Note 2259 — SECTION III. HINDŪSTĀN (continued 3)

A translation point concerning the (Arabic) word ‘imārat is that the words “palace”, “palais”, and “residence” used for it respectively by Erskine, de Courteille, and, previous to the Hindūstān Section, by myself, are too limited in meaning to serve for Bābur’s uses of it in Hindūstān; and this (1) because he uses it throughout his writings for buildings under palatial rank (e.g. those of high and low in Chandīrī); (2) because he uses it in Hindūstān for non-residential buildings (e.g. for the Bādalgarh outwork, f. 341b, and a Hindū temple ib.); and (3) because he uses it for the word “building” in the term building-stone, f. 335b and f. 339b. Building is the comprehensive word under which all his uses of it group. For labouring this point a truism pleads my excuse, namely, that a man’s vocabulary being characteristic of himself, for a translator to increase or diminish it is to intrude on his personality, and this the more when an autobiography is concerned. Hence my search here (as elsewhere) for an English grouping word is part of an endeavour to restrict the vocabulary of my translation to the limits of my author’s.