Chapter XXXV: Section III: Hindūstān (9)

Precisely when it was removed from Āgra we have not found stated. It is known from Gul-badan that Kāmrān visited his Father's tomb in Āgra in 1539 AD. (946 AH.) after the battle of Chausa; and it is known from Jauhar that the body had been brought to Kābul before 1544 AD. (952 AH.), at which date Humāyūn, in Kābul, spoke with displeasure of Kāmrān's incivility to "Bega Begīm", the "Bībī" who had conveyed their Father's body to that place.[2740] That the widow who performed this duty was the Afghān Lady, Bībī Mubārika[2741] is made probable by Gul-badan's details of the movements of the royal ladies. Bābur's family left Āgra under Hind-āl's escort, after the defeat at Chausa (June 7th, 1539 AD.); whoever took charge of the body on its journey to Kābul must have returned at some later date to fetch it. It would be in harmony with Sher Shāh's generous character if he safe-guarded her in her task.

The terraced garden Bābur chose for his burial-place lies on the slope of the hill Shāh-i-Kābul, the Sher-darwāza of European writers.[2742] It has been described as perhaps the most beautiful of the Kābul gardens, and as looking towards an unsurpassable view over the Chār-dih plain towards the snows of Paghmān and the barren, rocky hills which have been the hunting-grounds of rulers in Kābul. Several of Bābur's descendants coming to Kābul from Āgra have visited and embellished his burial-garden. Shāh-i-jahān built the beautiful mosque which stands near the grave; Jahāngīr seems to have been, if not the author, at least the prompter of the well-cut inscription adorning the upright slab of white marble of Māīdān, which now stands at the grave-head. The tomb-stone itself is a low grave-covering, not less simple than those of relations and kin whose remains have been placed near Bābur's. In the thirties of the last century [the later Sir] Alexander Burnes visited and admirably described the garden and the tomb. With him was Munshī Mohan Lāl who added to his own account of the beauties of the spot, copies of the inscriptions on the monumental slab and on the portal of the Mosque.[2743] As is shown by the descriptions these two visitors give, and by Daniel's drawings of the garden and the tomb, there were in their time two upright slabs, one behind the other, near the head of the grave. Mr. H. H. Hayden who visited the garden in the first decade of the present century, shows in his photograph of the grave, one upright stone only, the place of one of the former two having been taken by a white-washed lamp holder (_chirāghdān_).

The purport of the verses inscribed on the standing-slab is as follows:—

A ruler from whose brow shone the Light of God was that[2744]
Back-bone of the Faith (_ẕahīru'd-dīn_) Muḥammad Bābur
Pādshāh. Together with majesty, dominion, fortune, rectitude,
the open-hand and the firm Faith, he had share in prosperity,
abundance and the triumph of victorious arms. He won the
material world and became a moving light; for his every
conquest he looked, as for Light, towards the world of souls.
When Paradise became his dwelling and Ruẓwān[2745] asked me
the date, I gave him for answer, "Paradise is forever Bābur
Pādshāh's abode."

_h. Bābur's wives and children._[2746]

Bābur himself mentions several of his wives by name, but Gul-badan is the authority for complete lists of them and their children.

1. `Āyisha Sulṯān Begīm, daughter of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā _Mīrān-shāhī_ was betrothed, when Bābur was _cir._ 5 years old, in 894 AH. (1488-89 AD.), bore Fakhru'n-nisa' in 906 AH. [who died in about one month], left Bābur before 909 AH. (1503 AD.).

2. Zainab Sl. Begīm, daughter of Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā _Mīrān-shāhī_, was married in 910 AH. (1504-5 AD.), died childless two or three years later.

3. Māhīm Begīm, whose parentage is not found stated, was married in 912 AH. (1506 AD.), bore Bār-būd, Mihr-jān, Āīsān-daulat, Farūq [who all died in infancy], and Humāyūn.

4. Ma`ṣūma Sl. Begīm, daughter of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā _Mīrān-shāhī_, was married in 913 AH. (1507 AD.), bore Ma`ṣūma and died at her birth, presumably early in the _lacuna_ of 914-925 AH. (1508-19 AD.).

5. Gul-rukh Begīm, whose parentage is not found stated, was perhaps a Begchīk Mughūl, was married between 914 AH. and 925 AH. (1508-19 AD.), probably early in the period, bore Shāh-rukh, Aḥmad [who both died young], Gul`iẕār [who also may have died young], Kamrān and `Askarī.

6. Dil-dār Begīm, whose parentage is not found stated, was married in the same period as Gul-rukh, bore Gul-rang, Gul-chihra, Hind-āl, Gul-badan and Alwar, [who died in childhood].

7. The Afghān Lady (Afghānī Āghācha), Bībī Mubārika _Yūsufzāī_, was married in 925 AH. (1519 AD.), and died childless.

The two Circassian slaves Gul-nār Āghācha and Nār-gul Āghācha of whom T̤ahmāsp made gift to Bābur in 933 AH. (f. 305), became recognized ladies of the royal household. They are mentioned several times by Gul-badan as taking part in festivities and in family conferences under Humāyūn. Gul-nār is said by Abū'l-faẓl to have been one of Gul-badan's pilgrim band in 983 AH. (1575 AD.).

