[104] I am not sure what bird this is. G͟haug͟hāʾī means a turtle dove in Bengal, but I doubt if this be the bird meant by Jahāngīr. G͟haug͟hāʾī would mean a noisy bird, and perhaps is the Bengal Babbler of Jerdon, or the Sāt Bhāʾī (seven brothers) of the Indians. It belongs to the Malacocircus genus, and Jerdon, I. 340, states that the pied-crested cuckoo generally lays her egg in the nest of the Malacocirci. The babbling thrushes occur in Kashmir. In Blochmann, 296, there is an account of how g͟haug͟hāʾīs are caught. [↑]
[105] MS. 305 has G͟hairat K., but No. 181 has ʿArab K., and this agrees with Stanley Lane Poole’s Muhammadan dynasties (p. 279), which has ʾArab Muḥammad as ruling down to 1623. Ūrganj is in K͟hīva. [↑]
[106] Jahāngīr called K͟hān-Jahān his farzand (son). [↑]
[107] Not the famous ʿAlī Mardān, but ʿAlī Mardān, who was killed in the Deccan. Blochmann, 496. [↑]
[108] Dandān-i-ablaq-i-jauhar-dār. Jauhar-dār here does not mean “jewelled,” but veined or striped. See Vullers, I. 542a. Walrus-teeth may be meant by Jahāngīr, but tortoise-shell is more likely. [↑]
[109] Sundar is another name for Rāja Bikramājīt, and the reference must be to the Siege of Kāngṛa. Jauhar Mal was a son of Rāja Bāso, and appears to be the same person as Sūraj Mal. It is Jauhar in I.O. MS., 181. [↑]
[110] Deotānī in No. 181. Blochmann has the name Dutānī, apparently as a tribal name (p. 504), and Elphinstone speaks in vol. II., p. 82, of a small tribe called Dumtauny. [↑]
[111] Veth is the Kashmiri name for the Jhelam (Lawrence, 18). It is contracted from Vitasta. It is curious that the date of the festival should be given according to a Muhammadan month (S͟hawwāl), which must recur at different seasons. Apparently the meaning is that the birth of the Jhelam took place on that day.
Apparently the festival is not much celebrated nowadays, for it is not mentioned by Lawrence (264–266), except that in a note to p. 266 the Vathtrwah is mentioned as a day on which daughters receive presents. The 19th S͟hahrīwar, the corresponding date mentioned by Jahāngīr, would answer to the end of August or beginning of September, and to the Hindu month of Āsin. 13 S͟hawwāl, 1029, would correspond to 1 September, 1620. Possibly the S͟hawwāl of text is a mistake for the Hindu month Sāwan—i.e., Srāvan. The legend of the birth of the Jhelam is told in Stein, 97. Possibly S͟hawwāl does not here mean the month, and we should read s͟hag͟hal-i-chirāg͟hān, “the business of lamps.” [↑]
[112] The crane visits Kashmir in winter, but Jahāngīr was never there in that season. [↑]