1 Should be 18th. See Elliot, vi, 341. I.O. 181 has 20th, and this is probably correct, bīstam and has͟htam being often mistaken for one another by the copyists. B.M. MS. Add. 26215 has dūs͟hamba, Monday, instead of s͟hamba, Saturday. ↑
2 Akbar used the word parm narm, ‘very soft,’ as a substitute for ‘shawl’ (Blochmann, p. 90). ↑
3 According to Gladwin, 96 tanks = one sir. Four mashas make a tank, and a masha is about 18 grains troy. ↑
4 Text كهيته چار, kheta chār. But the two B.M. MSS. which I have consulted have no yā, and have khatta or ghatta chār. I think that the word must be घटा, ghaṭā, which in Sanskrit means a troop of elephants assembled for war. I am not sure what the word chār means, but perhaps it is only an affix. According to Abū-l-faẓl a herd of (wild) elephants is called sahn (Blochmann, p. 122). ↑
5 Panj tuqūz, i.e. 9 by 5. The text has تاقور, tāqūr. ↑
6 The B.M. MSS. seem to have panch kunjar, ‘five elephants,’ i.e. equal to five elephants(?). ↑
7 In Sarkār Delhi (Jarrett, ii, 287). ↑
8 The text does not expressly say that the dervish foretold two years before his death the period of his death, but apparently Jahāngīr means this, for he goes on to speak of the time mentioned for his delivery. See also Iqbāl-nāma, p. 81, where the dervish is called Ḥāfiz̤, and where it is added that the whole population of Srinagar followed the bier. ↑
9 Lit. give it, for the Koran cannot be directly sold. ↑
10 Text pisar, ‘son of Buland Rāy.’ but from the B.M. MSS. it appears that pisar is a mistake for Sar. ↑
11 Blochmann, p. 387. Possibly he was the part author of a translation of Bābar’s Commentaries. ↑
12 The name is wrong. The Iqbāl-nāma, p. 84, has Ras͟ht (Ras͟hd), which is a well-known town on the Caspian. ↑
13 According to the Iqbāl-nāma the true reading is sanjakī (see p. 84). But Olearius, who gives a full account of the murder (p. 352 of English translation, ed. 1662), says Bihbūd gave him two stabs with a chentze, which is a kind of poniard. ↑
14 A Persian festival in memory of a rain which fell on the 13th Tīr and put an end to a famine (Bahār-i-ʿajam). ↑
15 Sangrām was Raja of Khurkpur in Behar, and was killed in battle with Jahāngīr Qulī K͟hān (Blochmann, p. 446, note). ↑
16 S͟hakwāʾi-ṣāḥib-i-Sūba. I presume it means a complaint against the governor, and perhaps one made by Kes͟ho. ↑
17 The pearls are omitted in the MSS. ↑
18 It is phūl in MS. No. 181. ↑
19 Tak͟htī, qu. a signet? No. 181 has a lāl tak͟htī. ↑
21 Text wrongly has 3 instead of 30. ↑
22 Apparently because born in Lahore (see Blochmann, p. 500). ↑
23 According to I.O. MS. 181 every zamindar took some money from Chīn Qilīj and sent him out of his estate, and this seems to be the probable meaning, for we are told later on that the zamindars plundered Chīn Qilīj. ↑
24 Tirhut. R.A.S. MS. has “It chanced that the zamindar of this place was with Jahāngīr Qulī, and the latter sent him with some people to seize Chīn Qilīj.” I.O. MS. has the same, and this seems correct. The text has “It chanced that the zamindar of that place was spending some days in that neighbourhood(?).” Perhaps a negative has been omitted before ‘spending.’ I.O. MS. seems to have Johirhat as the name of the zamindar’s estate. ↑
25 Apparently the verse is quoted with reference to Jahāngīr Qulī’s failure to exact retribution from the zamindars, There is an account of Chīn Qilīj in the Maʾās̤ir, iii, 351. ↑
26 Gūnṭh, a breed of small horses or ponies. ↑
27 A farjī is a coat (see Blochmann, p. 89). ↑
28 Text īn rubāʿī, ‘this quatrain,’ which does not seem to make sense. Perhaps īn here should be āyīn-i-rubāʿī, ‘the rules or the custom of a quatrain.’ Similarly, īn kitābat five lines down may be āyīn-i-kitābat, ‘the rules of writing.’ ↑
29 His father was K͟halīlu-llah, previously mentioned in the Tūzuk, and who had lately died (Iqbāl-nāma, p, 84, and Tūzuk, pp. 62 and 69). T̤ahmāsp gave Niʿmatu-llah’s daughter in marriage to his own son Ismaʿīl. ↑
30 K͟hānis͟h K͟hānim in Maʾās̤ir, iii, 339. ↑
