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Khān. Each time the Mīrzā brought The Khān into the Farghāna country he gave him lands, but, partly owing to his misconduct, partly to the thwarting of the Mughūls,94 things did not go as he wished and Yūnas Khān, not being able to remain, went out again into Mughūlistān. When the Mīrzā last brought The Khān in, he was in possession of

      Tāshkīnt, which in books they write Shash, and sometimes Chāch, whence the term, a Chāchī, bow.95 He gave it to The Khān, and from that date (890AH. -1485AD.) down to 908AH. (1503AD.) it and the Shāhrukhiya country were held by the Chaghatāī Khāns.

      At this date (i. e., 899AH. -1494AD.) the Mughūl Khānship was in Sl. Maḥ=mūd Khān, Yūnas Khān’s younger son and a half-brother of my mother. As he and ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā’s elder brother, the then ruler of Samarkand, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā were offended by the Mīrzā’s behaviour, they came to an agreement together; Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā had already given a daughter to Sl. Maḥmūd Khān;96 both now led their armies against ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā, the first advancing along the south of the Khujand Water, the second along its north.

      Meantime a strange event occurred. It has been mentioned that the fort of Akhsī is situated above a deep ravine;97 along this ravine stand the palace buildings, and from it, on Monday, Ramẓān 4, (June 8th.) ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā flew, with his pigeons and their house, and became a falcon.98

      He was 39 (lunar) years old, having been born in Samarkand, in 860AH. (1456AD.) He was Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā’s fourth son,99 being younger than Sl. Aḥmad M. and Sl. Muḥammad M. and Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā. His father, Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā, was the son of Sl. Muḥammad Mīrzā, son of Tīmūr Beg’s third son, Mīrān-shāh M. and was younger than ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā, (the elder) and Jahāngīr M. but older than Shāhrukh Mīrzā.

      c. ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā’s country.

      His father first gave him Kābul and, with Bābā-i-Kābulī100 for his guardian, had allowed him to set out, but recalled him from the Tamarisk Valley101 to Samarkand, on account of the Mīrzās’ Circumcision Feast. When the Feast was over, he gave him Andijān with the appropriateness that Tīmūr Beg had given Farghāna (Andijān) to his son, the elder ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā. This done, he sent him off with Khudāī-bīrdī Tūghchī Tīmūr-tāsh102 for his guardian.

      d. His appearance and characteristics.

      He was a short and stout, round-bearded and fleshy-faced person.103 He used to wear his tunic so very tight that to fasten the strings he had to draw his belly in and, if he let himself out after tying them, they often tore away. He was not choice in dress or food. He wound his turban in a fold (dastar-pech); all turbans were in four folds (chār-pech) in those days; people wore them without twisting and let the ends hang down.104 In the heats and except in his Court, he generally wore the Mughūl cap.

      e. His qualities and habits.

      He was a true believer (Ḥanafī maẕhablīk) and pure in the Faith, not neglecting the Five Prayers and, his life through, making up his Omissions.105 He read the Qur’ān very frequently and was a disciple of his Highness Khwāja ‘Ubaidu’l-lāh (Aḥrārī) who honoured him by visits and even called him son. His current readings106 were the two Quintets and the Mas̤nawī;107 of histories he read chiefly the Shāh-nāma. He had a poetic nature, but no taste for composing verses. He was so just that when he heard of a caravan returning from Khitāī as overwhelmed by snow in the mountains of Eastern Andijān,108 and that of its thousand heads of houses (awīlūq) two only had escaped, he sent his overseers to take charge of all goods and, though no heirs were near and though he was in want himself, summoned the heirs from Khurāsān and Samarkand, and in the course of a year or two had made over to them all their property safe and sound.

      He was very generous; in truth, his character rose altogether to the height of generosity. He was affable, eloquent and sweet-spoken, daring and bold. Twice out-distancing all his braves,109 he got to work with his own sword, once at the Gate of Akhsī, once at the Gate of Shāhrukhiya. A middling archer, he was strong in the fist, – not a man but fell to his blow. Through his ambition, peace was exchanged often for war, friendliness for hostility.

