bādiya; a word perhaps selected as punning on bād, wind.
80
i. e. Akhsī Village. This word is sometimes spelled Akhsīkīs̤ but as the old name of the place was Akhsī-kīnt, it may be conjectured at least that the s̤ā’ī mas̤allas̤a of Akhsīkīs̤ represents the three points due for the nūn and tā of kīnt. Of those writing Akhsīkīt may be mentioned the Ḥai. and Kehr’s MSS. (the Elph. MS. here has a lacuna) the Z̤afar-nāma (Bib. Ind. i, 44) and Ibn Haukal (Ouseley p. 270); and of those writing the word with the s̤ā’ī muṣallas̤a (i. e. as Akhsīkīs̤), Yāqūt’s Dict, i, 162, Reinaud’s Abū’l-feda I. ii, 225-6, Ilminsky (p. 5) departing from his source, and I.O. Cat. (Ethé) No. 1029. It may be observed that Ibn Haukal (Ouseley p. 280) writes Banākaṣ for Banākat. For As̤īru’d-dīn Akhsīkītī, see Rieu ii, 563; Daulat Shāh (Browne) p. 121 and Ethé I.O. Cat. No. 1029.
81
Measured on the French military map of 1904, this may be 80 kil. i. e. 50 miles.
82
Concerning several difficult passages in the rest of Bābur’s account of Akhsī, see Appendix A.
83
The W. – i-B. here translates būghū-marāl by gazawn and the same word is entered, under-line, in the Ḥai. MS. Cf. f. 3b and note and f. 4 and note.
84
postīn pesh b: r: h. This obscure Persian phrase has been taken in the following ways: —
(a) W. – i-B. I.O. 215 and 217 (i. e. both versions) reproduce the phrase.
(b) W. – i-B. MS., quoted by Erskine, p. 6 note, (postīn-i mīsh burra).
(c) Leyden’s MS. Trs., a sheepskin mantle of five lambskins.
(d) Mems., Erskine, p. 6, a mantle of five lambskins.
(e) The Persian annotator of the Elph. MS., underlining pesh, writes, panj, five.
(f) Klaproth (Archives, p. 109), pustini pisch breh, d.h. gieb den vorderen Pelz.
(g) Kehr, p. 12 (Ilminsky p. 6) postin bīsh b: r:h.
(h) De. C, i, 9, fourrure d’agneau de la première qualité.
The “lambskins” of L. and E. carry on a notion of comfort started by their having read sayāh, shelter, for Turkī sā’ī, torrent-bed; de C. also lays stress on fur and warmth, but would not the flowery border of a mountain stream prompt rather a phrase bespeaking ornament and beauty than one expressing warmth and textile softness? If the phrase might be read as postīn pesh perā, what adorns the front of a coat, or as postīn pesh bar rah, the fine front of the coat, the phrase would recall the gay embroidered front of some leathern postins.
85
Var. tabarkhūn. The explanation best suiting its uses, enumerated here, is Redhouse’s second, the Red Willow. My husband thinks it may be the Hyrcanian Willow.
86
Steingass describes this as “an arrow without wing or point” (barb?) and tapering at both ends; it may be the practising arrow, t‘alīm aūqī, often headless.
87
tabarraklūq. Cf. f. 48b foot, for the same use of the word.
88
yabrūju’ṣ-ṣannam. The books referred to by Bābur may well be the Rauzatu’ṣ-ṣafā and the Ḥabību’s-siyār, as both mention the plant.
89
The Turkī word āyīq is explained by Redhouse as awake and alert; and by Meninski and de Meynard as sobered and as a return to right senses. It may be used here as a equivalent of mihr in mihr-giyāh, the plant of love.
90
Mr. Ney Elias has discussed the position of this group of seven villages. (Cf. T. R. p. 180 n.) Arrowsmith’s map places it (as Iti-kint) approximately where Mr. Th. Radloff describes seeing it i. e. on the Farghāna slope of the Kurāma range. (Cf. Réceuil d’Itinéraires p. 188.) Mr. Th. Radloff came into Yītī-kīnt after crossing the Kīndīrlīk Pass from Tāshkīnt and he enumerates the seven villages as traversed by him before reaching the Sīr. It is hardly necessary to say that the actual villages he names may not be those of Bābur’s Yītī-kint. Wherever the word is used in the Bābur-nāma and the Tārīkh-i-rashīdī, it appears from the context allowable to accept Mr. Radloff’s location but it should be borne in mind that the name Yītī-kīnt (Seven villages or towns) might be found as an occasional name of Altī-shahr (Six towns). See T.R. s. n. Altī-shahr.
91
kīshī, person, here manifestly fighting men.
92
Elph. MS. f. 2b; First W. – i-B. I.O. 215 f. 4b; Second W. – i-B. I.O. 217 f. 4; Mems. p. 6; Ilminsky p. 7; Méms. i. 10.
The rulers whose affairs are chronicled at length in the Farghāna Section of the B.N. are, (I) of Tīmūrid Turks, (always styled Mīrzā), (a) the three Mīrān-shāhī brothers, Aḥmad, Maḥmūd and ‘Umar Shaikh with their successors, Bāī-sunghar, ‘Alī and Bābur; (b) the Bāī-qarā, Ḥusain of Harāt: (II) of Chīngīz Khānīds, (always styled Khān,) (a) the two Chaghatāī Mughūl brothers, Maḥmūd and Aḥmad; (b) the Shaibānid Aūzbeg, Muḥammad Shaibānī (Shāh-i-bakht or Shaibāq or Shāhī Beg).
In electing to use the name Shaibānī, I follow not only the Ḥai. Codex but also Shaibānī’s Boswell, Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Mīrzā. The Elph. MS. frequently uses Shaibāq but its authority down to f. 198 (Ḥai. MS. f. 243b) is not so great as it is after that folio, because not till f. 198 is it a direct copy of Bābur’s own. It may be more correct to write “the Shaibānī Khān” and perhaps even “the Shaibānī.”
93
bī murād, so translated because retirement was caused once by the overruling of Khwāja ‘Ubaidu’l-lāh Aḥrārī. (T.R. p. 113.)
94
Once the Mīrzā did not wish Yūnas to winter in Akhsī; once did not expect him to yield to the demand of his Mughūls to be led out of the cultivated country (wilāyat). His own misconduct included his attack in Yūnas on account of Akhsī and much falling-out with kinsmen. (T.R. s. nn.)
95
i. e. one made of non-warping wood (Steingass), perhaps that of the White Poplar. The Shāh-nāma (Turner, Maçon ed. i, 71) writes of a Chāchī bow and arrows of khadang, i. e. white poplar. (H.B.)
96
i. e. Rābī‘a-sult̤ān, married circa 893 AH. -1488 AD. For particulars about her and all women mentioned in the B.N. and the T.R. see Gulbadan Begīm’s Humāyūn-nāma, Or. Trs. Series.
97
jar, either that of the Kāsān Water or of a deeply-excavated canal. The palace buildings are mentioned again on f. 110b. Cf. Appendix A.
98
i. e. soared from earth, died. For some details of the accident see A.N. (H. Beveridge, i, 220.)
99
Ḥ.S. ii, -192, Firishta, lith. ed. p. 191 and D’Herbélot, sixth.
