The Bābur-nāma. Babur
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Название: The Bābur-nāma

Автор: Babur

Издательство: Public Domain

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СКАЧАТЬ In winter, however, people ford the Sind-water (at Hāru) above its junction with the Kābul-water,751 and ford this also. In most of my expeditions into Hindūstān, I crossed those fords, but this last time (932 AH. -1525 AD.), when I came, defeated Sl. Ibrāhīm and conquered the country, I crossed by boat at Nīl-āb. Except at the one place mentioned above, the Sind-water can be crossed only by boat. Those again, who cross at Dīn-kot752 go on through Bangash. Those crossing at Chaupāra, if they take the Farmūl road, go on to Ghaznī, or, if they go by the Dasht, go on to Qandahār.753

      (f. Inhabitants of Kābul.)

      There are many differing tribes in the Kābul country; in its dales and plains are Turks and clansmen754 and ‘Arabs; in its town and in many villages, Sārts; out in the districts and also in villages are the Pashāī, Parājī, Tājīk, Bīrkī and Afghān tribes. In the western mountains are the Hazāra and Nikdīrī tribes, some of whom speak the Mughūlī tongue. In the north-eastern mountains are the places of the Kāfirs, such as Kitūr (Gawār?) and Gibrik. To the south are the places of the Afghān tribes.

      Eleven or twelve tongues are spoken in Kābul, – ‘Arabī, Persian, Turkī, Mughūlī, Hindī, Afghānī, Pashāī, Parājī, Gibrī, Bīrkī and Lamghānī. If there be another country with so many differing tribes and such a diversity of tongues, it is not known.

      (e. Sub-divisions of the Kābul country.)

      The [Kābul] country has fourteen tūmāns.755

      Bajaur, Sawād and Hash-nagar may at one time have been dependencies of Kābul, but they now have no resemblance to cultivated countries (wilāyāt), some lying desolate because of the Afghāns, others being now subject to them.

      In the east of the country of Kābul is the Lamghānāt, 5 tūmāns and 2 bulūks of cultivated lands.756 The largest of these is Nīngnahār, sometimes written Nagarahār in the histories.757 Its dārogha’s residence is in Adīnapūr,758 some 13 yīghāch east of Kābul by a very bad and tiresome road, going in three or four places over small hill-passes, and in three or four others, through narrows.759 So long as there was no cultivation along it, the Khirilchī and other Afghān thieves used to make it their beat, but it has become safe760 since I had it peopled at Qarā-tū,761 below Qūrūq-sāī. The hot and cold climates are separated on this road by the pass of Bādām-chashma (Almond-spring); on its Kābul side snow falls, none at Qūrūq-sāī, towards the Lamghānāt.762 After descending this pass, another world comes into view, other trees, other plants (or grasses), other animals, and other manners and customs of men. Nīngnahār is nine torrents (tūqūz-rūd).763 It grows good crops of rice and corn, excellent and abundant oranges, citrons and pomegranates. In 914 AH. (1508-9 AD.) I laid out the Four-gardens, known as the Bāgh-i-wafā (Garden-of-fidelity), on a rising-ground, facing south and having the Sūrkh-rūd between it and Fort Adīnapūr.764 There oranges, citrons and pomegranates grow in abundance. The year I defeated Pahār Khān and took Lāhor and Dipālpūr,765 I had plantains (bananas) brought and planted there; they did very well. The year before I had had sugar-cane planted there; it also did well; some of it was sent to Bukhārā and Badakhshān.766 The garden lies high, has running-water close at hand, and a mild winter climate. In the middle of it, a one-mill stream flows constantly past the little hill on which are the four garden-plots. In the south-west part of it there is a reservoir, 10 by 10,767 round which are orange-trees and a few pomegranates, the whole encircled by a trefoil-meadow. This is the best part of the garden, a most beautiful sight when the oranges take colour. Truly that garden is admirably situated!

      The Safed-koh runs along the south of Nīngnahār, dividing it from Bangash; no riding-road crosses it; nine torrents (tūqūz-rūd) issue from it.768 It is called Safed-koh769 because its snow never lessens; none falls in the lower parts of its valleys, a half-day’s journey from the snow-line. Many places along it have an excellent climate; its waters are cold and need no ice.

      The Sūrkh-rūd flows along the south of Adīnapūr. The fort stands on a height having a straight fall to the river of some 130 ft. (40-50 qārī) and isolated from the mountain behind it on the north; it is very strongly placed. That mountain runs between Nīngnahār and Lamghān770; on its head snow falls when it snows in Kābul, so Lamghānīs know when it has snowed in the town.