The above list contains the names of three wives whose parentage is not given or is vaguely given by the well-known sources,—namely, Māhīm, Gul-rukh and Dil-dār. What would sufficiently explain the absence of mention by Bābur of the parentage of Gul-rukh and Dil-dār is that his record of the years within which the two Begīms were married is not now with the _Bābur-nāma_. Presumably it has been lost, whether in diary or narrative form, in the _lacuna_ of 914-25 AH. (1508-19 AD.). Gul-rukh appears to have belonged to the family of Begchīk Mughūls described by Ḥaidar Mīrzā[2747]; her brothers are styled Mīrzā; she was of good but not royal birth. Dil-dār's case is less simple. Nothing in her daughter Gul-badan's book suggests that she and her children were other than of the highest rank; numerous details and shades of expression show their ease of equality with royal personages. It is consistent with Gul-badan's method of enumerating her father's wives that she should not state her own mother's descent; she states it of none of her "mothers". There is this interest in trying to trace Dil-dār's parentage, that she may have been the third daughter of Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā and Pasha Begīm, and a daughter of hers may have been the mother of Salīma Sulṯān Begīm who was given in marriage by Humāyūn to Bairām Khān, later was married by Akbar, and was a woman of charm and literary accomplishments. Later historians, Abū'l-faẓl amongst their number, say that Salīma's mother was a daughter of Bābur's wife Sālḥa Sulṯān Begīm, and vary that daughter's name as Gul-rang-rukh-barg or -`iẕār (the last form being an equivalent of _chihra_, face). As there cannot have been a wife with her daughter growing up in Bābur's household, who does not appear in some way in Gul-badan's chronicle, and as Salīma's descent from Bābur need not be questioned, the knot is most readily loosened by surmising that "Sālḥa" is the real name of Gul-badan's "Dildār". Instances of double names are frequent, _e.g._ Māhīm, Māh-chīchām, Qarā-gūz, Āq, (My Moon, My Moon sister, Black-eyed, Fair). "Heart-holding" (Dil-dār) sounds like a home-name of affection. It is the _Ma`āsir-ī-raḥīmī_ which gives Sālḥa as the name of Bābur's wife, Pasha's third daughter. Its author may be wrong, writing so late as he did (1025 AH.-1616 AD.), or may have been unaware that Sālḥa was (if she were) known as Dil-dār. It would not war against seeming facts to take Pasha's third daughter to be Bābur's wife Dil-dār, and Dil-dār's daughter Gul-chihra to be Salīma's mother. Gul-chihra was born in about 1516 AD., married to Tūkhta-būghā in 1530 AD., widowed in cir. 1533 AD., might have remarried with Nūru'd-dīn _Chaqānīānī_ (Sayyid Amīr), and in 945 AH. might have borne him Salīma; she was married in 1547 AD. (954 AH.) to `Abbās Sulṯān _Aūzbeg_.[2748] Two matters, neither having much weight, make against taking Dil-dār to be a _Mīrān-shāhī_; the first being that the anonymous annotator who added to the archetype of Kehr's Codex what is entered in Appendix L.—_On Māhīm's adoption of Hind-āl_, styles her Dil-dār Āghācha; he, however, may have known no more than others knew of her descent; the second, that Māhīm forcibly took Dil-dār's child Hind-āl to rear; she was the older wife and the mother of the heir, but could she have taken the upper hand over a Mīrān-shāhī? A circumstance complicating the question of Salīma's maternal descent is, that historians searching the _Bābur-nāma_ or its Persian translation the _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_ for information about the three daughters of Maḥmūd _Mīrān-shāhī_ and Pasha _Bahārlū Turkmān_, would find an incomplete record, one in which the husbands of the first and second daughters are mentioned and nothing is said about the third who was Bābur's wife and the grandmother of Salīma. Bābur himself appears to have left the record as it is, meaning to fill it in later; presumably he waited for the names of the elder two sisters to complete his details of the three. In the Ḥaidarabad Codex, which there is good ground for supposing a copy of his original manuscript, about three lines are left blank (f. 27) as if awaiting information; in most manuscripts, however, this indication of intention is destroyed by running the defective passage on to join the next sentence. Some chance remark of a less well-known writer, may clear up the obscurity and show that Sālḥa was Dil-dār.

Māhīm's case seems one having a different cause for silence about her parentage. When she was married in Herāt, shortly after the death of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, Bābur had neither wife nor child. What Abū'l-faẓl tells about her is vague; her father's name is not told; she is said to have belonged to a noble Khurāsān family, to have been related (_nisbat-i-khwesh_) to Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā and to have traced her descent to Shaikh Aḥmad of Jām. If her birth had been high, even though not royal, it is strange that it is not stated by Bābur when he records the birth of her son Humāyūn, incidentally by Gul-badan, or more precisely by Abū'l-faẓl. Her brothers belonged to Khost, and to judge from a considerable number of small records, seem to have been quiet, unwarlike Khwājas. Her marriage took place in a year of which a full record survives; it is one in the composed narrative, not in the diary. In the following year, this also being one included in the composed narrative, Bābur writes of his meeting with Ma`ṣūma _Mīrān-shāhī_ in Herāt, of their mutual attraction, and of their marriage. If the marriage with Humāyūn's mother had been an equal alliance, it would agree with Bābur's custom to mention its occurrence, and to give particulars about Māhīm's descent.[2749]

_i. Mr. William Erskine's estimate of Bābur._

"Z̤ahīru'd-dīn Muḥammad Bābur was undoubtedly one of the most illustrious men of his age, and one of the most eminent and accomplished princes that ever adorned an Asiatic throne. He is represented as having been above the middle size, of great vigour of body, fond of all field and warlike sports, an excellent swordsman, and a skilful archer. As a proof of his bodily strength, it is mentioned, that he used to leap from one pinnacle to another of the pinnacled ramparts used in the East, in his double-soled boots; and that he even frequently took a man under each arm and went leaping along the rampart from one of the pointed pinnacles to another. Having been early trained to the conduct of business, and tutored in the school of adversity, the powers of his mind received full development. He ascended the throne at the age of twelve, and before he had attained his twentieth year, had shared every variety of fortune; he had not only been the ruler of subject provinces but had been in thraldom to his own ambitious nobles, and obliged to conceal every sentiment of his heart; he had been alternately hailed and obeyed as a conqueror and deliverer by rich and extensive kingdoms, and forced to lurk in the deserts and mountains of Farghāna as a houseless wanderer. Down to the last dregs of life, we perceive in him strong feelings of affection for his early friends and early enjoyments. * * * He had been taught betimes, by the voice of events that cannot lie, that he was a man dependent on the kindness and fidelity of other men; and, in his dangers and escapes with his followers, had learned that he was only one of an association. * * * The native benevolence and gaiety of his disposition seems ever to overflow on all around him; * * * of his companions in arms he speaks with the frank gaiety of a soldier. * * * Ambitious he was and fond of conquest and glory in all its shapes; the enterprise in which he was for a season engaged, seems to have absorbed his whole soul, and all his faculties were exerted to bring it to a fortunate issue. His elastic mind was not broken by discomfiture, and few who have achieved such glorious conquests, have suffered more numerous or more decisive defeats. His personal courage was conspicuous during his whole life. Upon the whole, if we review with impartiality the history of Asia, we find few princes entitled to rank higher than Bābur in genius and accomplishments. * * * In activity of mind, in the gay equanimity and unbroken spirit with which he bore the extremes of good and bad fortune, in the possession of the manly and social virtues, in his love of letters and his success in the cultivation of them, we shall probably find no other Asiatic prince who can justly be placed beside him."

