J.—On Bābur’s Excavated Chamber at Qandahār (f. 208 b ).
Since making my note (f. 208b) on the wording of the passage in which Bābur mentions excavation done by him at Qandahār, I have learned that he must be speaking of the vaulted chamber containing the celebrated inscriptions about which much has been written.2792
The primary inscription, the one commemorating Bābur’s final possession of Qandahār, gives the chamber the character of a Temple of Victory and speaks of it as Rawāq-i-jahān namāī, World-shewing-portal,2793 doubtless because of its conspicuous position and its extensive view, probably also in allusion to its declaration of victory. Mīr Ma‘ṣūm writes of it as a Pesh-t̤āq, frontal arch, which, coupled with Mohan Lall’s word arch (t̤āq)
suggests that the chamber was entered through an arch pierced
in a parallelogram smoothed on the rock and having resemblance to the pesh-tāq of buildings, a suggestion seeming the more probable that some inscriptions are on the “wings” of the arch. But by neither of the above-mentioned names do Mohan Lall and later travellers call the chamber or write of the place; all describe it by its approach of forty steps, Chihil-zīna.2794
The excavation has been chipped out of the white-veined limestone of the bare ridge on and below which stood Old Qandahār.2794 It does not appear from the descriptions to have been on the summit of the ridge; Bellew says that the forty steps start half-way up the height. I have found no estimate of the height of the ridge, or statement that the steps end at the chamber. The ridge however seems to have been of noticeably dominating height. It rises steeply to the north and there ends in the naze of which Bābur writes. The foot of the steps is guarded by two towers. Mohan Lall, unaccustomed to mountains, found their ascent steep and dizzy. The excavated chamber of the inscriptions, which Bellew describes as “bow-shaped and dome-roofed”, he estimated as 12 feet at the highest point,
12 feet deep and 8 feet wide. Two sculptured beasts guard the entrance; Bellew calls them leopards but tigers would better symbolize the watch and ward of the Tiger Bābur. In truth the whole work, weary steps of approach, tiger guardians, commemorative chamber, laboriously incised words, are admirably symbolic of his long-sustained resolve and action, taken always with Hindūstān as the goal.
There are several inscriptions of varying date, within and without the chamber. Mohan Lall saw and copied them; Darmesteter worked on a copy; the two English observers Lumsden and Bellew made no attempt at correct interpretation. In the versions all give there are inaccuracies, arising from obvious causes, especially from want of historical data. The last word has not been said; revision awaits photography and the leisured expert. A part of the needed revision has been done by Beames, who deals with the geography of what Mīr Ma‘ṣūm himself added under Akbar after he had gone as Governor to Qandahār in 1007 AH. (1598 AD.). This commemorates not Bābur’s but Akbar’s century of cities.
It is the primary inscription only which concerns this Appendix. This is one in relief in the dome of the chamber, recording in florid Persian that Abū’l-ghāzī Bābur took possession of Qandahār on Shawwāl 13th 928 AH. (Sep. 1st 1522 AD.), that in the same year he commanded the construction of this Rawāq-i-jahān-namāī, and that the work had been completed by his son Kāmrān at the time he made over charge of Qandahār to his brother ‘Askarī in 9... (mutilated). After this the gravure changes in character.
In the above, Bābur’s title Abū’l-ghāzī fixes the date of the inscription as later than the battle of Kanwāha (f. 324b), because it was assumed in consequence of this victory over a Hindū, in March 1527 (Jumāda II 933 AH.).
The mutilated date 9... is given by Mohan Lall as 952 AH. but this does not suit several circumstances, e.g. it puts completion too far beyond the time mentioned as consumed by the work, nine years,—and it was not that at which Kāmrān made over charge to ‘Askarī, but followed the expulsion of both full-brothers from Qandahār by their half-brother Humāyūn.
The mutilated date 9... is given by Darmesteter as 933 AH. but this again does not fit the historical circumstance that Kāmrān was in Qandahār after that date and till 937 AH. This date (937 AH.) we suggest as fitting to replace the lost figures, (1) because in that year and after his father’s death, Kāmrān gave the town to ‘Askarī and went himself to Hindūstān, and (2) because work begun in 928 AH. and recorded as occupying 70-80 men for nine years would be complete in 937 AH.2795 The inscription would be one of the last items of the work.
The following matters are added here because indirectly connected with what has been said and because not readily accessible.
a. Birth of Kāmrān.
Kāmrān’s birth falling in a year of one of the Bābur-nāma gaps, is nowhere mentioned. It can be closely inferred as 914 or 915 AH. from the circumstances that he was younger than Humāyūn born late in 913 AH., that it is not mentioned in the fragment of the annals of 914 AH., and that he was one of the children enumerated by Gul-badan as going with her father to Samarkand in 916 AH. (Probably the children did not start with their father in the depth of winter across the mountains.) Possibly the joyful name Kāmrān is linked to the happy issue of the Mughūl rebellion of 914 AH. Kāmrān would thus be about 18 when left in charge of Kābul and Qandahār by Bābur in 932 AH. before the start for the fifth expedition to Hindūstān.
A letter from Bābur to Kāmrān in Qandahār is with Kehr’s Latin version of the Bābur-nāma, in Latin and entered on the lining of the cover. It is shewn by its main topic viz. the despatch of Ibrāhīm Lūdī’s son to Kāmrān’s charge, to date somewhere close to Jan. 3rd 1527 (Rabī‘u’l-awwal 29th 933 AH.) because on that day Bābur writes of the despatch (Ḥai. Codex f. 306b foot).
Presumably the letter was with Kāmrān’s own copy of the Bābur-nāma. That copy may have reached Humāyūn’s hands
(JRAS 1908 p. 828 et seq.). The next known indication of the letter is given in St. Petersburg by Dr. Kehr. He will have seen it or a copy of it with the B.N. Codex he copied (one of unequaled correctness), and he, no doubt, copied it in its place on the fly-leaf or board of his own transcript, but if so, it has disappeared.
Fuller particulars of it and of other items accompanying it are given in JRAS 1908 p. 828 et seq.