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

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TAMCHOK-KAMBA AND MARYUM-LA.   103

The Maryum-chu is formed by four rivers which rise in the N.W., in the mountains of Maryum and Transhimalaya. They flow some 2 2 French miles to the east. The Maryum-chu which is formed by their confluence flows II French miles to the south. It receives from the right the Chema-yundung which comes from the west; and 13 French miles further down it throws itself into the left side of the Kubi-tsangpo.

We begin with the Maryum-chu. In the Chinese text only the mountains are called Maryum, and in these mountains our well-known Maryum-la is situated. But the river is called Dzian dzia tchou, or Giangghia sum la, which on d'Anville's map has been improved to Kiankia somla. Dzian dzia, Giang ghia and Kian kia are different deformations of the same Tibetan word, whatever its meaning may be. Kyang, wild ass, may enter in the name. The sum la of the Chinese text means, in Tibetan, the three passes. The name is thus something like The kyang-river of the three passes». One of them may be Maryum-la. But the two principal passes, from which the river gets the greatest part of its water, are, undoubtedly, situated in the Transhimalaya. Modern explorers completely ignore these two passes, and simply describe the river as rising from the Maryum-la, a view which, as shall be shown, was universally accepted even in European handbooks of geography. And still the difference between these three passes must be very great. The Maryum-la, although extremely important as a watershed, is only a comparatively low transverse threshold in a longitudinal valley, whereas the two other passes must be much higher and situated on one of the principal crests of the Transhimalaya, and perhaps surrounded by fields of eternal snow. On Ryder's map there is an indication of the branches which form the Maryum-chu, although the sources of the branches coming from the north, may be situated further north than he has marked. In the Chinese text it is said that the four rivers flow to the east. This is fairly true for the one we know, namely, the brook from Maryum-la. As to the three others they more probably flow southwards or to the S.E., as represented on d'Anville's map. The Ta-ch'ing map has only three source branches, but d'Anville has four. The most interesting is, however, that the Chinese text, although knowing the name Maryoung for the

mountains, does not call the river Maryoung-tchou, but derives its name from all three passes where the sources are situated. It is also worth while to remember that the Chinese geographers have correctly noticed that this northern branch, which for want of a better name, so far must be called Maryum-chu, comes from passes and not from g-angris.

After the confluence of all four branches, the river, we are told, flows south-

wards as far as to a point where it receives a tributary coming from the west and called Tchar tchou. Which is this river? As I have not been up the Maryum-chu I could not tell from my own experience. Ryder has two tributaries, both coming from the west and joining the Maryum-chu. And still I believe that the Tchar tchou (Char-chu) is nothing else than the lower course of Chema-yundung, a confusion which we recognise very well from other maps, discussed above. Both on the Ta-