Art. XIX.—Note on the Panjmana Inscription sent by Mr. Ney Elias

Abstract

The inscription is an interesting one, and well deserves publication in our Journal. It records a march by Shaibānī to the Kirghiz Steppe, and a victory which he gained over the inhabitants at Kindilik in the Ulugh Tāgh country. He began his march from Merv-Shāhijān on 2 Shawwāl, 915 (13 January, 1510), and returned after four months and twenty days on 22 Safar, 916 (1 June, 1510). Mr. Elias considers that the inscription is false and that the so-called victory was a defeat, and he quotes in support of this view the Ḥabīb-as-Siyar and the Tārīkh-i-Rashīdī. But surely a contemporary inscription is better authority than two books—one by a compiler and the other by an enemy—and, moreover, the latter are not, I think, absolutely contradictory of the inscription. Shaibānī was apparently at first successful over the people of the Dasht-i-Kipchāk, though he, or at least his son, was eventually defeated by them, and I take the inscription to refer to the initial victory. That some such victory did occur, seems to be admitted by Haidar Mirza. At p. 230 (Ross's translation) we read: “In the middle of the winter, Shāhi Beg Khan was engaged in plundering on every side, but he soon returned, his object being not to remain too far from his own country.” I think this must be the expedition commemorated in the inscription. That began in the middle of winter (13 January, 1510), and was characterized by wondrous rapidity of movement, as the inscription tells us.