THE END.

APPENDICES.

A.—THE SITE AND DISAPPEARANCE OF OLD AKHSĪ.

Some modern writers, amongst whom are Dr. Schuyler, General Nalivkine and Mr. Pumpelly, have inferred from the Bābur-nāma account of Akhsī, (in its translations?) that the landslip through which Bābur's father died and the disappearance of old Akhsī were brought about by erosion. Seen by the light of modern information, this erosion theory does not seem to cover the whole ground and some other cause seems necessary in explanation of both events.

For convenience of reference, the Bābur-nāma passages required, are quoted here, with their translations.

Ḥai. MS. f. 4b. _Saiḥūn daryā-sī qūrghānī astīdīn āqār.
Qūrghānī baland jar austīdā wāqī' būlūb tūr. Khandaqī-nīng
aūrunīgha `umīq jārlār dūr. `Umar Shaikh M. kīm mūnī pāy-takht
qīldī, bīr īkī martaba tāshrāq-dīn yana jarlār sāldī._

Of this the translations are as follows:—

(_a_) Pers. trans. (I.O. 217, f. 3_b_): _Daryā-i Saiḥūn az
pāyhā qila`-i o mīrezad u qila`-i o bar jar balandī wāqi`
shuda ba jāy khandaq jarhā-i `umīq uftāda. `U. Sh. M. kah ānrā
pāy-takht sākhta, yak du martaba az bīrūn ham bāz jarhā
andākht._

(_b_) Erskine (p. 5, translating from the Persian): 'The river
Saiḥūn flows under the walls of the castle. The castle is
situated on a high precipice, and the steep ravines around
serve instead of a moat. When U. Sh. M. made it his capital
he, in one or two instances, scarped the ravines outside the
fort.'

(_c_) De Courteille (i, 8, translating from Ilminsky's
imprint, p. 6): 'Le Seihoun coule au pied de la fortresse qui
se dresse sur le sommet d'un ravin, dont les profondeurs lui
tiennent lieu d'un fossé. `U. Sh. M. à l'époque où il en avait
fait son capitale, avait augmenté à une ou deux réprises, les
escarpements qui la ceignent naturellement.'

Concerning `Umar Shaikh's death, the words needed are (f. 6_b_);—

_Maẕkūr būlūb aīdī kīm Akhsī qūrghānī buland jar austīdā wāqi`
būlūb tūr. `Imāratlār jar yāqāsīdā aīrdī.... Mīrzā jardīn
kabūtar u kabūtar-khāna bīla aūchūb shunqār būldī_;—'It has been
mentioned that the walled-town of Akhsī is situated above
ravine(s). The royal dwellings are along a ravine. The Mīrzā,
having flown with his pigeons and their house from the ravine,
became a falcon (_i.e._ died).'

A few particulars about Akhsī will shew that, in the translations just quoted, certain small changes of wording are dictated by what, amongst other writers, Kostenko and von Schwarz have written about the oases of Turkistān.

The name Akhsī, as used by Ibn Haukal, Yāqūt and Bābur, describes an oasis township, _i.e._ a walled-town with its adjacent cultivated lands. In Yāqūt's time Akhsī had a second circumvallation, presumably less for defence than for the protection of crops against wild animals. The oasis was created by the Kāsān-water,[2750] upon the riverain loess of the right and higher bank of the Saiḥūn (Sīr), on level ground west of the junction of the Nārīn and the Qarā-daryā, west too of spurs from the northern hills which now abut upon the river. Yāqūt locates it in the 12th century, at one _farsākh_ (_circa_ 4 m.) north of the river.[2751] Depending as it did solely on the Kāsān-water, nothing dictated its location close to the Sīr, along which there is now, and there seems to have been in the 12th century, a strip of waste land. Bābur says of Akhsī what Kostenko says (i, 321) of modern Tāshkīnt, that it stood above ravines (_jarlār_). These were natural or artificial channels of the Kāsān-water.[2752]

To turn now to the translations;—Mr. Erskine imaged Akhsī as a castle, high on a precipice in process of erosion by the Sīr. But Bābur's word, _qūrghān_ means the walled-town; his word for a castle is _ark_, citadel; and his _jar_, a cleft, is not rendered by 'precipice.' Again;—it is no more necessary to understand that the Sīr flowed close to the walls than it is to understand, when one says the Thames flows past below Richmond, that it washes the houses on the hill.

The key to the difficulties in the Turkī passage is provided by a special use of the word _jar_ for not only natural ravines but artificial water-cuts for irrigation. This use of it makes clear that what `Umar Shaikh did at Akhsī was not to make escarpments but to cut new water-channels. Presumably he joined those 'further out' on the deltaic fan, on the east and west of the town, so as to secure a continuous defensive cleft round the town[2753] or it may be, in order to bring it more water.

Concerning the historic pigeon-house (f. 6_b_), it can be said safely that it did not fall into the Sīr; it fell from a _jar_, and in this part of its course, the river flows in a broad bed, with a low left bank. Moreover the Mīrzā's residence was in the walled-town (f. 110_b_) and there his son stayed 9 years after the accident. The slip did not affect the safety of the residence therefore; it may have been local to the birds' house. It will have been due to some ordinary circumstance since no cause for it is mentioned by Bābur, Ḥaidar or Abū'l-faẓl. If it had marked the crisis of the Sīr's approach, Akhsī could hardly have been described, 25 years later, as a strong fort.

Something is known of Akhsī, in the 10th, the 12th, the 15th and the 19th centuries, which testifies to sæcular decadence. Ibn Haukal and Yāqūt give the township an extent of 3 _farsākh_ (12 miles), which may mean from one side to an opposite one. Yāqūt's description of it mentions four gates, each opening into well-watered lands extending a whole _farsākh_, in other words it had a ring of garden-suburb four miles wide.

Two meanings have been given to Bābur's words indicating the status of the oasis in the 15th century. They are, _maḥallātī qūrghān-dīn bīr shar`ī yurāqrāq tūshūb tūr_. They have been understood as saying that the suburbs were two miles from their _urbs_. This may be right but I hesitate to accept it without pointing out that the words may mean, 'Its suburbs extend two miles farther than the walled-town.' Whichever verbal reading is correct, reveals a decayed oasis.

