Note 1666 — SECTION III. HINDŪSTĀN

As to the form of this word the authoritative MSS. of the Turkī text agree and with them also numerous good ones of the Persian translation. I have made careful examination of the word because it is replaced or explained here and there in MSS. by s:hb:ndī, the origin of which is said to be obscure. The sense of b:d-hindī and of s:hb:ndī is the same, i.e. irregular levy. The word as Bābur wrote it must have been understood by earlier Indian scribes of both the Turkī and Persian texts of the Bābur-nāma. Some light on its correctness may be thought given by Hobson Jobson (Crooke’s ed. p. 136) s.n. Byde or Bede Horse, where the word Byde is said to be an equivalent of pindārī, lūtī, and qāzzāq, raider, plunderer, so that Bābur’s word b:d-hindī may mean qāzzāq of Hind. Wherever I have referred to the word in many MSS. it is pointed to read b:d, and not p:d, thus affording no warrant for understanding pad, foot, foot-man, infantry, and also negativing the spelling bīd, i.e. with a long vowel as in Byde.

It may be noted here that Muḥ. Shīrāzī (p. 174) substituted s:hb:ndī for Bābur’s word and that this led our friend the late William Irvine to attribute mistake to de Courteille who follows the Turkī text (Army of the Mughūls p. 66 and Mémoires ii, 163).