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0218 Southern Tibet : vol.1
南チベット : vol.1
Southern Tibet : vol.1 / 218 ページ(白黒高解像度画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000263
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11

156   WHEN DID THE NAME MANASAROVAR BECOME KNOWN TO EUROPE?

Wilford therefore seems to be correct in everything, — except the Manasarovar. For so far as I have been able to find out, Monserrate has not left any account of his experiences, and I think that Wilford has simply made a mistake and confounded Monserrate and Tieffenthaler, who, nearly 200 years later, calls the lake, Mansaroar, which is almost the same spelling as Monserrate's supposed Månsaruor.

JOHAN VAN TWIST leads us to comparatively more solid ground, though he has nothing but hearsay information to give us.

The borax, he says, is found in the mountains of the beautiful province of Purbet which stretches to the frontiers of Tartaria. There is also musk, nard, quicksilver, copper and a kind of colour. The borax is found in a river called Iankenckhaer, running through the mountains of Purbet, coming in a narrow water

which flows away through the middle of the country, and which they call Maseroor; at the bottom of this water the borax grows, just as the coral does, and the Gujerats therefore give it the name of Iankenckhaer. I

Again it is the musk that opens the secrets of distant Tibet, for it is in a description of the principal wares brought for sale to Gujerat that the unknown country of Purbet happens to be mentioned. Purbet may be the northern mountains in general, or Kailas Purbet. The musk and borax, and the fact that it stretches to the very frontier of Tartary prove beyond doubt that it is Tibet. The river Iankenckhaer must be the uppermost Satlej and Maseroor is Ma(na)seroo(va)r. The confused hydrography as given in the text does not interfere with this explanation; much more extraordinary waterways have been fabricated by explorers in our own time, and verbal information, given by natives, may easily be misunderstood.

Van Twist's account is dated 1638, and I have not been able to find the lake mentioned by name at any earlier date, by any European.

The next time I find the name of Manasarovar is in the introduction to Walter Schouten's narrative. He travelled from 1658 to 1665, but the French edition, at my disposal, was not published until 1708, 2 that is to say, at any rate, before the discoveries of the Lama surveyors of Emperor Kang Hi, and 25 years before d'Anville published his maps; and on the latter the lake is called Mapama Talai and not Manasarovar.

Whether Schouten or his translator is responsible for the following passage or not, we recognise in it a certain resemblance with van Twist, but also a new, very

of all prophets — God's blessings rest on him and his whole house! — a thing which even devils would not do.» Ain-i-Akbari, H. Blochmann, Vol. I, p. 182.

I The interesting passage runs thus: »Den Borax wort gevonden in een water, genaemt Iankenckhaer, loopende door het gheberchte van Purbet, comende in een engh water, dat door 't midden van 't lant heenen loopt, dat sy Maseroor benamen; op den gront van dit water vast den Borax, even gelijck den Corael, so dat de Gusaratten haer den naem van het water Iankenckhaer gheven.» Generale Beschrijvinghe van Indien ... p. 61. Even Klaproth, quoting Chinese sources, says : Le meilleur borax se trouve sur les bords du lac Mapham dalaï. Il y en a du violet et du noir. Magasin Asiatique, 'Tome II, No. IV, Paris 1828, p. 307.

2 Volage de GAUTIER SCHOUTEN, I, p. LXXIII.