Kitabı oku: «The Bābur-nāma», sayfa 47
L. – ON MĀHĪM’S ADOPTION OF HIND-ĀL
The passage quoted below about Māhīm’s adoption of the unborn Hind-āl we have found so far only in Kehr’s transcript of the Bābur-nāma (i. e. the St. Petersburg Foreign Office Codex). Ilminsky reproduced it (Kāsān imprint p. 281) and de Courteille translated it (ii, 45), both with endeavour at emendation. It is interpolated in Kehr’s MS. at the wrong place, thus indicating that it was once marginal or apart from the text.
I incline to suppose the whole a note made by Humāyūn, although part of it might be an explanation made by Bābur, at a later date, of an over-brief passage in his diary. Of such passages there are several instances. What is strongly against its being Bābur’s where otherwise it might be his, is that Māhīm, as he always calls her simply, is there written of as Ḥaẓrat Wālida, Royal Mother and with the honorific plural. That plural Bābur uses for his own mother (dead 14 years before 925 AH.) and never for Māhīm. The note is as follows: —
“The explanation is this: – As up to that time those of one birth (tūqqān, womb) with him (Humāyūn), that is to say a son Bār-būl, who was younger than he but older than the rest, and three daughters, Mihr-jān and two others, died in childhood, he had a great wish for one of the same birth with him.2793 I had said ‘What it would have been if there had been one of the same birth with him!’ (Humāyūn). Said the Royal Mother, ‘If Dil-dār Āghācha bear a son, how is it if I take him and rear him?’ ‘It is very good’ said I.”
So far doubtfully might be Bābur’s but it may be Humāyūn’s written as a note for Bābur. What follows appears to be by some-one who knew the details of Māhīm’s household talk and was in Kābul when Dil-dār’s child was taken from her.
“Seemingly women have the custom of taking omens in the following way: – When they have said, ‘Is it to be a boy? is it to be a girl?’ they write ‘Alī or Ḥasan on one of two pieces of paper and Fāt̤ima on the other, put each paper into a ball of clay and throw both into a bowl of water. Whichever opens first is taken as an omen; if the man’s, they say a man-child will be born; if the woman’s, a girl will be born. They took the omen; it came out a man.”
“On this glad tidings we at once sent letters off.2794 A few days later God’s mercy bestowed a son. Three days before the news2795 and three days after the birth, they2796 took the child from its mother, (she) willy-nilly, brought it to our house2797 and took it in their charge. When we sent the news of the birth, Bhīra was being taken. They named him Hind-āl for a good omen and benediction.”2798
The whole may be Humāyūn’s, and prompted by a wish to remove an obscurity his father had left and by sentiment stirred through reminiscence of a cherished childhood.
Whether Humāyūn wrote the whole or not, how is it that the passage appears only in the Russian group of Bāburiana?
An apparent answer to this lies in the following little mosaic of circumstances: – The St. Petersburg group of Bāburiana2799 is linked to Kāmrān’s own copy of the Bābur-nāma by having with it a letter of Bābur to Kāmrān and also what may be a note indicating its passage into Humāyūn’s hands (JRAS 1908 p. 830). If it did so pass, a note by Humāyūn may have become associated with it, in one of several obvious ways. This would be at a date earlier than that of the Elphinstone MS. and would explain why it is found in Russia and not in Indian MSS.2800
[APPENDICES TO THE HINDŪSTĀN SECTION.]
M. – ON THE TERM BAḤRĪ QŪT̤ĀS
That the term baḥrī qūt̤ās is interpreted by Meninski, Erskine, and de Courteille in senses so widely differing as equus maritimus, mountain-cow, and bœuf vert de mer is due, no doubt, to their writing when the qūt̤ās, the yāk, was less well known than it now is.
The word qūt̤ās represents both the yāk itself and its neck-tassel and tail. Hence Meninski explains it by nodus fimbriatus ex cauda seu crinibus equi maritimi. His “sea-horse” appears to render baḥrī qūt̤ās, and is explicable by the circumstance that the same purposes are served by horse-tails and by yāk-tails and tassels, namely, with both, standards are fashioned, horse-equipage is ornamented or perhaps furnished with fly-flappers, and the ordinary hand-fly-flappers are made, i. e. the chowries of Anglo-India.