In the 19th century, Nalivkine and Ujfalvy describe the place then bearing the name Akhsī, as a small village, a mere winter-station, at some distance from the river's bank, that bank then protected from denudation by a sand-bank.

Three distinctly-marked stages of decadence in the oasis township are thus indicated by Yāqūt, Bābur and the two modern travellers.

It is necessary to say something further about the position of the suburbs in the 15th century. Bābur quotes as especially suitable to Akhsī, the proverbial questions, 'Where is the village?'[2754] (qy. Akhsī-kīnt.) 'Where are the trees?' and these might be asked by some-one in the suburbs unable to see Akhsī or _vice versâ_. But granting that there were no suburbs within two miles of the town, why had the whole inner circle, two miles of Yāqūt's four, gone out of cultivation? Erosion would have affected only land between the river and the town.

Again;—if the Sīr only were working in the 15th century to destroy a town standing on the Kāsān-water, how is it that this stream does not yet reach the Sīr?

Various ingatherings of information create the impression that failure of Kāsān-water has been the dominant factor in the loss of the Akhsī township. Such failure might be due to the general desiccation of Central Asia and also to increase of cultivation in the Kāsān-valley itself. There may have been erosion, and social and military change may have had its part, but for the loss of the oasis lands and for, as a sequel, the decay of the town, desiccation seems a sufficient cause.

The Kāsān-water still supports an oasis on its riverain slope, the large Aūzbeg town of Tūpa-qūrghān (Town-of-the-hill), from the modern castle of which a superb view is had up the Kāsān-valley, now thickly studded with villages.[2755]

B.—THE BIRDS, QĪL QŪYIRŪGH AND BĀGHRĪ QARĀ.

Describing a small bird (_qūsh-qīna_), abundant in the Qarshī district (f. 49_b_), Bābur names it the _qīl-qūyirūgh_, horse-tail, and says it resembles the _bāghrī qarā_.

Later on he writes (f. 280) that the _bāghrī qarā_ of India is smaller and more slender than 'those' _i.e._ of Transoxiana (f. 49_b_, n. 1), the blackness of its breast less deep, and its cry less piercing.

We have had difficulty in identifying the birds but at length conclude that the _bāghrī qarā_ of Transoxiana is _Pterocles arenarius_, Pallas's black-bellied sand-grouse and that the Indian one is a smaller sand-grouse, perhaps a _Syrrhaptes_. As the _qīl qūyirūgh_ resembles the other two, it may be a yet smaller _Syrrhaptes_.

Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ, writing of sport Shaibāq Khān had in Qarshī (_Shaibānī-nāma_, Vambéry, p. 192) mentions the 'Little bird (_murghak_) of Qarshī,' as on all sides making lament. The Sang-lākh[2756] gives its Persian name as _khar-pala_, ass-hair, says it flies in large flocks and resembles the _bāghrī qarā_. Of the latter he writes as abundant in the open country and as making noise (_bāghīr_).

The Sang-lākh (f. 119) gives the earliest and most informing account we have found of the _bāghrī qarā_. Its says the bird is larger than a pigeon, marked with various colours, yellow especially, black-breasted and a dweller in the stony and waterless desert. These details are followed by a quotation from `Alī-sher _Nawā'ī_, in which he likens his own heart to that of the bird of the desert, presumably referring to the gloom of the bird's plumage. Three synonyms are then given; Ar. _qiṯā_, one due to its cry (Meninsky); Pers. _sang-shikan_, stone-eating, (Steingass, _sang-khwāra_, stone-eating); and Turkī _bāghīr-tīlāq_ which refers, I think, to its cry.

Morier (Ḥājī Bābā) in his _Second journey through Persia_ (Lond. 1818, p. 181), mentions that a bird he calls the black-breasted partridge, (_i.e._ _Francolinus vulgaris_) is known in Turkish as _bokara kara_ and in Persian as _siyāh-sīna_, both names, (he says), meaning black-breast; that it has a horse-shoe of black feathers round the forepart of the trunk, more strongly marked in the female than in the male; that they fly in flocks of which he saw immense numbers near Tabrīz (p. 283), have a soft note, inhabit the plains, and, once settled, do not run. Cock and hen alike have a small spur,—a characteristic, it may be said, identifying rather with _Francolinus vulgaris_ than with _Pterocles arenarius_. Against this identification, however, is Mr. Blandford's statement that _siyāh-sīna_ (Morier's _bokara kara_) is _Pterocles arenarius_ (Report of the Persian Boundary Commission, ii, 271).

In Afghānistān and Bikanir, the sand-grouse is called _tūtūrak_ and _boora kurra_ (Jerdon, ii, 498). Scully explains _baghītāq_ as _Pterocles arenarius_.

Perhaps I may mention something making me doubt whether it is correct to translate _bāghrī qarā_ by _black-liver_ and _gorge-noir_ or other names in which the same meaning is expressed. To translate thus, is to understand a Turkī noun and adjective in Persian construction, and to make exception to the rule, amply exemplified in lists of birds, that Turkī names of birds are commonly in Turkī construction, _e.g._ _qarā bāsh_ (black-head), _āq-bāsh_ (white-head), _sārīgh-sūndūk_ (yellow-headed wagtail). _Bāghīr_ may refer to the cry of the bird. We learn from Mr. Ogilvie Grant that the Mongol name for the sand-grouse _njūpterjūn_, is derived from its cry in flight, _truck_, _truck_, and its Arabic name _qiṯā_ is said by Meninsky to be derived from its cry _kaetha_, _kaetha_. Though the dissimilarity of the two cries is against taking the _njūpterjūn_ and the _qiṯā_ to be of one class of sand-grouse, the significance of the derivation of the names remains, and shows that there are examples in support of thinking that when a sand-grouse is known as _bāghrī qarā_, it may be so known because of its cry (_bāghir_).

The word _qarā_ finds suggestive interpretation in a B. N. phrase (f. 72_b_) _Taṃbal-nīng qarā-sī_, Taṃbal's blackness, _i.e._ the dark mass of his moving men, seen at a distance. It is used also for an indefinite number, _e.g._ 'family, servants, retainers, followers, _qarā_,' and I think it may imply a massed flock.

Bābur's words (f. 280) _bāghrī-nīng qarā-sī ham kam dūr_, [its belly (lit. liver) also is less black], do not necessarily contradict the view that the word _bāghrī_ in the bird's name means crying. The root _bāgh_ has many and pliable derivatives; I suspect both Bābur (here) and Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ (l. c.) of ringing changes on words.