32 Two I.O. MSS. and the R.A.S. MS. have 18 instead of 15. Elliot has “up to my fourteenth” year. Jahāngīr was born in Rabīʿ, 977, or 31st August, 1569, and the beginning of wine-drinking to which he refers must have taken place at earliest in January, 1586. He tells us that it was after the death of Muḥammad Ḥakīm, and at the time when his father was at Attock. Now Akbar arrived there on 15th Muḥarram, 994, according to Niz̤āmu-d-dīn, and on 12th Day, 994, according to Abū-l-faẓl, iii, 976, i.e. about the end of December, 1585, and at that time Jahāngīr was 17 years and 4 months of age, or in his 18th year. He continued to drink heavily for nine years, i.e. till he was 26 (17 + 9), then he moderated for seven years, i.e. till he was 33, and he kept to that for fifteen years more, i.e. till he was 48. These years were lunar years, and he tells that at the time of writing he was 47 years and 9 months old, according to the lunar calendar. It seems to follow that the MSS. are right, and that we should read 18. ↑
34 The two good I.O. MSS. have, not murg͟h or murg͟hī, but tughdarī or tūg͟hdarī, a ‘bustard,’ unless indeed the word be tag͟haddī, ‘breakfast.’ But probably the word is tughdarī, a bustard, and the reference is to the particular memorable day when he first drank wine. His food that day, he says, was a bustard with bread and a radish (turb). ↑
35 Blochmann. Calcutta Review, 1869, has ‘turnips.’ ↑
36 Filūnīyā. The word is not given in ordinary dictionaries, but it is explained in Dozy’s Supplement. It is stated there that it is a sedative electuary, and that the word is derived from the Greek, being φιλωνια, which is the name of an antidote or drug invented by Philon of Tarsus. There is an account of Philon and a reference to his drug in Smith’s Classical Dictionary. Philon lived in or before the first century after Christ, and is referred to by Galen and others. The word as given there is φιλωνειον. We are not told what it was made of. In Price’s Jahāngīr, filuniya, misread there as Kelourica, is described by Jahāngīr as brother’s son to tiryāq, i.e. theriaca (see Price, p. 6). Tiryāk or t̤iryāq is supposed to be a Greek word (see Lane), and means an antidote against poison, etc. It is so used in the verse from Avicenna quoted by Jahāngīr to his son S͟hāh Jahān. See D’Herbelot, s.v. Teriak. But it is also often used apparently as a synonym for opium. The mixing of wine with spirits was intended to dilute the potation, for hitherto Jahāngīr had been taking raw spirit. A mis̤qāl is said to be 63½ grains troy, and so 18 misqals would be about 3 ounces, and the six cups would be about 1½ lb. troy. In Elliot, Jahāngīr is made to say that he does not drink on Thursdays and Fridays. But the s͟hab-i-jumʿa, as Blochmann has pointed out elsewhere, Āyīn translation, p. 171, n. 3, means Thursday night or Friday eve, and this is clearly the case here, for Jahāngīr speaks of the eve’s being followed by a blessed day. It should be noted that there is no connection in Jahāngīr’s mind between abstaining from wine and abstaining from meat. He did not eat meat on Thursdays or Sundays because he did not approve of taking life on these days, but he drank on both of them. ↑
37 Cf. Blochmann’s translation and Calcutta Review for 1869. ↑
38 I understand the two exceptions (dū chīz) to be that on Thursdays he drank in the daytime, contrary to the general rule of only drinking at night, and that on Thursday evenings he did not drink. ↑
40 The MSS. have Jādūn Rāy and Bābā Chokanth (Jīū Kanth?). The Maʾās̤iru-l-umarā, ii, 646, has Mālūjī Kāntiya. The text has Bābū Kāntiya. ↑
41 The text is corrupt. The Maʾās̤ir, id., has Ātas͟h instead of Dānis͟h. ↑
42 The text is corrupt. In the second line of the verse the text has guft, which seems meaningless, and two I.O. MSS. and B.M. MS. Add. 26,215 have jang, ‘battle.’ The R.A.S. MS. has pāy, ‘feet,’ which seems to me the best reading. Possibly guft should be read kift, ‘shoulder.’ ↑
43 It will be remembered that Jahāngīr has called ʿAmbar’s army the army of darkness, alluding perhaps to ʿAmbar’s being an Abyssinian. ↑
44 Elliot, vi, and Blochmann, p. 479, n. 3. ↑
45 Perhaps it should be phangā or feringha, a grasshopper, or it may be jhīngur, a cockroach. Presumably the country was covered with thick jungle, and the cloud of insects indicated where water was. Erskine’s MS. has chika. B.M. Or. 3276 has chika or jika. Possibly the word is jhīngur, a cockroach (see Blochmann in J.A.S.B. for 1871, vol. xl). He quotes a Hindustani Dict., which says that the jhīngā is what in Arabic is called the jarādu-l-baḥr or water-locust. The river referred to by Jahāngīr is the Sankh of I.G., xii, 222. V. Ball, Proc. A.S.B. for 1881, p. 42, suggests that the jhīngā may be thunder-stones! ↑
46 Compare Tavernier’s account of the searching for diamonds in Sambhalpur (vol. ii, p. 311, of ed. of 1676). ↑