the local name for Qarshī. Ibn Haukal (Ouseley p. 260) writes Nakhshab.
397
This word has been translated burial-place and cimetière but Qarshī means castle, or royal-residence. The Z̤.N. (i, 111) says that Qarshī is an equivalent for Ar. qaṣr, palace, and was so called, from one built there by Qublāī Khān (d. 1294 AD.). Perhaps Bābur’s word is connected with Gūrkhān, the title of sovereigns in Khutan, and means great or royal-house, i. e. palace.
398
94 m. 6-1/2 fur. via Jām (Kostenko i, 115.)
399
See Appendix B.
400
some 34 m. (Kostenko i, 196). Schuyler mentions that he heard in Qarā-kūl a tradition that the district, in bye-gone days, was fertilized from the Sīr.
401
Cf. f. 45.
402
By abjad the words ‘Abbās kasht yield 853. The date of the murder was Ramẓān 9, 853 AH. (Oct. 27th. 1449 AD.).
403
This couplet is quoted in the Rauẓatu’ṣ-ṣafā (lith. ed. vi, f. 234 foot) and in the Ḥ.S. ii, 44. It is said, in the R.Ṣ. to be by Niz̤āmī and to refer to the killing by Shīrūya of his father, Khusrau Parwīz in 7 AH. (628 AD.). The Ḥ.S. says that ‘Abdu’l-lat̤īf constantly repeated the couplet, after he had murdered his father. [See also Daulat Shāh (Browne p. 356 and p. 366.) H.B.]
404
By abjad, Bābā Ḥusain kasht yields 854. The death was on Rabi‘ I, 26, 854 AH. (May 9th. 1450 AD.). See R.Ṣ. vi, 235 for an account of this death.
405
This overstates the time; dates shew 1 yr. 1 mth. and a few days.
406
i. e. The Khān of the Mughūls, Bābur’s uncle.
407
Elph. MS. aūrmaghāīlār, might not turn; Ḥai. and Kehr’s MSS. (sar bā bād) bīrmāghāīlār, might not give. Both metaphors seem drawn from the protective habit of man and beast of turning the back to a storm-wind.
408
i. e. betwixt two waters, the Miyān-i-dū-āb of India. Here, it is the most fertile triangle of land in Turkistān (Réclus, vi, 199), enclosed by the eastern mountains, the Nārīn and the Qarā-sū; Rabāt̤ik-aūrchīnī, its alternative name, means Small Station sub-district. From the uses of aūrchīn I infer that it describes a district in which there is no considerable head-quarters fort.
409
i. e. his own, Qūtlūq-nigār Khānīm and hers, Aīsān-daulat Begīm, with perhaps other widows of his father, probably Shāh Sult̤ān Begīm.
410
Cf. f. 16 for almost verbatim statements.
411
Blacksmith’s Dale. Ahangarān appears corrupted in modern maps to Angren. See Ḥ.S. ii, 293 for Khwānd-amīr’s wording of this episode.
412
Cf. f. 1b and Kostenko i, 101.
413
i. e. Khān Uncle (Mother’s brother).
414
n. w. of the Sang ferry over the Sīr.
415
perhaps, messenger of good tidings.
416
This man’s family connections are interesting. He was ‘Alī-shukr Beg Bahārlū’s grandson, nephew therefore of Pāshā Begīm; through his son, Saif-‘alī Beg, he was the grandfather of Bairām Khān-i-khānān and thus the g.g.f. of ‘Abdu’r-raḥīm Mīrzā, the translator of the Second Wāqi‘āt-i-bāburī. See Firishta lith. ed. p. 250.
417
Bābur’s (step-)grandmother, co-widow with Aīsān-daulat of Yūnas Khān and mother of Aḥmad and Maḥmud Chaghatāī.
418
Here the narrative picks up the thread of Khusrau Shāh’s affairs, dropped on f. 44.
419
mīng tūmān fulūs, i. e. a thousand sets-of-ten-thousand small copper coins. Mr. Erskine (Mems. p. 61) here has a note on coins. As here the tūmān does not seem to be a coin but a number, I do not reproduce it, valuable as it is per se.
420
ārīqlār; this the annotator of the Elph. MS. has changed to āshlīq, provisions, corn.
421
Samān-chī may mean Keeper of the Goods. Tīngrī-bīrdī, Theodore, is the purely Turkī form of the Khudāī-bīrdī, already met with several times in the B.N.
422
Bast (Bost) is on the left bank of the Halmand.
423
Cf. f. 56b.
424
known as Kābulī. He was a son of Abū-sa‘īd and thus an uncle of Bābur. He ruled Kābul and Ghaznī from a date previous to his father’s death in 873 AH. (perhaps from the time ‘Umar Shaikh was not sent there, in 870 AH. See f. 6b) to his death in 907 AH. Bābur was his virtual successor in Kābul, in 910 AH.
425
Elph. MS. f. 42; W. – i-B. I.O. 215 f. 47b and 217 f. 38; Mems. p. 63. Bābur here resumes his own story, interrupted on f. 56.
426
aīsh achīlmādī, a phrase recurring on f. 59b foot. It appears to imply, of trust in Providence, what the English “The way was not opened,” does. Cf. f. 60b for another example of trust, there clinching discussion whether to go or not to go to Marghīnān.
427
i. e.Aḥrārī. He had been dead some 10 years. The despoilment of his family is mentioned on f. 23b.
428
fatratlār, here those due to the deaths of Aḥmad and Maḥmūd with their sequel of unstable government in Samarkand.
429
Aūghlāqchī, the player of the kid-game, the gray-wolfer. Yār-yīlāq will have gone with the rest of Samarkand into ‘Alī’s hands in Rajab 903 AH. (March 1498). Contingent terms between him and Bābur will have been made; Yūsuf may have recognized some show of right under them, for allowing Bābur to occupy Yār-yīlāq.
430
i. e. after 933 AH. Cf. f. 46b and note concerning the Bikramāditya era. See index s. n. Aḥmad-i-yūsuf and Ḥ.S. ii, 293.
431
This plural, unless ironical, cannot be read as honouring ‘Alī; Bābur uses the honorific plural most rarely and specially, e. g. for saintly persons, for The Khān and for elder women-kinsfolk.
432
bīr yārīm yīl. Dates shew this to mean six months. It appears a parallel expression to Pers. hasht-yak, one-eighth.
433
Ḥ.S. ii, 293, in place of these two quotations, has a misra‘, —Na rāy ṣafar kardan u na rūy iqāmat, (Nor resolve to march, nor face to stay).
434
i. e. in Samarkand.
435
Point to point, some 145 m. but much further by the road. Tang-āb seems likely to be one of the head-waters of Khwāja Bikargān-water. Thence the route would be by unfrequented hill-tracks, each man leading his second horse.