We are indebted for kind reply to our questions to Mr. Douglas Carruthers, Mr. Ogilvie Grant and to our friend, Mr. R. S. Whiteway.

C.—ON THE GOSHA-GĪR.

I am indebted to my husband's examination of two Persian MSS. on archery for an explanation of the word _gosha-gīr_, in its technical sense in archery. The works consulted are the Cyclopædia of Archery (_Kulliyatu'r-rāmī_ I. O. 2771) and the Archer's Guide (_Hidāyatu'r-rāmī_ I. O. 2768).

It should be premised that in archery, the word _gosha_ describes, in the arrow, the notch by which it grips and can be carried on the string, and, in the bow, both the tip (horn) and the notch near the tip in which the string catches. It is explained by Vullers as _cornu et crena arcûs cui immititur nervus_.

Two passages in the Cyclopædia of Archery (f. 9 and f. 36_b_) shew _gosha_ as the bow-tip. One says that to bend the bow, two men must grasp the two _gosha_; the other reports a tradition that the Archangel Gabriel brought a bow having its two _gosha_ (tips) made of ruby. The same book directs that the _gosha_ be made of seasoned ivory, the Archer's Guide prescribing seasoned mulberry wood.

The C. of A. (f. 125_b_) says that a bowman should never be without two things, his arrows and his _gosha-gīr_. The _gosha-gīr_ may be called an item of the repairing kit; it is an implement (f. 53) for making good a warped bow-tip and for holding the string into a displaced notch. It is known also as the _chaprās_, brooch or buckle, and the _kardāng_; and is said to bear these names because it fastens in the string. Its shape is that of the upper part of the Ar. letter _jīm_, two converging lines of which the lower curves slightly outward. It serves to make good a warped bow, without the use of fire and it should be kept upon the bow-tip till this has reverted to its original state. Until the warp has been straightened by the _gosha-gīr_, the bow must be kept from the action of fire because it, (composite of sinew and glutinous substance,) is of the nature of wax.

The same implement can be used to straighten the middle of the bow, the _kamān khāna_. It is then called _kar-dāng_. It can be used there on condition that there are not two _daur_ (curves) in the bow. If there are two the bow cannot be repaired without fire. The _halāl daur_ is said to be characteristic of the Turkish bow. There are three _daur_. I am indebted to Mr. Inigo Simon for the suggestions that _daur_ in this connection means _warp_ and that the three twists (_daur_) may be those of one horn (_gosha_), of the whole bow warped in one curve, and of the two horns warped in opposite directions.

Of repair to the _kamān-khāna_ it is said further that if no _kardāng_ be available, its work can be done by means of a stick and string, and if the damage be slight only, the bow and the string can be tightly tied together till the bow comes straight. 'And the cure is with God!'

Both manuscripts named contain much technical information. Some parts of this are included in my husband's article, _Oriental Crossbows_ (A. Q. R. 1911, p. 1). Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's interesting book on the Cross-bow allows insight into the fine handicraft of Turkish bow-making.

D.—ON THE RESCUE PASSAGE.

I have omitted from my translation an account of Bābur's rescue from expected death, although it is with the Ḥaidarābād Codex, because closer acquaintance with its details has led both my husband and myself to judge it spurious. We had welcomed it because, being with the true Bābur-nāma text, it accredited the same account found in the Kehr-Ilminsky text, and also because, however inefficiently, it did something towards filling the gap found elsewhere within 908 AH.

It is in the Ḥaidarābād MS. (f. 118_b_), in Kehr's MS. (p. 385), in Ilminsky's imprint (p. 144), in _Les Mémoires de Bābour_ (i, 255) and with the St. P. University Codex, which is a copy of Kehr's.

On the other hand, it is not with the Elphinstone Codex (f. 89_b_); that it was not with the archetype of that codex the scribe's note shews (f. 90); it is with neither of the _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_ (Pers. translations) nor with Leyden and Erskine's _Memoirs_ (p. 122).[2757]

Before giving our grounds for rejecting what has been offered to fill the gap of 908 AH. a few words must be said about the lacuna itself. Nothing indicates that Bābur left it and, since both in the Elphinstone Codex and its archetype, the sentence preceding it lacks the terminal verb, it seems due merely to loss of pages. That the loss, if any, was of early date is clear,—the Elph. MS. itself being copied not later than 1567 AD. (JRAS. 1907, p. 137).

Two known circumstances, both of earlier date than that of the Elphinstone Codex, might have led to the loss,—the first is the storm which in 935 AH. scattered Bābur's papers (f. 376_b_), the second, the vicissitudes to which Humāyūn's library was exposed in his exile.[2758] Of the two the first seems the more probable cause.

The rupture of a story at a point so critical as that of Bābur's danger in Karnān would tempt to its completion; so too would wish to make good the composed part of the Bābur-nāma. Humāyūn annotated the archetype of the Elphinstone Codex a good deal but he cannot have written the Rescue passage if only because he was in a position to avoid some of its inaccuracies.

CONTEXT AND TRANSLATION OF THE RESCUE PASSAGE.

To facilitate reference, I quote the last words preceding the gap purported to be filled by the Rescue passage, from several texts;—

(_a_) Elphinstone MS. f. 89_b_,—_Qūptūm. Bāgh gosha-sī-gha bārdīm. Aūzūm bīla andesha qīldīm. Dīdīm kīm kīshī agar yūz u agar mīng yāshāsā, ākhir hech...._

(_b_) The Ḥai. MS. (f. 118_b_) varies from the Elphinstone by omitting the word _hech_ and adding _aūlmāk kīrāk_, he must die.

(_c_) Pāyanda-ḥasan's _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_ (I. O. 215, f. 96_b_),—_Barkhwāstam u dar gosha-i bāgh raftam. Ba khūd andesha karda, guftam kah agar kase ṣad sāl yā hazār sāl `umr dāshta bāshad, ākhir hech ast._ (It will be seen that this text has the _hech_ of the Elph. MS.)

(_d_) `Abdu'r-raḥīm's _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_ (I. O. 217, f. 79),—_Barkhwāstam u ba gosha-i-bāgh raftam. Ba khūd andeshīdam u guftam kah agar kase ṣad sāl u agar hazār sāl `umr bayābad ākhir...._

(_e_) Muḥ. _Shīrāzī's_ lith. ed. (p. 75) finishes the sentence with _ākhir khūd bāyad murd_, at last one must die,—varying as it frequently does, from both of the _Wāqi`āt_.