Erskine’s “mountain-cow” (Memoirs p. 317) may well be due to his munshī’s giving the yāk an alternative name, viz. Kosh-gau (Vigne) or Khāsh-gau (Ney Elias), which appears to mean mountain-cow (cattle, oxen).2801
De Courteille’s Dictionary p. 422, explains qūtās (qūt̤ās) as bœuf marin (baḥrī qūt̤ās) and his Mémoires ii, 191, renders Bābur’s baḥrī qūt̤ās by bœuf vert de mer (f. 276, p. 490 and n. 8).
The term baḥrī qūt̤ās could be interpreted with more confidence if one knew where the seemingly Arabic-Turkī compound originated.2802 Bābur uses it in Hindūstān where the neck-tassel and the tail of the domestic yāk are articles of commerce, and where, as also probably in Kābul, he will have known of the same class of yāk as a saddle-animal and as a beast of burden into Kashmīr and other border-lands of sufficient altitude to allow its survival. A part of its wide Central Asian habitat abutting on Kashmīr is Little Tibet, through which flows the upper Indus and in which tame yāk are largely bred, Skardo being a place specially mentioned by travellers as having them plentifully. This suggests that the term baḥrī qūt̤ās is due to the great river (baḥr) and that those of which Bābur wrote in Hindūstān were from Little Tibet and its great river. But baḥrī may apply to another region where also the domestic yāk abounds, that of the great lakes, inland seas such as Pangong, whence the yāk comes and goes between e. g. Yārkand and the Hindūstān border.
The second suggestion, viz. that “baḥrī qūt̤ās” refers to the habitat of the domestic yāk in lake and marsh lands of high altitude (the wild yāk also but, as Tibetan, it is less likely to be concerned here) has support in Dozy’s account of the baḥrī falcon, a bird mentioned also by Abū’l-faẓl amongst sporting birds (Āyīn-i-akbarī, Blochmann’s trs. p. 295): – “Baḥrī, espèce de faucon le meilleur pour les oiseaux de marais. Ce renseignment explique peut-être l’origine du mot. Marguerite en donne la même etymologie que Tashmend et le Père Guagix. Selon lui ce faucon aurait été appelé ainsi parce qu’il vient de l’autre côté de la mer, mais peut-être dériva-t-il de baḥrī dans le sens de marais, flaque, étang.”
Dr. E. Denison Ross’ Polyglot List of Birds (Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal ii, 289) gives to the Qarā Qīrghāwal (Black pheasant) the synonym “Sea-pheasant”, this being the literal translation of its Chinese name, and quotes from the Manchū-Chinese “Mirror” the remark that this is a black pheasant but called “sea-pheasant” to distinguish it from other black ones.
It may be observed that Bābur writes of the yāk once only and then of the baḥrī qūt̤ās so that there is no warrant from him for taking the term to apply to the wild yāk. His cousin and contemporary Ḥaidar Mīrzā, however, mentions the wild yāk twice and simply as the wild qūt̤ās.
The following are random gleanings about “baḥrī” and the yāk: —
(1) An instance of the use of the Persian equivalent daryā’ī of baḥrī, sea-borne or over-sea, is found in the Akbar-nāma (Bib. Ind. ed. ii, 216) where the African elephant is described as fīl-i-daryā’ī.
(2) In Egypt the word baḥrī has acquired the sense of northern, presumably referring to what lies or is borne across its northern sea, the Mediterranean.
(3) Vigne (Travels in Kashmīr ii, 277-8) warns against confounding the qūch-qār i. e. the gigantic moufflon, Pallas’ Ovis ammon, with the Kosh-gau, the cow of the Kaucasus, i. e. the yāk. He says, “Kaucasus (hodie Hindū-kush) was originally from Kosh, and Kosh is applied occasionally as a prefix, e. g. Kosh-gau, the yāk or ox of the mountain or Kaucasus.” He wrote from Skardo in Little Tibet and on the upper Indus. He gives the name of the female yāk as yāk-mo and of the half-breeds with common cows as bzch, which class he says is common and of “all colours”.