      In going from Kābul into the Lamghānāt,771– if people come by Qūrūq-sāī, one road goes on through the Dīrī-pass, crosses the Bārān-water at Būlān, and so on into the Lamghānāt, – another goes through Qarā-tū, below Qūrūq-sāī, crosses the Bārān-water at Aūlūgh-nūr (Great-rock?), and goes into Lamghān by the pass of Bād-i-pīch.772 If however people come by Nijr-aū, they traverse Badr-aū (Tag-aū), and Qarā-nakariq (?), and go on through the pass of Bād-i-pīch.

      Although Nīngnahār is one of the five tūmāns of the Lamghān tūmān the name Lamghānāt applies strictly only to the three (mentioned below).

      One of the three is the ‘Alī-shang tūmān, to the north of which are fastness-mountains, connecting with Hindū-kush and inhabited by Kāfirs only. What of Kāfiristān lies nearest to ‘Alī-shang, is Mīl out of which its torrent issues. The tomb of Lord Lām,773 father of his Reverence the prophet Nuḥ (Noah), is in this tūmān. In some histories he is called Lamak and Lamakān. Some people are observed often to change kāf for ghain (k for gh); it would seem to be on this account that the country is called Lamghān.

      The second is Alangār. The part of Kāfiristān nearest to it is Gawār (Kawār), out of which its torrent issues (the Gau or Kau). This torrent joins that of ‘Alī-shang and flows with it into the Bārān-water, below Mandrāwar, which is the third tūmān of the Lamghānāt.

      Of the two bulūks of Lamghān one is the Nūr-valley.774 This is a place (yīr) without a second775; its fort is on a beak (tūmshūq) of rock in the mouth of the valley, and has a torrent on each side; its rice is grown on steep terraces, and it can be traversed by one road only.776 It has the orange, citron and other fruits of hot climates in abundance, a few dates even. Trees cover the banks of both the torrents below the fort; many are amlūk, the fruit of which some Turks call qarā-yīmīsh;777 here they are many, but none have been seen elsewhere. The valley grows grapes also, all trained on trees.778 Its wines are those of Lamghān that have reputation. Two sorts of grapes are grown, the arah-tāshī and the sūhān-tāshī;СКАЧАТЬ

<p>751</p>

Hāru, Leech’s Harroon, apparently, 10 m. above Atak. The text might be read to mean that both rivers were forded near their confluence, but, finding no warrant for supposing the Kābul-river fordable below Jalālābād, I have guided the translation accordingly; this may be wrong and may conceal a change in the river.

<p>752</p>

Known also as Dhān-kot and as Mu‘az̤z̤am-nagar (Ma‘āṣiru’l-‘umrā i, 249 and A.N. trs. H.B. index s. n. Dhān-kot). It was on the east bank of the Indus, probably near modern Kālā-bāgh, and was washed away not before 956 AH. (1549 AD. H. Beveridge).

<p>753</p>

Chaupāra seems, from f. 148b, to be the Chapari of Survey Map 1889. Bābur’s Dasht is modern Dāman.

<p>754</p>

aīmāq, used usually of Mughūls, I think. It may be noted that Lieutenant Leech compiled a vocabulary of the tongue of the Mughūl Aīmāq in Qandahār and Harāt (JASB 1838, p. 785).

<p>755</p>

The Āyīn-i-akbarī account of Kābul both uses and supplements the Bābur-nāma.

<p>756</p>

viz. ‘Alī-shang, Alangār and Mandrāwar (the Lamghānāt proper), Nīngnahār (with its bulūk, Kāma), Kūnār-with-Nūr-gal, (and the two bulūks of Nūr-valley and Chaghān-sarāī).

<p>757</p>

See Appendix E, On Nagarahāra.

<p>758</p>

The name Adīnapūr is held to be descended from ancient Udyānapūra (Garden-town); its ancestral form however was applied to Nagarahāra, apparently, in the Bārān-Sūrkh-rūd dū-āb, and not to Bābur’s dārogha’s seat. The Sūrkh-rūd’s deltaic mouth was a land of gardens; when Masson visited Adīnapūr he went from Bālā-bāgh (High-garden); this appears to stand where Bābur locates his Bāgh-i-wafā, but he was shown a garden he took to be this one of Bābur’s, a mile higher up the Sūrkh-rūd. A later ruler made the Chār-bāgh of maps. It may be mentioned that Bālā-bāgh has become in some maps Rozābād (Garden-town). See Masson, i, 182 and iii, 186; R.’s Notes; and Wilson’s Ariana Antiqua, Masson’s art.