(_f_) Kehr's MS. (p. 383-454), Ilminsky, p. 144,—_Qūpūb bāghnīng bīr būrjī-ghā bārīb, khāṯirīm-ghā kīltūrdīm kīm agar adam yūz yīl u agar mīng yīl tīrīk būlsā, ākhir aūlmāk dīn aūzkā chāra yūq tūr._ (I rose. Having gone to a tower of the garden, I brought it to my mind that if a person be alive 100 years or a thousand years, at last he has no help other than to die.)

The Rescue passage is introduced by a Persian couplet, identified by my husband as from Niẕāmī's _Khusrau u Shīrīn_, which is as follows;—

If you stay a hundred years, and if one year,
Forth you must go from this heart-delighting palace.

I steadied myself for death (_qarār bīrdīm_). In that garden a stream
came flowing;[2759] I made ablution; I recited the prayer of two
inclinations (_ra`kat_); having raised my head for silent prayer, I
was making earnest petition when my eyes closed in sleep.[2760] I am
seeing[2761] that Khwāja Yaq`ūb, the son of Khwāja Yaḥyā and
grandson of His Highness Khwāja `Ubaidu'l-lāh, came facing me,
mounted on a piebald horse, with a large company of piebald horsemen
(_sic_).[2762] He said: 'Lay sorrow aside! Khwāja _Aḥrār_ (_i.e._
`Ubaidu'l-lāh) has sent me to you; he said, "We, having asked help
for him (_i.e._ Bābur), will seat him on the royal throne;[2763]
wherever difficulty befalls him, let him look towards us (lit. bring
us to sight) and call us to mind; there will we be present." Now, in
this hour, victory and success are on your side; lift up your head!
awake!'

At that time I awoke happy, when Yūsuf and those with him[2764] were
giving one another advice. 'We will make a pretext to deceive; to
seize and bind[2765] is necessary.' Hearing these words, I said,
'Your words are of this sort, but I will see which of you will come
to my presence to take me.' I was saying this when outside the garden
wall[2766] came the noise of approaching horsemen. Yūsuf _darogha_
said, 'If we had taken you to Taṃbal our affairs would have gone
forward. Now he has sent again many persons to seize you.' He was
certain that this noise might be the footfall of the horses of those
sent by Taṃbal. On hearing those words anxiety grew upon me; what to
do I did not know. At this time those horsemen, not happening to find
the garden gate, broke down the wall where it was old (and) came in.
I saw (_kūrsām_, lit. might see) that Qutluq Muḥ. _Barlās_ and Bābā-i
_Pargharī_, my life-devoted servants, having arrived [with], it may
be, ten, fifteen, twenty persons, were approaching. Having flung
themselves from their horses,[2767] bent the knee from afar and
showed respect, they fell at my feet. In that state (_ḥal_) such
ecstasy (_ḥāl_) came over me that you might say (_goyā_) God gave me
life from a new source (_bāsh_). I said, 'Seize and bind that Yūsuf
_darogha_ and these here (_tūrghān_) hireling mannikins.' These same
mannikins had taken to flight. They (_i.e._ the rescuers), having
taken them, one by one, here and there, brought them bound. I said,
'Where do you come from? How did you get news?' Qutluq Muḥ. _Barlās_
said: 'When, having fled from Akhsī, we were separated from you in
the flight, we went to Andijān when the Khāns also came to Andijān. I
saw a vision that Khwāja `Ubaidu'l-lāh said, "Bābur _pādshāh_[2768]
is in a village called Karnān; go and bring him, since the royal seat
(_masnad_) has become his possession (_ta`alluq_)." I having seen
this vision and become happy, represented (the matter) to the Elder
Khān (and) the Younger Khān. I said to the Khāns, "I have five or six
younger brothers (and) sons; do you add a few soldiers. I will go
through the Karnān side and bring news." The Khāns said, "It occurs
to our minds also that (he) may have gone that same road (?)." They
appointed ten persons; they said, "Having gone in that direction
(_sārī_) and made very sure, bring news. Would to God you might get
true news!" We were saying this when Bābā-i _Parghārī_ said, "I too
will go and seek." He also having agreed with two young men, (his)
younger brothers, we rode out. It is three days to-day that we are
on the road. Thank God! we have found you.' They said (_dīdīlār_, for
_dīb_). They spoke (_aītīlār_), 'Make a move! Ride off! Take these
bound ones with you! To stay here is not well; Taṃbal has had news of
your coming here; go, in whatever way, and join yourself to the
Khāns!' At that time we having ridden out, moved towards Andijān. It
was two days that we had eaten no food; the evening prayer had come
when we found a sheep, went on, dismounted, killed, and roasted. Of
that same roast we ate as much as a feast. After that we rode on,
hurried forward, made a five days' journey in a day and two nights,
came and entered Andijān. I saluted my uncle the Elder Khān (and) my
uncle the Younger Khān, and made recital of past days. With the Khāns
I spent four months. My servants, who had gone looking in every
place, gathered themselves together; there were more than 300
persons. It came to my mind (_kīm_), 'How long must I wander, a
vagabond (_sar-gardān_),[2769] in this Farghāna country? I will make
search (_ṯalab_) on every side (_dīb_).' Having said, I rode out in
the month of Muḥarram to seek Khurāsān, and I went out from the
country of Farghāna.[2770]

REASONS AGAINST THE REJECTION OF THE RESCUE PASSAGE.

Two circumstances have weight against rejecting the passage, its presence with the Ḥaidarābād Codex and its acceptance by Dr. Ilminsky and M. de Courteille.

That it is with the Codex is a matter needing consideration and this the more that it is the only extra matter there found. Not being with the Persian translations, it cannot be of early date. It seems likely to owe its place of honour to distinguished authorship and may well be one of the four portions (_juzwe_) mentioned by Jahāngīr in the Tuzūk-i-jahāngīrī,[2771] as added by himself to his ancestor's book. If so, it may be mentioned, it will have been with Bābur's autograph MS. [now not to be found], from which the Ḥaidarābād Codex shews signs of being a direct copy.[2772]

[The incongruity of the Rescue passage with the true text has been indicated by foot-notes to the translation of it already given. What condemns it on historic and other grounds will follow.]

