G.—On the Names of Two Dara-I-Nūr Wines.
From the two names, Arat-tāshī and Sūhān (Suhār) -tāshī, which Bābur gives as those of two wines of the Dara-i-nūr, it can be inferred that he read nūr to mean rock. For if in them Turkī tāsh, rock, be replaced by Pushtū nūr, rock, two place-names emerge, Arat (-nūrī) and Sūhān (-nūrī), known in the Nūr-valley.
These may be villages where the wines were grown, but it would be quite exceptional for Bābur to say that wines are called from their villages, or indeed by any name. He says here not where they grow but what they are called.
I surmise that he is repeating a joke, perhaps his own, perhaps a standing local one, made on the quality of the wines. For whether with tāsh or with nūr (rock), the names can be translated as Rock-saw and Rock-file, and may refer to the rough and acid quality of the wines, rasping and setting the teeth on edge as does iron on stone.
The villages themselves may owe their names to a serrated edge or splintered pinnacle of weathered granite, in which local people, known as good craftsmen, have seen resemblance to tools of their trade.