Note 7 — Feast of the Second New Year.

As I had made up my exalted mind to the conquest of Māwarāʾa-n-nahr (Transoxiana), which was the hereditary kingdom of my ancestors, I desired to free the face of Hindustan from the rubbish of the factious and rebellious, and leaving one of my sons in that country, to go myself with a valiant army in due array, with elephants of mountainous dignity and of lightning speed, and taking ample treasure with me, to undertake the conquest of my ancestral dominions. In accordance with this idea, I despatched Parwīz to drive back the Rānā, and intended to go myself to the Deccan, when just at that moment the improper action of K͟husrau took place, and it became necessary to pursue him and put an end to that disturbance. For the same reason, the undertaking of Parwīz did not assume a promising appearance, and regarding the exigency of the time he gave a respite to the Rānā. Bringing with him one of the Rānā’s sons, he came to wait on me, and had the bliss of attending me in Lahore. When I was at ease about K͟husrau’s disturbance, and the repulse of the Qizilbāshes, who had invested Qandahar, had been brought about in a facile way, it came into my mind to make a hunting tour to Kabul, which is like my native land. After that I would return to Hindustan, when the purposes of my mind would pass from design to action. In pursuance of these steps, on the 7th Ẕī-l-ḥijja, at an auspicious hour, I left the fort of Lahore and took up my quarters in the Dil-āmīz Garden, which is on the other side of the Ravi, and stayed there four days. Sunday, the 19th Farwardīn, which is the culmination of His Majesty the Sun, I passed in the garden, and some of the servants of the Court were favourably and kindly honoured with increased rank. Ten thousand rupees were bestowed on Hasan Beg, the envoy of the ruler of Persia (S͟hāh ʿAbbās). Leaving Qilīj K͟hān, Mīrān Ṣadr Jahān, and Mīr S͟harīf Āmulī in Lahore, I ordered them to settle in consultation any matters that might present themselves. On Monday I marched from the garden mentioned, and encamped at the village of Harhar, 3½ kos distant from the city. On Tuesday the royal standards alighted at Jahāngīrpūr, which is one of my fixed hunting-places. In this neighbourhood had been erected by my order a manār at the head of the grave of an antelope called Mansarāj,7 which was without equal in fights with tame antelopes and in hunting wild ones. On a stone of that manar was carved this prose composition, written by Mullā Muḥammad Ḥusain of Kashmir, who was the chief of the elegant writers of the day: “In this enchanting place an antelope came into the world-holding (jahān-gīrī) net of the God-knowing ruler Nūru-d-dīn Jahāngīr Pāds͟hāh. In the space of one month, having overcome his desert fierceness, he became the head of the special antelopes.” On account of the rare quality of this antelope, I commanded that no person should hunt the deer of this plain, and that their flesh should be to Hindus and Muhammadans as is the flesh of cows and pigs. They made the gravestone in the shape of an antelope. I ordered Sikandar Muʿīn, the jagirdar of the aforesaid pargana, to build a strong fort in the village of Jahangirpur.