The first qāchār of this pun has been explained as gurez-gāh, sharm-gāh, hinder parts, fuite and vertèbre inférieur. The Ḥ.S. (ii, 273 l. 3 fr. ft.) says the wound was in a vital (maqattal) part.
231
From Niz̤āmī’s Khusrau u Shirīn, Lahore lith. ed. p. 137 l. 8. It is quoted also in the A.N. Bib. Ind. ed. ii, 207 (H.B. ii, 321). (H.B.).
232
See Hughes Dictionary of Islām s.nn. Eating and Food.
233
Cf. f. 6b and note. If ‘Umar Shaikh were Maḥmūd’s full-brother, his name might well appear here.
234
i. e. “Not a farthing, not a half-penny.”
235
Here the Mems. enters a statement, not found in the Turkī text, that Maḥmūd’s dress was elegant and fashionable.
236
n: h: l: m. My husband has cleared up a mistake (Mems. p. 28 and Méms. i, 54) of supposing this to be the name of an animal. It is explained in the A.N. (i, 255. H.B. i, 496) as a Badakhshī equivalent of tasqāwal; tasqāwal var. tāshqāwal, is explained by the Farhang-i-az̤farī, a Turkī-Persian Dict. seen in the Mullā Fīroz Library of Bombay, to mean rāh band kunanda, the stopping of the road. Cf. J.R.A.S. 1900 p. 137.
237
i. e. “a collection of poems in the alphabetical order of the various end rhymes.” (Steingass.)
238
At this battle Daulat-shāh was present. Cf. Browne’s D.S. for Astarābād p. 523 and for Andikhūd p. 532. For this and all other references to D.S. and Ḥ.S. I am indebted to my husband.
239
The following dates will help out Bābur’s brief narrative. Maḥmūd æt. 7, was given Astarābād in 864 AH. (1459-60 AD.); it was lost to Ḥusain at Jauz-wilāyat and Maḥmūd went into Khurāsān in 865 AH.; he was restored by his father in 866 AH.; on his father’s death (873 AH. -1469 AD.) he fled to Harāt, thence to Samarkand and from there was taken to Ḥiṣār æt. 16. Cf. D’Herbélot s. n. Abū-sa‘ad; Ḥ.S. i, 209; Browne’s D.S. p. 522.
240
Presumably the “Hindūstān the Less” of Clavijo (Markham p. 3 and p. 113), approx. Qaṃbar-‘alī’s districts. Clavijo includes Tīrmīẕ under the name.
241
Perhaps a Ṣufī term, – longing for the absent friend. For particulars about this man see Ḥ.S. ii, 235 and Browne’s D.S. p. 533.
242
Here in the Ḥai. MS. is one of several blank spaces, waiting for information presumably not known to Bābur when writing. The space will have been in the archetype of the Ḥai. MS. and it makes for the opinion that the Ḥai. MS. is a direct copy of Bābur’s own. This space is not left in the Elph. MS. but that MS. is known from its scribe’s note (f. 198) down to f. 198 (Ḥai. MS. f. 243b) to have been copied from “other writings” and only subsequent to its f. 198 from Bābur’s own. Cf. JRAS 1906 p. 88 and 1907 p. 143.
243
The T.R. (p. 330) supplies this name.
244
Cf. f. 35b. This was a betrothal only, the marriage being made in 903 AH. Cf. Ḥ.S. ii, 260 and Gul-badan’s H.N. f. 24b.
245
Kehr’s MS. supplies Aī (Moon) as her name but it has no authority. The Elph. MS. has what may be lā nām, no name, on its margin and over tūrūtūnchī (4th.) its usual sign of what is problematical.
246
See Ḥ.S. ii, 250. Here Pīr-i-Muḥammad Aīlchī-būghā was drowned. Cf. f. 29.
247
Chaghānīān is marked in Erskine’s (Mems.) map as somewhere about the head of (Fr. map 1904) the Ilyak Water, a tributary of the Kāfir-nighān.
248
i. e. when Bābur was writing in Hindūstān.
249
For his family see f. 55b note to Yār-‘alī Balāl.
250
bā wujūd turklūk muhkam paidā kunanda īdī.
251
Roebuck’s Oriental Proverbs (p. 232) explains the five of this phrase where seven might be expected, by saying that of this Seven days’ world (qy. days of Creation) one is for birth, another for death, and that thus five only are left for man’s brief life.
252
The cognomen Aīlchī-būghā, taken with the bearer’s recorded strength of fist, may mean Strong man of Aīlchī (the capital of Khutan). One of Tīmūr’s commanders bore the name. Cf. f. 21b for būghū as athlete.
253
Hazārāspī seems to be Mīr Pīr Darwesh Hazārāspī. With his brother, Mīr ‘Alī, he had charge of Balkh. See Rauzatu’ṣ-ṣafā B.M. Add. 23506, f. 242b; Browne’s D.S. p. 432. It may be right to understand a hand-to-hand fight between Hazārāspī and Aīlchī-būghā. The affair was in 857 AH. (1453 AD.).
254
yārāq sīz, perhaps trusting to fisticuffs, perhaps without mail. Bābur’s summary has confused the facts. Muḥ. Aīlchī-būghā was sent by Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā from Ḥiṣār with 1,000 men and did not issue out of Qūndūz. (Ḥ.S. ii, 251.) His death occurred not before 895 AH.
255
See T.R. s. nn. Mīr Ayūb and Ayūb.
256
This passage is made more clear by f. 120b and f. 125b.
257
He is mentioned in ‘Alī-sher Nawā’ī’s Majālis-i-nafā’is; see B.M. Add. 7875, f. 278 and Rieu’s Turkish Catalogue.
258
? full of splits or full handsome.
259
This may have occurred after Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā’s death whose son Abā-bikr was. Cf. f. 28. If so, over-brevity has obscured the statement.
260
mīnglīgh aīldīn dūr, perhaps of those whose hereditary Command was a Thousand, the head of a Mīng (Pers. Hazāra), i. e. of the tenth of a tūmān.
261
qūrghān-nīng tāshīdā yāngī tām qūpārīb sālā dūr. I understand, that what was taken was a new circumvallation in whole or in part. Such double walls are on record. Cf. Appendix A.
262
bahādurlūq aūlūsh, an actual portion of food.
263
i. e. either unmailed or actually naked.
264
The old English noun strike expresses the purpose of the sar-kob. It is “an instrument for scraping off what rises above the top” (Webster, whose example is grain in a measure). The sar-kob is an erection of earth or wood, as high as the attacked walls, and it enabled besiegers to strike off heads appearing above the ramparts.