<p>759</p>

One of these tangī is now a literary asset in Mr. Kipling’s My Lord the Elephant. Bābur’s 13 y. represent some 82 miles; on f. 137b the Kābul-Ghaznī road of 14 y. represents some 85; in each case the yīghāch works out at over six miles (Index s. n. yīghāch and Vigne, p. 454). Sayyid Ghulām-i-muḥammad traces this route minutely (R.’s Notes pp. 57, 59).

<p>760</p>

Masson was shewn “Chaghatai castles”, attributed to Bābur (iii, 174).

<p>761</p>

Dark-turn, perhaps, as in Shibr-tū, Jāl-tū, etc. (f. 130b and note to Shibr-tū).

<p>762</p>

f. 145 where the change is described in identical words, as seen south of the Jagdālīk-pass. The Bādām-chashma pass appears to be a traverse of the eastern rampart of the Tīzīn-valley.

<p>763</p>

Appendix E, On Nagarahāra.

<p>764</p>

No record exists of the actual laying-out of the garden; the work may have been put in hand during the Mahmand expedition of 914 AH. (f. 216); the name given to it suggests a gathering there of loyalists when the stress was over of the bad Mughūl rebellion of that year (f. 216b where the narrative breaks off abruptly in 914 AH. and is followed by a gap down to 925 AH. -1519 AD.).

<p>765</p>

No annals of 930 AH. are known to exist; from Ṣafar 926 AH. to 932 AH. (Jan. 1520-Nov. 1525 AD.) there is a lacuna. Accounts of the expedition are given by Khāfī Khān, i, 47 and Firishta, lith. ed. p. 202.

<p>766</p>

Presumably to his son, Humāyūn, then governor in Badakhshān; Bukhārā also was under Bābur’s rule.

<p>767</p>

Here, qārī, yards. The dimensions 10 by 10, are those enjoined for places of ablution.

<p>768</p>

Presumably those of the tūqūz-rūd, supra. Cf. Appendix E, On Nagarahāra.

<p>769</p>

White-mountain; Pushtū, Spīn-ghur (or ghar).

<p>770</p>

i. e. the Lamghānāt proper. The range is variously named; in (Persian) Siyāh-koh (Black-mountain), which like Turkī Qarā-tāgh may mean non-snowy; by Tājīks, Bāgh-i-ātāka (Foster-father’s garden); by Afghāns, Kanda-ghur, and by Lamghānīs Koh-i-būlān, – Kanda and Būlān both being ferry-stations below it (Masson, iii, 189; also the Times Nov. 20th 1912 for a cognate illustration of diverse naming).

<p>771</p>

A comment made here by Mr. Erskine on changes of name is still appropriate, but some seeming changes may well be due to varied selection of land-marks. Of the three routes next described in the text, one crosses as for Mandrāwar; the second, as for ‘Alī-shang, a little below the outfall of the Tīzīn-water; the third may take off from the route, between Kābul and Tag-aū, marked in Col. Tanner’s map (PRGS 1881 p. 180). Cf. R’s Route 11; and for Aūlūgh-nūr, Appendix F, On the name Nūr.

<p>772</p>

The name of this pass has several variants. Its second component, whatever its form, is usually taken to mean pass, but to read it here as pass would be redundant, since Bābur writes “pass (kūtal) of Bād-i-pīch”. Pich occurs as a place name both east (Pīch) and west (Pīchghān) of the kūtal, but what would suit the bitter and even fatal winds of the pass would be to read the name as Whirling-wind (bād-i-pīch). Another explanation suggests itself from finding a considerable number of pass-names such as Shibr-tū, Jāi-tū, Qarā-tū, in which tū is a synonym of pīch, turn, twist; thus Bād-i-pīch may be the local form of Bād-tū, Windy-turn.

<p>773</p>

See Masson, iii, 197 and 289. Both in Pashāī and Lamghānī, lām means fort.

<p>774</p>

See Appendix F, On the name Dara-i-nūr.

<p>775</p>

ghair mukarrar. Bābur may allude to the remarkable change men have wrought in the valley-bottom (Appendix F, for Col. Tanner’s account of the valley).

<p>776</p>

f. 154.

<p>777</p>

diospyrus lotus, the European date-plum, supposed to be one of the fruits eaten by the Lotophagi. It is purple, has bloom and is of the size of a pigeon’s egg or a cherry. See Watts’ Economic Products of India; Brandis’ Forest Trees, Illustrations; and Speede’s Indian Hand-book.

<p>778</p>

As in Lombardy, perhaps; in Luhūgur vines are clipped into standards; in most other places in Afghānistān they are planted in deep trenches and allowed to run over the intervening ridges or over wooden framework. In the narrow Khūlm-valley they are trained up poplars so as to secure them the maximum of sun. See Wood’s Report VI p. 27; Bellew’s Afghānistān p. I75 and Mems. p. 142 note.