      In his early days he was a great drinker, later on used to have a party once or twice a week. He was good company, on occasions reciting verses admirably. Towards the last he rather preferred intoxicating confects110 and, under their sway, used to lose his head. His disposition111 was amorous, and he bore many a lover’s mark.112 He played draughts a good deal, sometimes even threw the dice.

      f. His battles and encounters.

      He fought three ranged battles, the first with Yūnas Khān, on the Saiḥūn, north of Andijān, at the Goat-leap,113 a village so-called because near it the foot-hills so narrow the flow of the water that people say goats leap across.114 There he was beaten and made prisoner. Yūnas Khān for his part did well by him and gave him leave to go to his own district (Andijān). This fight having been at that place, the Battle of the Goat-leap became a date in those parts.

      His second battle was fought on the Urūs,115 in Turkistān, with Aūzbegs returning from a raid near Samarkand. He crossed the river on the ice, gave them a good beating, separated off all their prisoners and booty and, without coveting a single thing for himself, gave everything back to its owners.

      His third battle he fought with (his brother) Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā at a place between Shāhrukhiya and Aūrā-tīpā, named Khwāṣ.116 Here he was beaten.

      g. His country.

      The Farghāna country his father had given him; Tāshkīnt and Sairām, his elder brother, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā gave, and they were in his possession for a time; Shāhrukhiya he took by a ruse and held awhile. Later on, Tāshkīnt and Shāhrukhiya passed out of his hands; there then remained the Farghāna country and Khujand, – some do not include Khujand in Farghāna, – and Aūrā-tīpā, of which the original name was Aūrūshnā and which some call Aūrūsh. In Aūrā-tīpā, at the time Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā went to Tāshkīnt against the Mughūls, and was beaten on the Chīr117 (893AH. -1488AD.) was Ḥafiẓ Beg Dūldāī; he made it over to ‘Umar Shaikh M. and the Mīrzā held it from that time forth.

      h. His children.

      Three of his sons and five of his daughters grew up. I, Z̤ahīru’d-dīn Muḥammad Bābur,118 was his eldest son; my mother was Qūtlūq-nigār Khānīm. Jahāngīr Mīrzā was his second son, two years younger than I; his mother, Fāt̤ima-sult̤ān by name, was of the Mughūl tūmān-begs.119 Nāṣir Mīrzā was his third son; his mother was an Andijānī, a mistress,120 named Umīd. He was four years younger than I.

      ‘Umar

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<p>94</p>

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.)

<p>95</p>

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.)

<p>96</p>

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.

<p>97</p>

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.

<p>98</p>

i. e. soared from earth, died. For some details of the accident see A.N. (H. Beveridge, i, 220.)

<p>99</p>

Ḥ.S. ii, -192, Firishta, lith. ed. p. 191 and D’Herbélot, sixth.

It would have accorded with Bābur’s custom if here he had mentioned the parentage of his father’s mother. Three times (fs. 17b, 70b, 96b) he writes of “Shāh Sulṯan Begīm” in a way allowing her to be taken as ‘Umar Shaikh’s own mother. Nowhere, however, does he mention her parentage. One even cognate statement only have we discovered, viz. Khwānd-amīr’s (Ḥ.S. ii, 192) that ‘Umar Shaikh was the own younger brother (barādar khurdtar khūd) of Aḥmad and Maḥmūd. If his words mean that the three were full-brothers, ‘Umar Shaikh’s own mother was Ābū-sa‘īd’s Tarkhān wife. Bābur’s omission (f. 21b) to mention his father with A. and M. as a nephew of Darwesh Muḥammad Tarkhān would be negative testimony against taking Khwānd-amīr’s statement to mean “full-brother,” if clerical slips were not easy and if Khwānd-amir’s means of information were less good. He however both was the son of Maḥmūd’s wāzir (Ḥ.S. ii, 194) and supplemented his book in Bābur’s presence.

To a statement made by the writer of the biographies included in Kehr’s B.N. volume, that ‘U.S.’s family (aūmāgh) is not known, no weight can be attached, spite of the co-incidence that the Mongol form of aūmāgh, i. e. aūmāk means Mutter-leib. The biographies contain too many known mistakes for their compiler to outweigh Khwānd-amīr in authority.