(4) Mr. Ney Elias’ notes (Tārīkh-i-rashīdī trs. pp. 302 and 466) on the qūt̤ās are of great interest. He gives the following synonymous names for the wild yāk, Bos Poëphagus, Khāsh-gau, the Tibetan yāk or Dong.
(5) Hume and Henderson (Lāhor to Yārkand p. 59) write of the numerous black yāk-hair tents seen round the Pangong Lake, of fine saddle yāks, and of the tame ones as being some white or brown but mostly black.
(6) Olufsen’s Through the Unknown Pamirs (p. 118) speaks of the large numbers of Bos grunniens (yāk) domesticated by the Kirghiz in the Pamirs.
(7) Cf. Gazetteer of India s. n. yāk.
(8) Shaikh Zain applies the word baḥrī to the porpoise, when paraphrasing the Bābur-nāma f. 281b.
N. – NOTES ON A FEW BIRDS
In attempting to identify some of the birds of Bābur’s lists difficulty arises from the variety of names provided by the different tongues of the region concerned, and also in some cases by the application of one name to differing birds. The following random gleanings enlarge and, in part, revise some earlier notes and translations of Mr. Erskine’s and my own. They are offered as material for the use of those better acquainted with bird-lore and with Himālayan dialects.
a. Concerning the lūkha, lūja, lūcha, kūja (f.135 and f.278b).
The nearest word I have found to lūkha and its similars is likkh, a florican (Jerdon, ii, 615), but the florican has not the chameleon colours of the lūkha (var.). As Bābur when writing in Hindūstān, uses such “book-words” as Ar. baḥrī (qūt̤ās) and Ar. bū-qalamūn (chameleon), it would not be strange if his name for the “lūkha” bird represented Ar. awja, very beautiful, or connected with Ar. loḥ, shining splendour.
The form kūja is found in Ilminsky’s imprint p.361 (Mémoires ii, 198, koudjeh).
What is confusing to translators is that (as it now seems to me) Bābur appears to use the name kabg-i-darī in both passages (f.135 and f.278b) to represent two birds; (1) he compares the lūkha as to size with the kabg-i-darī of the Kābul region, and (2) for size and colour with that of Hindūstān. But the bird, of the Western Himālayas known by the name kabg-i-darī is the Himālayan snow-cock, Tetraogallus himālayensis, Turkī, aūlār and in the Kābul region, chīūrtika (f.249, Jerdon, ii, 549-50); while the kabg-i-darī (syn. chikor) of Hindūstān, whether of hill or plain, is one or more of much smaller birds.
The snow-cock being 28 inches in length, the lūkha bird must be of this size. Such birds as to size and plumage of changing colour are the Lophophori and Trapagons, varieties of which are found in places suiting Bābur’s account of the lūkha.
It may be noted that the Himālayan snow-cock is still called kabg-i-darī in Afghānistān (Jerdon, ii, 550) and in Kashmīr (Vigne’s Travels in Kashmīr ii, 18). As its range is up to 18,000 feet, its Persian name describes it correctly whether read as “of the mountains” (dari), or as “royal” (darī) through its splendour.
I add here the following notes of Mr. Erskine’s, which I have not quoted already where they occur (cf. f. 135 and f. 278b): —
The following corrections are needed about my own notes: – (1) on f. 135 (p. 213) n. 7 is wrongly referred; it belongs to the first word, viz. kabg-i-darī, of p. 214; (2) on f. 279 (p. 496) n. 2 should refer to the second kabg-i-darī.
b. Birds called mūnāl (var. monāl and moonaul).
Yule writing in Hobson Jobson (p. 580) of the “moonaul” which he identifies as Lophophorus Impeyanus, queries whether, on grounds he gives, the word moonaul is connected etymologically with Sanscrit muni, an “eremite”. In continuation of his topic, I give here the names of other birds called mūnāl, which I have noticed in various ornithological works while turning their pages for other information.