On linguistic grounds it is a strong argument in its favour that Dr. Ilminsky and M. de Courteille should have accepted it but the argument loses weight when some of the circumstances of their work are taken into account.

In the first place, it is not strictly accurate to regard Dr. Ilminsky as accepting it unquestioned, because it is covered by his depreciatory remarks, made in his preface, on Kehr's text. He, like M. de Courteille, worked with a single Turkī MS. and neither of the two ever saw a complete true text. When their source (the Kehr-Ilminsky) was able to be collated with the Elph. and Ḥai. MSS. much and singular divergence was discovered.

I venture to suggest what appears to me to explain M. de Courteille's acceptance of the Rescue passage. Down to its insertion, the Kehr-Ilminsky text is so continuously and so curiously corrupt that it seems necessary to regard it as being a re-translation into Turkī from one of the Persian translations of the _Bābur-nāma_. There being these textual defects in it, it would create on the mind of a reader initiated through it, only, in the book, an incorrect impression of Bābur's style and vocabulary, and such a reader would feel no transition when passing on from it to the Rescue passage.

In opposition to this explanation, it might be said that a wrong standard set up by the corrupt text, would or could be changed by the excellence of later parts of the Kehr-Ilminsky one. In words, this is sound, no doubt, and such reflex criticism is now easy, but more than the one defective MS. was wanted even to suggest the need of such reflex criticism. The _Bābur-nāma_ is lengthy, ponderous to poise and grasp, and work on it is still tentative, even with the literary gains since the Seventies.

Few of the grounds which weigh with us for the rejection of the Rescue passage were known to Dr. Ilminsky or M. de Courteille;—the two good Codices bring each its own and varied help; Teufel's critique on the 'Fragments,' though made without acquaintance with those adjuncts as they stand in Kehr's own volume, is of much collateral value; several useful oriental histories seem not to have been available for M. de Courteille's use. I may add, for my own part, that I have the great advantage of my husband's companionship and the guidance of his wide acquaintance with related oriental books. In truth, looking at the drawbacks now removed, an earlier acceptance of the passage appears as natural as does today's rejection.

GROUNDS FOR REJECTING THE RESCUE PASSAGE.

The grounds for rejecting the passage need here little more than recapitulation from my husband's article in the JASB. 1910, p. 221, and are as follows;—

i. The passage is in neither of the _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_.

ii. The dreams detailed are too à propos and marvellous for
credence.

iii. Khwāja Yaḥyā is not known to have had a son, named
Ya`qūb.

iv. The _Bābur-nāma_ does not contain the names assigned to
the rescuers.

v. The Khāns were not in Andijān and Bābur did not go there.

vi. He did not set out for Khurāsān after spending 4 months
with The Khāns but after Aḥmad's death (end of 909 AH.), while
Maḥmud was still in Eastern Turkistān and after about a year's
stay in Sūkh.

vii. The followers who gathered to him were not 'more than
300' but between 2 and 300.

viii. The '3 days,' and the 'day and two nights,' and the '5
days' journey was one of some 70 miles, and one recorded as
made in far less time.

ix. The passage is singularly inadequate to fill a gap of 14
to 16 months, during which events of the first importance
occurred to Bābur and to the Chaghatāī dynasty.

x. Khwāja _Aḥrārī's_ promises did nothing to fulfil Bābur's
wishes for 908 AH. while those of Ya`qūb for immediate victory
were closely followed by defeat and exile. Bābur knew the
facts; the passage cannot be his. It looks as though the
writer saw Bābur in Karnān across Tīmūrid success in
Hindūstān.

xi. The style and wording of the passage are not in harmony
with those of the true text.

Other reasons for rejection are marked change in choice of the details chosen for commemoration, _e.g._ when Bābur mentions prayer, he does so simply; when he tells a dream, it seems a real one. The passage leaves the impression that the writer did not think in Turkī, composed in it with difficulty, and looked at life from another view-point than Bābur's.

On these various grounds, we have come to the conclusion that it is no part of the _Bābur-nāma_.

[APPENDICES TO THE KĀBUL SECTION.]

E.—NAGARAHĀR, AND NĪNG-NAHĀR

Those who consult books and maps about the riverain tract between the Safed-koh (Spīn-ghur) and (Anglicé) the Kābul-river find its name in several forms, the most common being Nangrahār and Nangnahār (with variant vowels). It would be useful to establish a European book-name for the district. As European opinion differs about the origin and meaning of the names now in use, and as a good deal of interesting circumstance gathers round the small problem of a correct form (there may be two), I offer about the matter what has come into the restricted field of my own work, premising that I do this merely as one who drops a casual pebble on the cairn of observation already long rising for scholarly examination.

_a. The origin and meaning of the names._

I have met with three opinions about the origin and meaning of the names found now and earlier. To each one of them obvious objection can be made. They are:—

1. That all forms now in use are corruptions of the Sanscrit
word Nagarahāra, the name of the Town-of-towns which in the
_dū-āb_ of the Bārān-sū and Sūrkh-rūd left the ruins Masson
describes in Wilson's _Ariana Antigua_. But if this is so, why
is the Town-of-towns multiplied into the nine of Na-nagrahār
(Nangrahār)?[2773]

2. That the names found represent Sanscrit _nawā vihāra_, nine
monasteries, an opinion the Gazetteer of India of 1907 has
adopted from Bellew. But why precisely nine monasteries? Nine
appears an understatement.

3. That Nang (Ning or Nung) -nahār verbally means nine
streams, (Bābur's Tūqūz-rūd,) an interpretation of long
standing (Section _b infra_). But whence _nang_, _ning_,
_nung_, for nine? Such forms are not in Persian, Turkī or
Pushtu dictionaries, and, as Sir G. A. Grierson assures me, do
not come into the Linguistic Survey.

_b. On nang, ning, nung for nine._

Spite of their absence from the natural homes of words, however, the above sounds have been heard and recorded as symbols of the number nine by careful men through a long space of time.

The following instances of the use of "Nangnahār" show this, and also show that behind the variant forms there may be not a single word but two of distinct origin and sense.

