国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

62

THE ARABIAN GEOGRAPHERS.

Jesuit Missionaries (probably Andrade and Grueber), TAVERNIER and THEVENOT, in whose accounts I have not been able to find any mention of lake Berwan or Beruan. But I shall have to return to this map later on.

The following are some extracts from Tome II in Jaubert's translation.2 He describes the country of Adhkach. To the east it has the mountains which surround Gog and Magog. It is rich in butter and honey and has innumerable

flocks of sheep and oxen.

Au midi de cette contrée, il existe un lac dit de Téhama dont la circonférence est de 250 milles. Les eaux de ce lac sont d'un vert foncé; elles exhalent un parfum agréable et sont d'une saveur excellente. On y trouve une sorte de poisson plat de couleurs variées . . . Au milieu de ce lac il existe une espèce d'île dont le sol est extrêmement fertile et toujours covert d'une abondante végétation. Les Turcs y font paître leurs troupeaux et y campent durant toute la belle saison. Au centre de l'île est un puits sans eau dont on n'a pu trouver le fond. L'île produit, à ce qu'on dit, une plante dont les feuilles ressemblent a celles du so'ad, qui s'étendent beaucoup, et qui sont de couleur verte . . .

Quatre fleuves ont leur embouchure dans ce lac. Le premier est le Téhama, considérable, mais peu rapide, et très-profond. Ses sources sont à 6 journées de distance du lac, et

I Edrisi's Berwan has a striking resemblance to Ibn Batuta's Barwan, of which the latter says : »After this (Kundus and Baghlan) I proceeded to the city of Barwan, in the road of which is a high mountain, covered with snow and exceedingly cold; they call it the Hindu Kush, i. e. Hindooslayer, because most of the slaves brought thither from India die on account of the intenseness of the cold.» (The travels of Ibn Batûta translated from the abridged Arabic manuscript copies ... by the Rev. SAMUEL LEE, London 1829, p. 97). Ibn Batuta proceeded from Barwan to El jarkh and Ghizna, which was only io stages from Kandahar. His Barwan is the same of which Alberuni speaks in connection with the river Ghorwand (the present Gorbend) which he says rises in the mountains bordering on the kingdom of Kabul, and which receives several affluents, amongst them »the river of the gorge of Panchîr, below the town of Parwân». (Sachau's Alberuni, Vol. I, p. 259). W. TOMASCHEK identifies Parwan with the station Parthona in the Tabula Peutingerana. (Zur historischen Topographie von Persien, Wien 1883, I. p. 59). This place is still in existence, between Hindu-kush and Kabul, straight north of Kabul. But Edrisi's description does not agree with the situation of Parwan. This village is situated on a brook, which, like the Gorbend, is an affluent to Panjir or Panjjar and flows from north to south. Edrisi calls both the town and the country Tibet, while Parwan in the days of Edrisi belonged to the kingdom of the Ghaznawi, who could hardly be called Tibetan Turks. The river on which Edrisi's city of Tibet is situated, is in connection with the lake Berwan, and only there is the city of Berwan. Alberuni's and the present Parwan, is on a rivulet, which is in no connection whatever with a lake. The cities of Berwan and Oudj of Edrisi are »belonging to Tibet», and »situated on the shores of the lake», which is supposed to have the enormous dimensions of 4o farsakh X 72 leagues.

On Cantelli's map, Pl. XXXIII, below, both the lake Beruan and the city of Paruan are entered; such is also the case with DE Witt's map, Pl. XXXV. On many other maps, as, for instance, Pl. XXIX, XXXII, XXXIV, and XXXVIII, Parvan is to be found. In some cases, as on Pl. XXXI, both Yaryan and Kabul have been placed in the country north of the mountains, from which the Indus and the Ganges take their rise, a country which by no means is identical with what we call Tibet.

According to TOMASCHEK Parwan was well known by the Arabs: »Die arabischen Geographen nennen oft den zu Bamiyan gerechneten Rustaq Parwän mit dem gleichnamigen Vororte, welcher in der älteren arabischen Epoche ein befestigtes Heerlager, 'askar'. bildete, woraus die Wichtigkeit der Lage erhellt», (I. c.). Edrisi cannot have ignored Alberuni's detailed description of the situation of the place. Still he does not mention Parwan, only Berwan. From the Turkish informants he refers to, he has very likely got a description of the Manasarovar, the Indus and »Tibet», and confounded them with Parwan, which sounded like Purang.

2 Neuvième Section, p. 344 et seq.