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

THE SOURCE OF DAMTCHOUK KABAB.

93

envoie l'Himâlaya. A Djachi loumbo, son lit est très-large, et partagé par des îles en un nombre infini de canaux, dont le principal, près de ce couvent, est étroit et profond, et ne devient jamais guéable. Là ce fleuve n'est plus désigné que par le seul nom de Dzangbo tchou.

No traveller before 1907 has given a more correct description of the situation of the source of the Brahmaputra than the Chinese geographers from whose works the above passage is taken. The Chinese description is concise, clear, short, and

correct.

Yere-tsangpo was the first name I ever heard for the river, when I came down

to Ye.' The astronomical situation as given in the Chinese text is wrong, as usual, which, however, does not matter a bit in this connection. For here the question is: which river in the reaches of the upper Tsangpo is the source of the Brahmaputra, and not: which are its co-ordinates ? And it is said that the river Yærou dzangbo or Brahmaputra takes its source in the Damtchouk kabab snow-mountain situated on the frontier of the province of Ari.2 Even opposite to Shigatse the river is called Tamchok-kamba, 3 and at the confluence with Raga-tsangpo I found it called Dam-chu, corresponding to the French spelling Damtchouk. Kabab means »source of».

After a course of some 10 lieues to the east it (the Yere-tsangpo) receives from the left a river which comes from a little lake, called Djimagoungroung. Klaproth can only mean the ordinary lieue of which 25 made one degree of the equator and which was 4,452 meters. Thus the distance to the confluence should be circa 441/2 kilometers. In fact it is 63 kilometers from the very source. But if we take the text literally and only regard the part which flows to the east the distance is 44 kilometers. But the Chinese text obviously means the distance from the source to the confluence. Very likely Klaproth has made the elastic li too short. This does not matter, for the principal thing is to note, that the river originating from Damtchouk kabab is regarded as the main branch of the Brahmaputra, whereas the river coming from the little lake Djimagoungroung is only a tributary. The last-mentioned is the one which was styled to me by my three Tibetan guides Chemayundung-chu. The main river, the one coming from Damtchouk kabab or the Horse river's source», is my Kubi-tsangpo.4 The Chinese text, translated by Klaproth thus agrees exactly with my view, that the Kubi-tsangpo and not the Chemayundung is the source river of the Brahmaputra. Very likely there is a small lake in front of the glaciers from which Chema-yundung comes, for there is such a lake in front of the glaciers of the Kubi-tsangpo. This little lake of Chema-yundung (alias Djimagoungroung) is said to be situated east of the Langtsian kabab or Elephant's mouth or the source of the Satlej. A glance at my preliminary map is

I »Trans-Himalaya», Vol. I, p. 281.

2 Ari is the Chinese name for Ngari-khorsum.

3 )Trans-Himalaya», Vol. I, p. 403.

4 See Chapter XLII: »In Search of the source of the Brahmaputra), »Trans-Himalaya», Vol. II, p. 89 et seq.