<p>100</p>

Cf. Rauzatu’ṣ-ṣafā vi, 266. (H.B.)

<p>101</p>

Dara-i-gaz, south of Balkh. This historic feast took place at Merv in 870 AH. (1465 AD.). As ‘Umar Shaikh was then under ten, he may have been one of the Mīrzās concerned.

<p>102</p>

Khudāī-bīrdī is a Pers. – Turkī hybrid equivalent of Theodore; tūghchī implies the right to use or (as hereditary standard-bearer,) to guard the tūgh; Tīmūr-tāsh may mean i. a. Friend of Tīmūr (a title not excluded here as borne by inheritance. Cf. f. 12b and note), Sword-friend (i. e. Companion-in-arms), and Iron-friend (i. e. stanch). Cf. Dict. s. n. Tīmūr-bāsh, a sobriquet of Charles XII.

<p>103</p>

Elph. and Ḥai. MSS. qūbā yūzlūq; this is under-lined in the Elph. MS. by ya‘nī pur ghosht. Cf. f. 68b for the same phrase. The four earlier trss. viz. the two W. – i-B., the English and the French, have variants in this passage.

<p>104</p>

The apposition may be between placing the turban-sash round the turban-cap in a single flat fold and winding it four times round after twisting it on itself. Cf. f. 18 and Hughes Dict. of Islām s.n. turban.

<p>105</p>

qaẓālār, the prayers and fasts omitted when due, through war, travel sickness, etc.

<p>106</p>

rawān sawādī bār īdī; perhaps, wrote a running hand. De C. i, 13, ses lectures courantes étaient…

<p>107</p>

The dates of ‘Umar Shaikh’s limits of perusal allow the Quintets (Khamsatīn) here referred to to be those of Niz̤āmī and Amīr Khusrau of Dihlī. The Maṣnawī must be that of Jalālu’d-dīn Rūmī. (H.B.)

<p>108</p>

Probably below the Tīrāk (Poplar) Pass, the caravan route much exposed to avalanches.

Mr. Erskine notes that this anecdote is erroneously told as of Bābur by Firishta and others. Perhaps it has been confused with the episode on f. 207b. Firishta makes another mistaken attribution to Bābur, that of Ḥasan of Yaq‘ūb’s couplet. (H.B.) Cf. f. 13b and Dow’s Hindustan ii, 218.

<p>109</p>

yīgītlār, young men, the modern jighit. Bābur uses the word for men on the effective fighting strength. It answers to the “brave” of North. American Indian story; here de C. translates it by braves.

<p>110</p>

ma‘jūn. Cf. Von Schwarz p. 286 for a recipe.

<p>111</p>

mutaiyam. This word, not clearly written in all MSS., has been mistaken for yītīm. Cf. JRAS 1910 p. 882 for a note upon it by my husband to whom I owe the emendation.

<p>112</p>

na’l u dāghī bisyār īdī, that is, he had inflicted on himself many of the brands made by lovers and enthusiasts. Cf. Chardin’s Voyages ii, 253 and Lady M. Montague’s Letters p. 200.

<p>113</p>

tīka sīkrītkū, lit. likely to make goats leap, from sīkrīmāk to jump close-footed (Shaw).

<p>114</p>

sīkrīkān dūr. Both sīkrītkū and sīkrīkān dūr, appear to dictate translation in general terms and not by reference to a single traditional leap by one goat.

<p>115</p>

i. e. Russian; it is the Arys tributary of the Sīr.

<p>116</p>

The Fr. map of 1904 shows Kas, in the elbow of the Sīr, which seems to represent Khwāṣ.

<p>117</p>

i. e. the Chīr-chīk tributary of the Sīr.

<p>118</p>

Concerning his name, see T.R. p. 173.

<p>119</p>

i. e. he was a head-man of a horde sub-division, nominally numbering 10,000, and paying their dues direct to the supreme Khān. (T.R. p. 301.)

<p>120</p>

ghūnchachī i.e. one ranking next to the four legal wives, in Turkī aūdālīq, whence odalisque. Bābur and Gul-badan mention the promotion of several to Begīm’s rank by virtue of their motherhood.