’s verse is wrongly translated there owing to a badly written MS. For Manohar see Akbarnāma, iii, 221, and Badayūnī, iii, 201, also Blochmann, p. 494, and his article in Calcutta Review for April, 1871, also the Dabistān, translation, ii, 53. [↑]
[35] Probably here āb means both water and the water of the sword. These lines are not in the R.A.S. or I.O. MSS. [↑]
[36] Text, iḥtiyāt̤ (caution); the MSS. have iʿtiqād (confidence), and I adopt this reading. [↑]
[37] Blochmann, p. 52. It was a small round seal. Ūzūk or ūzuk is a Tartar word meaning a ring, i.e. a signet-ring. [↑]
[38] Text, ṣabiyya (daughter), and this led Blochmann (p. 477, note 2) to say that if Sayyid Aḥmad’s text was correct Jahāngīr must have forgotten, in the number of his wives, which of them was the mother of Parwīz. As a fact, Sayyid Aḥmad’s text is not correct, though the R.A.S. MS. agrees with it. The two excellent I.O. MSS. have k͟hwīs͟h (relative), which is here equivalent to cousin. So also has the B.M. MS. used by Erskine. According to Muḥammad Hādī’s preface Parwīz’s mother was the daughter of K͟hwāja Ḥasan, the paternal uncle of Zain K͟hān Koka. His birth was in Muḥarram, 998, or 19th Ābān (November, 1589). See also Akbarnāma, iii, 568. [↑]
[39] I.e., both were Akbar’s foster-brothers. [↑]
[40] Price, p. 20, has Karmitty, and says the daughter only lived two months. Karamsī appears twice in the Akbarnāma as the name of a man; see Akbarnāma, ii, 261, and iii, 201. The name may mean ‘composed of kindness.’ The statement in Price is wrong. Bihār Bānū was married to T̤ahmuras̤ s. Prince Dāniyāl in his 20th year (see Tūzuk, M. Hādī’s continuation, p. 400). According to M. Hādī’s preface, Karamsī was the daughter of Rāja Kesho Dās Rāthor, and her daughter Bihār Bānū was born on 23rd S͟hahrīwar, 998 (September, 1590). Kesho Dās Rāṭhor is probably the Kesho Dās Mārū of the Tūzuk. [↑]
[41] Best known as Jodh Bāī (Blochmann, p. 619). [↑]
[42] It is extraordinary that Jahāngīr should have put S͟hāh-Jahān’s birth into A.H. 999. The I.O. MSS. support the text, but the R.A.S. MS. has A.H. 1000, which is without doubt right. Cf. Akbarnāma, Bib. Ind., iii, 603. Later on, a great point was made of his having been born in a millennium. The date is 5th January, 1592. [↑]
[43] Muḥammad Hādī says in his preface, p. 6, that S͟hāh-Jahān’s grandfather Akbar gave him the name of Sultan K͟hurram, ‘Prince Joy,’ because his birth made the world glad. It was noted that the child was born in the first millennium, and also that, like his father, he was born in the same month as the Prophet. [↑]