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The Bābur-nāma. Babur
Читать онлайн.Название The Bābur-nāma
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Автор произведения Babur
Жанр Зарубежная классика
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Few towns in the whole habitable world are so pleasant as Samarkand. It is of the Fifth Climate and situated in lat. 40° 6’ and long. 99°.339 The name of the town is Samarkand; its country people used to call Mā warā’u’n-nahr (Transoxania).
They used to call it Baldat-i-maḥfūẓa because no foe laid hands on it with storm and sack.340 It must have become341 Musalmān in the time of the Commander of the Faithful, his Highness ‘Usmān. Qus̤am ibn ‘Abbās, one of the Companions342 must have gone there; his burial-place, known as the Tomb of Shāh-i-zinda (The Living Shāh, i. e., Fāqīr) is outside the Iron Gate. Iskandar must have founded Samarkand. The Turk and Mughūl hordes call it Sīmīz-kīnt.343 Tīmūr Beg made it his capital; no ruler so great will ever have made it a capital before (qīlghān aīmās dūr). I ordered people to pace round the ramparts of the walled-town; it came out at 10,000 steps.344 Samarkandīs are all orthodox (sunnī), pure-in-the Faith, law-abiding and religious. The number of Leaders of Islām said to have arisen in Mā warā’u’n-nahr, since the days of his Highness the Prophet, are not known to have arisen in any other country.345 From the Mātarīd suburb of Samarkand came Shaikh Abū’l-manṣūr, one of the Expositors of the Word.346 Of the two sects of Expositors, the Mātarīdiyah and the Ash‘ariyah,347 the first is named from this Shaikh Abū’l-manṣūr. Of Mā warā’u’n-nahr also was Khwāja Ismā‘īl Khartank, the author of the Ṣāḥiḥ-i-bukhārī.348 From the Farghāna district, Marghīnān – Farghāna, though at the limit of settled habitation, is included in Mā warā’u’n-nahr, – came the author of the Hidāyat,349 a book than which few on Jurisprudence are more honoured in the sect of Abū Ḥanīfa.
On the east of Samarkand are Farghāna and Kāshghar; on the west, Bukhārā and Khwārizm; on the north, Tāshkīnt and Shāhrukhiya, – in books written Shāsh and Banākat; and on the south, Balkh and Tīrmīẕ.
The Kohik Water flows along the north of Samarkand, at the distance of some 4 miles (2 kuroh); it is so-called because it comes out from under the upland of the Little Hill (Kohik)350 lying between it and the town. The Dar-i-gham Water (canal) flows along the south, at the distance of some two miles (1 sharī‘). This is a large and swift torrent,351 indeed it is like a large river, cut off from the Kohik Water. All the gardens and suburbs and some of the tūmāns of Samarkand are cultivated by it. By the Kohik Water a stretch of from 30 to 40 yīghāch,352 by road, is made habitable and cultivated, as far as Bukhārā and Qarā-kūl. Large as the river is, it is not too large for its dwellings and its culture; during three or four months of the year, indeed, its waters do not reach Bukhārā.353 Grapes, melons, apples and pomegranates, all fruits indeed, are good in Samarkand; two are famous, its apple and its ṣāḥibī (grape).354 Its winter is mightily cold; snow falls but not so much as in Kābul; in the heats its climate is good but not so good as Kābul’s.
In the town and suburbs of Samarkand are many fine buildings and gardens of Tīmur Beg and Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā.355
In the citadel,356 Tīmūr Beg erected a very fine building, the great four-storeyed kiosque, known as the Gūk Sarāī.357 In the walled-town, again, near the Iron Gate, he built a Friday Mosque358 of stone (sangīn); on this worked many stone-cutters, brought from Hindūstān. Round its frontal arch is inscribed in letters large enough to be read two miles away, the Qu’rān verse, Wa az yerfa‘ Ibrāhīm al Qawā‘id alī akhara.359 This also is a very fine building. Again, he laid out two gardens, on the east of the town, one, the more distant, the Bāgh-i-bulandī,360 the other and nearer, the Bāgh-i-dilkushā.361 From Dilkushā to the Turquoise Gate, he planted an Avenue of White Poplar,362 and in the garden itself erected a great kiosque, painted inside with pictures of his battles in Hindūstān. He made another garden, known as the Naqsh-i-jahān (World’s Picture), on the skirt of Kohik, above the Qarā-sū or, as people also call it, the Āb-i-raḥmat (Water-of-mercy) of Kān-i-gil.363 It had gone to ruin when I saw it, nothing remaining of it except its name. His also are the Bāgh-i-chanār,364 near the walls and below the town on the south,365 also the Bāgh-i-shamāl (North Garden) and the Bāgh-i-bihisht (Garden of Paradise). His own tomb and those of his descendants who have ruled in Samarkand, are in a College, built at the exit (chāqār) of the walled-town, by Muḥammad Sult̤ān Mīrzā, the son of Tīmūr Beg’s son, Jahāngīr Mīrzā.366
Amongst Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā’s buildings inside the town are a College and a monastery (Khānqāh). The dome of the monastery is very large, few so large are shown in the world. Near these two buildings, he constructed an excellent Hot Bath (ḥammām) known as the Mīrzā’s Bath; he had the pavements in this made of all sorts of stone (? mosaic); such another bath is not known in Khurāsān or in Samarkand.367 Again; – to the south of the College is his mosque, known as the Masjid-i-maqat̤a‘ (Carved Mosque) because its ceiling and its walls are all covered with islīmī368 and Chinese pictures formed of segments of wood.369 There is great discrepancy between the qibla of this mosque and that of the College; that of the mosque seems to have been fixed by astronomical observation.