1. In Chinese annals two names appear as those of the district
and town (I am not able to allocate their application with
certainty). The first is Na-kie-lo-ho-lo, the second
Nang-g-lo-ho-lo and these, I understand to represent
Nagara-hāra and Nang-nahār, due allowance being made for
Chinese idiosyncrasy.[2774]

2. Some 900 years later (1527-30 AD.) Bābur also gives two
names, Nagarahār (as the book-name of his _tūmān_) and
Nīng-nahār.[2775] He says the first is found in several
histories (B.N. f. 131_b_); the second will have been what he
heard and also presumably what appeared in revenue accounts;
of it he says, "it is nine torrents" (_tūqūz-rūd_).

3. Some 300 years after Bābur, Elphinstone gives two names
for the district, neither of them being Bābur's book-name,
"Nangrahaur[2776] or Nungnahaur, from the nine streams which
issue from the Safed-koh, _nung_ in Pushtoo signifying _nine_,
and _nahaura_, a stream" (_Caubul_, i, 160).

4. In 1881 Colonel H. S. Tanner had heard, in Nūr-valley on
the north side of the Kābul-water, that the name of the
opposite district was Nīng-nahār and its meaning Nine-streams.
He did not get a list of the nine and all he heard named do
not flow from Safed-koh.

5. In 1884 Colonel H. G. McGregor gives two names with their
explanation, "Ningrahar and Nungnihar; the former is a
corruption of the latter word[2777] which in the Afghān
language signifies nine rivers or rivulets." He names nine,
but of them six only issue from Safed-koh.

6. I have come across the following instances in which the
number nine is represented by other words than _na_ (_ni_ or
_nu_); _viz._ the _nenhan_ of the Chitrālī Kāfir and the
_noun_ of the Panjābi, recorded by Leech,—the _nyon_ of the
Khowārī and the _huncha_ of the Boorishki, recorded by Colonel
Biddulph.

The above instances allow opinion that in the region concerned and through a long period of time, nine has been expressed by _nang_ (_ning_ or _nung_) and other nasal or high palatal sounds, side by side with _na_ (_ni_ or _nu_). The whole matter may be one of nasal utterance,[2778] but since a large number of tribesmen express nine by a word containing a nasal sound, should that word not find place in lists of recognized symbols of sounds?

_c. Are there two names of distinct origin?_

1. Certainly it makes a well-connected story of decay in the Sanscrit word Nagarahāra to suppose that tribesmen, prone by their organism to nasal utterance, pronounced that word Nangrahār, and by force of their numbers made this corruption current,—that this was recognized as the name of the town while the Town-of-towns was great or in men's memory, and that when through the decay of the town its name became a meaningless husk, the wrong meaning of the Nine-streams should enter into possession.

But as another and better one can be put together, this fair-seeming story may be baseless. Its substitute has the advantage of explaining the double sequence of names shown in Section _b_.

The second story makes all the variant names represent one or other of two distinct originals. It leaves Nagrahār to represent Nagarahāra, the dead town; it makes the nine torrents of Safed-koh the primeval sponsors of Nīng-nahār, the name of the riverain tract. Both names, it makes contemporary in the relatively brief interlude of the life of the town. For the fertilizing streams will have been the dominant factors of settlement and of revenue from the earliest times of population and government. They arrest the eye where they and their ribbons of cultivation space the riverain waste; they are obvious units for grouping into a sub-government. Their name has a counterpart in adjacent Panj-āb; the two may have been given by one dominant power, how long ago, in what tongue matters not. The riverain tract, by virtue of its place on a highway of transit, must have been inhabited long before the town Nagarahāra was built, and must have been known by a name. What better one than Nine-streams can be thought of?

2. Bellew is quoted by the Gazetteer of India (ed. 1907) as saying, in his argument in favour of _nawā vihāra_, that no nine streams are found to stand sponsor, but modern maps shew nine outflows from Safed-koh to the Kābul-river between the Sūrkh-rūd and Daka, while if affluents to the former stream be reckoned, more than nine issue from the range.[2779]

Against Bellew's view that there are not nine streams, is the long persistence of the number nine in the popular name (Sect. _b_).

It is also against his view that he supposes there were nine monasteries, because each of the nine must have had its fertilizing water.

Bābur says there were nine; there must have been nine of significance; he knew his _tūmān_ not only by frequent transit but by his revenue accounts. A supporting point in those accounts is likely to have been that the individual names of the villages on the nine streams would appear, with each its payment of revenue.

3. In this also is some weight of circumstance against taking Nagarahāra to be the parent of Nīng-nahār:—An earlier name of the town is said to be Udyānapūra, Garden town.[2780] Of this Bābur's Adīnapūr is held to be a corruption; the same meaning of garden has survived on approximately the same ground in Bālā-bāgh and Roẓābād.

Nagarahāra is seen, therefore, to be a parenthetical name between others which are all derived from gardens. It may shew the promotion of a "Garden-town" to a "Chief-town". If it did this, there was relapse of name when the Chief-town lost status. Was it ever applied beyond the delta? If it were, would it, when dead in the delta, persist along the riverain tract? If it were not, _cadit quæstio_; the suggestion of two names distinct in origin, is upheld.

Certainly the riverain tract would fall naturally under the government of any town flourishing in the delta, the richest and most populous part of the region. But for this very reason it must have had a name older than parenthetical Nagarahāra. That inevitable name would be appropriately Nīng-nahār (or Na-nahār) Nine-streams; and for a period Nagarahāra would be the Chief-town of the district of Na-nahār (Nine-streams).[2781]

_d. Bābur's statements about the name._

What the cautious Bābur says of his _tūmān_ of Nīng-nahār has weight:—

1. That some histories write it Nagarahār (Ḥaidarābād Codex,
f. 131_b_);

2. That Nīng-nahār is nine torrents, _i.e._ mountain streams,
_tūquz-rud_;

3. That (the) nine torrents issue from Safed-koh (f. 132_b_).

Of his first statement can be said, that he will have seen the book-name in histories he read, but will have heard Nīng-nahār, probably also have seen it in current letters and accounts.

Of his second,—that it bears and may be meant to bear two senses, (_a_) that the _tūmān_ consisted of nine torrents,—their lands implied; just as he says "Asfara is four _būlūks_" (sub-divisions f. 3_b_)—(_b_) that _tūqūz rūd_ translates _nīng-nahār_.

Of his third,—that in English its sense varies as it is read with or without the definite article Turkī rarely writes, but that either sense helps out his first and second, to mean that verbally and by its constituent units Nīng-nahār is nine-torrents; as verbally and by its constituents Panj-āb is five-waters.

_e. Last words._