Besides L. Impeyanus and Trapagon Ceriornis satyra which Yule mentions as called “moonaul”, there are L. refulgens, mūnāl and Ghūr (mountain) -mūnāl; Trapagon Ceriornis satyra, called mūnāl in Nipāl; T. C. melanocephalus, called sing (horned) -mūnāl in the N.W. Himālayas; T. himālayensis, the jer– or cher-mūnāl of the same region, known also as chikor; and Lerwa nevicola, the snow-partridge known in Garhwal as Quoir– or Qūr-mūnāl. Do all these birds behave in such a way as to suggest that mūnāl may imply the individual isolation related by Jerdon of L. Impeyanus, “In the autumnal and winter months numbers are generally collected in the same quarter of the forest, though often so widely scattered that each bird appears to be alone?” My own search amongst vocabularies of hill-dialects for the meaning of the word has been unsuccessful, spite of the long range mūnāls in the Himālayas.
c. Concerning the word chīūrtika, chourtka.
Jerdon’s entry (ii, 549, 554) of the name chourtka as a synonym of Tetraogallus himālayensis enables me to fill a gap I have left on f. 249 (p. 491 and n. 6),2803 with the name Himālayan snow-cock, and to allow Bābur’s statement to be that he, in January 1520 AD. when coming down from the Bād-i-pīch pass, saw many snow-cocks. The Memoirs (p.282) has “chikors”, which in India is a synonym for kabg-i-darī; the Mémoires (ii, 122) has sauterelles, but this meaning of chīūrtika does not suit wintry January. That month would suit for the descent from higher altitudes of snow-cocks. Griffith, a botanist who travelled in Afghānistān cir. 1838 AD., saw myriads of cicadæ between Qilat-i-ghilzai and Ghazni, but the month was July.
d. On the qūt̤ān (f. 142, p. 224; Memoirs, p. 153; Mémoires ii, 313).
Mr. Erskine for qūt̤ān enters khawāṣil [gold-finch] which he will have seen interlined in the Elphinstone Codex (f. 109b) in explanation of qūt̤ān.
Shaikh Effendi (Kunos’ ed., p. 139) explains qūt̤ān to be the gold-finch, Steiglitz.
Ilminsky’s qūtān (p. 175) is translated by M. de Courteille as pélicane and certainly some copies of the 2nd Persian translation [Muḥ. Shīrāzi’s p. 90] have ḥawāṣil, pelican.
The pelican would class better than the small finch with the herons and egrets of Bābur’s trio; it also would appear a more likely bird to be caught “with the cord”.
That Bābur’s qūt̤ān (ḥawāṣil) migrated in great numbers is however against supposing it to be Pelicanus onocrotatus which is seen in India during the winter, because it appears there in moderate numbers only, and Blanford with other ornithologists states that no western pelican migrates largely into India.
Perhaps the qūt̤ān was Linnæus’ Pelicanus carbo of which one synonym is Carbo comoranus, the cormorant, a bird seen in India in large numbers of both the large and small varieties. As cormorants are not known to breed in that country, they will have migrated in the masses Bābur mentions.
A translation matter falls to mention here: – After saying that the aūqār (grey heron), qarqara (egret), and qūtān (cormorant) are taken with the cord, Bābur says that this method of bird-catching is unique (bū nūḥ qūsh tūtmāq ghair muqarrar dūr) and describes it. The Persian text omits to translate the tūtmāq (by P. giriftan); hence Erskine (Mems. p. 153) writes, “The last mentioned fowl” (i. e. the qūt̤ān) “is rare,” notwithstanding Bābur’s statement that all three of the birds he names are caught in masses. De Courteille (p. 313) writes, as though only of the qūtān, “ces derniers toutefois ne se prennent qu’accidentelment,” perhaps led to do so by knowledge of the circumstance that Pelicanus onocrotatus is rare in India.