Another of Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā’s fine buildings is an observatory, that is, an instrument for writing Astronomical Tables.370 This stands three storeys high, on the skirt of the Kohik upland. By its means the Mīrzā worked out the Kūrkānī Tables, now used all over the world. Less work is done with any others. Before these were made, people used the Aīl-khānī Tables, put together at Marāgha, by Khwāja Naṣīr Tūsī,371 in the time of Hulākū Khān. Hulākū Khān it is, people call Aīl-khānī.372
(Author’s note.) Not more than seven or eight observatories seem to have been constructed in the world. Māmūm Khalīfa373 (Caliph) made one with which the Mamūmī Tables were written. Batalmūs (Ptolemy) constructed another. Another was made, in Hindūstān, in the time of Rājā Vikramāditya Hīndū, in Ujjain and Dhar, that is, the Mālwa country, now known as Māndū. The Hindūs of Hindūstān use the Tables of this Observatory. They were put together 1,584 years ago.374 Compared with others, they are somewhat defective.
Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā again, made the garden known as the Bāgh-i-maidān (Garden of the Plain), on the skirt of the Kohik upland. In the middle of it he erected a fine building
This statement is confused in the Elp. and Ḥai. MSS. The second appears to give, by abjad, lat. 40° 6" and long. 99'. Mr. Erskine (p. 48) gives lat. 39’ 57" and long. 99’ 16”, noting that this is according to Ūlūgh Beg’s Tables and that the long. is calculated from Ferro. The Ency. Br. of 1910-11 gives lat. 39’ 39" and long. 66’ 45”.
The enigmatical cognomen, Protected Town, is of early date; it is used
Here is a good example of Bābur’s caution in narrative. He does not affirm that Samarkand became Musalmān, or (
For use of the name Fat Village,
d. 333 AH. (944 AD.).
Abū ‘Abdu’l-lāh bin Ismā‘īlu’l-jausī b. 194 AH. d. 256 AH. (810-870 AD.).
This though 2475 ft. above the sea is only some 300 ft. above Samarkand. It is the Chūpān-ātā (Father of Shepherds) of maps and on it Tīmūr built a shrine to the local patron of shepherds. The Zar-afshān, or rather, its Qarā-sū arm, flows from the east of the Little Hill and turns round it to flow west. Bābur uses the name
What this represents can only be guessed; perhaps 150 to 200 miles. Abū’l-fidā (Reinaud ii, 213) quotes Ibn Haukal as saying that from Bukhārā up to “Bottam” (this seems to be where the Zar-afshān emerges into the open land) is eight days’ journey through an unbroken tangle of verdure and gardens.
It is still grown in the Samarkand region, and in Mr. Erskine’s time a grape of the same name was cultivated in Aurangābād of the Deccan.
Mr. Erskine here points out the contradiction between the statements (i) of Ibn Haukal, writing, in 367 AH. (977 AD.), of Samarkand as having a citadel (
Here still lies the Ascension Stone, the
This seems to be the Bībī Khānīm Mosque. The author of
Cap. II. Quoting from Sale’s
or,
In the Heart-expanding Garden, the Spanish Ambassadors had their first interview with Tīmūr.
Judging from the location of the gardens and of Bābur’s camps, this appears to be the Avenue mentioned on f. 39b and f. 40.
The Plane-tree Garden. This seems to be Clavijo’s
The citadel of Samarkand stands high; from it the ground slopes west and south; on these sides therefore gardens outside the walls would lie markedly below the outer-fort (
Tīmūr’s eldest son, d. 805 AH. (1402 AD.), before his father, therefore. Bābur’s wording suggests that in his day, the Gūr-i-amīr was known as the Madrāsa.
Hindūstān would make a better climax here than Samarkand does.
These appear to be pictures or ornamentations of carved wood. Redhouse describes
As ancient observatories were themselves the instruments of astronomical observation, Bābur’s wording is correct. Aūlūgh Beg’s great quadrant was 180 ft. high; Abū-muḥammad
b. 597 AH. d. 672 AH. (1201-1274 AD.).
a grandson of Chīngīz Khān, d. 663 AH. (1265 AD.). The cognomen
Ḥarūnu’r-rashīd’s second son; d. 218 AH. (833 AD.).
Mr. Erskine notes that this remark would seem to fix the date at which Bābur wrote it as 934 AH. (1527 AD.), that being the 1584th. year of the era of Vikramāditya, and therefore at three years before Bābur’s death. (The Vikramāditya era began 57 BC.)