The Bābur-nāma. Babur

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СКАЧАТЬ death and court.2856

      [Babur’s history has been thus brought to an end, incomplete in the balance needed of 7. In Kehr’s volume a few pages are left blank except for what shews a Russian librarian’s opinion of the plan of the book, “Here end the writings of Shah Babur.”]

      10 (Imp. omits). Preface to the history of Humayun, beginning at the Creation and descending by giant strides through notices of Khans and Sultans to “Babur Mirza who was the father of Humayun Padshah”. Of Babur what further is said connects with the battle of Ghaj-davan (918-1512 q. v.). It is ill-informed, laying blame on him as if he and not Najm Sani had commanded – speaks of his preference for the counsel of young men and of the numbers of combatants. It is noticeable for more than its inadequacy however; its selection of the Ghaj-davan episode from all others in Babur’s career supports circumstantially what is dealt with later, the Ghaj-davani authorship of the Compilation.

      11 (Imp. omits). Under a heading “Humayun Padshah” is a fragment about (his? Accession) Feast, whether broken off by loss of his pages or of those of his archetype examination of the P. Univ. Codex may show.

      12 (Imp. 6). An excellent copy of Babur’s Hindustan Section, perhaps obtained from the Ahrari house. [This Ilminski places (I think) where Kehr has No. 7.] From its position and from its bearing a scribe’s date of completion (which Kehr brings over), viz. Tamt shud 1126 (Finished 1714), the compiler may have taken it for Humayun’s, perhaps for the account of his reconquest of Hind in 1555.

      [The remaining entries in Kehr’s volume are a quatrain which may make jesting reference to his finished task, a librarian’s Russian entry of the number of pages (831), and the words Etablissement Orientale, Fr. v. Adelung, 1825 (the Director of the School from 1793).2857

      24

      See Gregorief’s “Russian policy regarding Central Asia”, quoted in Schuyler’s Turkistan, App. IV.

      25

      The Mission was well received, started to return to Petrograd, was attacked by Turkmans, went back to Bukhara, and there stayed until it could attempt the devious route which brought it to the capital in 1725.

      26

      One might say jestingly that the spirit in the book had rebelled since 1725 against enforced and changing masquerade as a phantasm of two other books!

      27

      Neither Ilminski nor Smirnov mentions another “Babur-nama” Codex than Kehr’s.

      28

      A Correspondent combatting my objection to publishing a second edition of the Memoirs, backed his favouring opinion by reference to ‘Umar Khayyam and Fitzgerald. Obviously no analogy exists; Erskine’s redundance is not the flower of a deft alchemy, but is the prosaic consequence of a secondary source.

      29

      The manuscripts relied on for revising the first section of the Memoirs, (i. e. 899 to 908 AH. -1494 to 1502 AD.) are the Elphinstone and the Ḥaidarābād Codices. To variants from them occurring in Dr. Kehr’s own transcript no authority can be allowed because throughout this section, his text appears to be a compilation and in parts a retranslation from one or other of the two Persian translations (Wāqi‘āt-i-bāburī) of the Bābur-nāma. Moreover Dr. Ilminsky’s imprint of Kehr’s text has the further defect in authority that it was helped out from the Memoirs, itself not a direct issue from the Turkī original.

      Information about the manuscripts of the Bābur-nāma can be found in the JRAS for 1900, 1902, 1905, 1906, 1907 and 1908.

      The foliation marked in the margin of this book is that of the Ḥaidarābād Codex and of its facsimile, published in 1905 by the Gibb Memorial Trust.

      30

      Bābur, born on Friday, Feb. 14th. 1483 (Muḥarram 6, 888 AH.), succeeded his father, ‘Umar Shaikh who died on June 8th. 1494 (Ramẓān 4, 899 AH.).

      31

      pād-shāh, protecting lord, supreme. It would be an anachronism to translate pādshāh by King or Emperor, previous to 913 AH. (1507 AD.) because until that date it was not part of the style of any Tīmūrid, even ruling members of the house being styled Mīrzā. Up to 1507 therefore Bābur’s correct style is Bābur Mīrzā. (Cf. f. 215 and note.)

      32

      See Āyīn-i-akbarī, Jarrett, p. 44.

      33

      The Ḥai. MS. and a good many of the W. – i-B. MSS. here write Aūtrār. [Aūtrār like Tarāz was at some time of its existence known as Yāngī (New).] Tarāz seems to have stood near the modern Auliya-ātā; Ālmālīgh, – a Metropolitan see of the Nestorian Church in the 14th. century, – to have been the old capital of Kuldja, and Ālmātū (var. Ālmātī) to have been where Vernoe (Vierny) now is. Ālmālīgh and Ālmātū owed their names to the apple (ālmā). Cf. Bretschneider’s Mediæval Geography p. 140 and T.R. (Elias and Ross) s. nn.

      34

      Mughūl u Aūzbeg jihatdīn. I take this, the first offered opportunity of mentioning (1) that in transliterating Turkī words I follow Turkī lettering because I am not competent to choose amongst systems which e. g. here, reproduce Aūzbeg as Ūzbeg, Özbeg and Euzbeg; and (2) that style being part of an autobiography, I am compelled, in pressing back the Memoirs on Bābur’s Turkī mould, to retract from the wording of the western scholars, Erskine and de Courteille. Of this compulsion Bābur’s bald phrase Mughūl u Aūzbeg jihatdīn provides an illustration. Each earlier translator has expressed his meaning with more finish than he himself; ‘Abdu’r-raḥīm, by az jihat ‘ubūr-i (Mughūl u) Aūzbeg, improves on Bābur, since the three towns lay in the tideway of nomad passage (‘ubūr) east and west; Erskine writes “in consequence of the incursions” etc. and de C. “grace aux ravages commis” etc.

      35

      Schuyler (ii, 54) gives the extreme length of the valley as about 160 miles and its width, at its widest, as 65 miles.

      36

      Following a manifestly clerical error in the Second W. – i-B. the Akbar-nāma and the Mems. are without the seasonal limitation, “in winter.” Bābur here excludes from winter routes one he knew well, the Kīndīrlīk Pass; on the other hand Kostenko says that this is open all the year round. Does this contradiction indicate climatic change? (Cf. f. 54b and note; A.N. Bib. Ind. ed. i, 85 (H. Beveridge i, 221) and, for an account of the passes round Farghāna, Kostenko’s Turkistān Region, Tables of Contents.)

      37

      Var. Banākat, Banākas̤, Fīākat, Fanākand. Of this place Dr. Rieu writes (Pers. cat. i, 79) that it was also called Shāsh and, in modern СКАЧАТЬ