O. – NOTES BY HUMĀYŪN ON SOME HINDŪSTĀN FRUITS
The following notes, which may be accepted as made by Humāyūn and in the margin of the archetype of the Elphinstone Codex, are composed in Turkī which differs in diction from his father’s but is far closer to that classic model than is that of the producer [Jahāngīr?] of the “Fragments” (Index s. n.). Various circumstances make the notes difficult to decipher verbatim and, unfortunately, when writing in Jan. 1917, I am unable to collate with its original in the Advocates Library, the copy I made of them in 1910.
a. On the kadhil, jack-fruit, Artocarpus integrifolia (f. 283b, p. 506; Elphinstone MS. f. 235b).2804
The contents of the note are that the strange-looking pumpkin (qar‘, which is also Ibn Batuta’s word for the fruit), yields excellent white juice, that the best fruit grows from the roots of the tree,2805 that many such grow in Bengal, and that in Bengal and Dihli there grows a kadhil-tree covered with hairs (Artocarpus hirsuta?).
b. On the amrit-phal, mandarin-orange, Citrus aurantium (f. 287, p. 512; Elphinstone Codex, f. 238b, l. 12).
The interest of this note lies in its reference to Bābur.
A Persian version of it is entered, without indication of what it is or of who was its translator, in one of the volumes of Mr. Erskine’s manuscript remains, now in the British Museum (Add. 26,605, p. 88). Presumably it was made by his Turkish munshi for his note in the Memoirs (p. 329).
Various difficulties oppose the translation of the Turkī note; it is written into the text of the Elphinstone Codex in two instalments, neither of them in place, the first being interpolated in the account of the amil-bīd fruit, the second in that of the jāsūn flower; and there are verbal difficulties also. The Persian translation is not literal and in some particulars Mr. Erskine’s rendering of this differs from what the Turkī appears to state.
The note is, tentatively, as follows:2806– “His honoured Majesty Firdaus-makān2807– may God make his proof clear! – did not favour the amrit-phal;2808 as he considered it insipid,2809 he likened it to the mild-flavoured2810 orange and did not make choice of it. So much was the mild-flavoured orange despised that if any person had disgusted (him) by insipid flattery(?) he used to say, ‘He is like orange-juice.’”2811
“The amrit-phal is one of the very good fruits. Though its juice is not relishing (? chūchūq), it is extremely pleasant-drinking. Later on, in my own time, its real merit became known. Its tartness may be that of the orange (nāranj)and lemu.”2812
The above passage is followed, in the text of the Elphinstone Codex, by Bābur’s account of the jāsūn flower, and into this a further instalment of Humāyūn’s notes is interpolated, having opposite its first line the marginal remark, “This extra note, seemingly made by Humāyūn Pādshāh, the scribe has mistakenly written into the text.” Whether its first sentence refer to the amrit-phal or to the amil-bīd must be left for decision to those well acquainted with the orange-tribe. It is obscure in my copy and abbreviated in its Persian translation; summarized it may state that when the fruit is unripe, its acidity is harmful to the digestion, but that it is very good when ripe. – The note then continues as below: —
c. The kāmila, H. kauṅlā, the orange. 2813
“There are in Bengal two other fruits of the acid kind. Though the amrit-phal be not agreeable, they have resemblance to it (?).”
“One is the kāmila which may be as large as an orange (nāranj); some took it to be a large nārangī (orange) but it is much pleasanter eating than the nārangī and is understood not to have the skin of that (fruit).”
d. The samt̤ara. 2814
“The other is the samt̤ara which is larger than the orange (nāranj) but is not tart; unlike the amrit-phal it is not of poor flavour (kam maza) or little relish (chūchūk). In short a better fruit is not seen. It is good to see, good to eat, good to digest. One does not forget it. If it be there, no other fruit is chosen. Its peel may be taken off by the hand. However much of the fruit be eaten, the heart craves for it again. Its juice does not soil the hand at all. Its skin separates easily from its flesh. It may be taken during and after food. In Bengal the samt̤ara is rare (ghārib) (or excellent, ‘asīz). It is understood to grow in one village Sanārgām (Sonargaon) and even therein a special quarter. There seems to be no fruit so entirely good as the samt̤ara amongst fruits of its class or, rather, amongst fruits of all kinds.”
Corrigendum: – In my note on the turunj bajāurī (p. 511, n. 3) for bijaurā read bījaurā; and on p. 510, l. 2, for palm read fingers.
Addendum: – p. 510, l. 5. After yūsūnlūk add: – “The natives of Hindūstān when not wearing their ear-rings, put into the large ear-ring holes, slips of the palm-leaf bought in the bāzārs, ready for the purpose. The trunk of this tree is handsomer and more stately than that of the date.”
