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

84

CHINESE WORKS ON THE HYDROGRAPHY OF SOUTH-WESTERN TIBET.

Its title is: »Map of the Western Regions and India» (Pl. V). It was published in 1714 in a Japanese Encyclopedia: »0 han-san-is'ai-t'u-hui.» Klaproth who calls it an important work, believes that it was composed in the 15th century, although published some three hundred years later. But the materials must be much older still, at least those regarding India must be even from the 7th century. Klaproth points out that the Chinese, who originally collected the material, at that epoch had a much clearer knowledge of the interior of Asia than the Greek geographers, especially Ptolemy.

The source of Hwangho is represented in accordance with the ancient Chinese belief. It is formed by two rivers joining N.W. of Khotan. The southern one comes from the mountains west of Yarkand, called Ts'ung-ling. This river is the Yarkanddarya. The northern one comes from the lake Lung-ch'ih or Dragon lake, the Kara-kul, which, as Klaproth believed, gave rise to Kashgar-darya.' These two rivers formed the Tarim, which runs eastwards to the Lop-nor, represented on the map, and then continued as the Hwangho.2

The kingdom of Khotan and the great sand desert are there. North of Tarim is Hami. The Hindu-kush of the map is called Hsüeh-shan or Snow Mountains and a range further south Hei-ling or Black. Mountains. It would seem more plausible, however, to identify the Snow Mountains with Kwen-lun, the Black Mountains with the Kara-korum and the range south of this with the Himalaya. There is very little space left on the map for Tibet, — just as on so many European maps, where, as we shall find, this country sometimes almost disappears.

As to the Manasarovar and the rivers Klaproth says in his text:

)L'Indus, le Setledj et le Gange ont tous leur source au sud du lac O neou tchy, 3 qui est le Manassarovar. Au nord-ouest du lac O neou tchy 3 est le pays de Po lou lo, 4 qui est le Bolor de nos jours. Les montagnes qui avoisinent ce lac sont appelées en tubetain Gangdis dans le Choui king,5 qui est une très-ancienne hydrographie chinoise, elles portent le nom d'0 neou ta.6 Les commentateurs de ce livre disent que cette dénomination se retrouve dans les livres bouddhiques. En effet, on lit dans les ouvrages des Cingalais, que le grand lac Anotatte wille, se trouve dans un vaste désert, et que les quatre principales fleuves du monde en sortent par quatre portes, dont une forme un gueule de lion, l'autre celle d'un éléphant, la troisième celle d'un cheval, et la quatrième celle d'un boeuf sauvage. Encore aujourd'hui les quatre

I Doctor Albert Herrmann informs me that the Lung-ch'ih or Dragon lake is not, as Klaproth supposed, the Kara-kul, but beyond doubt the Dragon lake of the Pilgrim Hsüan-chuang (Hiuen-tsang), i. e. the present Victoria lake of Great Pamir (compare M. A. Stein, Ancient Khotan I, p. 3o).

2 Doctor Albert Herrmann has proved beyond doubt, that the Chinese opinion, that the Tarim should be the upper course of the Hwangho, simply depends upon a misunderstanding of a few words in Chang ch'ien's text. He travelled 139-127 B. C. Soon the Chinese began to doubt the veracity

of this statement, for already in the Hou Han-shu the passage in question has been omitted. — Die alten Seidenstrassen, etc. p. 16 et seq.

3 In Wade's transcription A-nu-ch'ih (ch'ih = lake).

4 Po-lu-lo.

5 Shui-ching.

6 A-nu-ta.