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

TIBET ON DELISLE's MAPS.   219

Father GONZALES DE SOUSA and MANUEL MARQUES had made his second journey to Chaparangue, which he reached on August 28th, 1625, he wrote a letter in which he says: »The kingdom of Tibet or The Powerful embraces the Kingdom of Cogue, where we live at present, those of Ladac, Mariul, I Rudoc, Utsang, and still two more situated farther east. With the great kingdom of Sopo (Mongolia), which on one side borders upon China, on the other upon Moscovy, they form together Great Tartary.» 2 In this letter exactly the same names are mentioned as those found on Delisle's map.

From the N.E. slopes of the Naugracut mountains, a river flowing N.E. has the legend: »R(iviere) qui sort des terres de Raja Ribron et se rend diton dans la M(er) Noire.» Raja Rodorow or Raja Ribron is to its greatest extent situated south of the mountains. I have not been able to find out what it is meant to be. Rahia Rodorou was also entered on Sanson's map 1654 (Pl. XXIX). Should Ribron be a survival of Riboch, Ribok, Riboth or any other of Odoric's and Mandeville's versions for Tibet? 3 A river originating from the northern slopes of Himalaya, west of Nepal, and east of Chaparangue could not possibly be anything but the Tsangpo. But this river was still unknown, and Delisle's river flows to the N.E., and comes, on the map, to an end in Grueber's country of Toktokai. But on the map of Great Tartary (Pl. XLI) the river continues through Toktokai and empties itself partly into Cinghai, and partly into Coknor. But as Coknor (Koko-nor) is in connection with the Yellow River, the latter, in Delisle's opinion, has its source on the northern slopes of the Himalaya. Still he has also a Hwangho-source after the type of Martini, though he calls the double lake Sosama.

Delisle shows such a great and really touching reverence for the memory of the Jesuit Fathers, that he cannot induce himself to recognise in Grueber's Koknor the Cinghai or Mare nigrum of Martini. And therefore he has two copies of Koko-nor on his map, one with the Chinese, the other with the Mongol name. Here is a new example to the fact alluded to so often in the preceding chapters, that information from two different sources about one and the same geographical object may easily lead to reiterations on the maps. We saw it already in the case of Ptolemy's Oechardes and Bautisus, and we saw it with Edrisi's lakes of Berwan and Téhama, the river being in both cases the Tarim, and the lake Manasarovar.

It is surprising that Delisle having marked Grueber's route on his map does not, in this case, follow the text verbally, for Grueber speaks of »Kokonor

I It should be noted that Andrade has Mariul, but Delisle Moriul. Csoma de Körös translates Mar-yul »low country), Hiuen Tsang calls it Ma-lo-pho, Marpo, »red» (Cunningham: Ladak, p. 18). In any case Mar-yul is the same as Ladak, which Andrade could not know, and still less Delisle.

2 Lettere annue del Tibet del MDCXXVI et della Cina del MDCXXIV, scritta al M. R. P. Mutio Vitelleschi, Generale della Compagnia de Giesu Roma 1628. As this work is not available to me I have the quotation from C. Wessels' article: Antonio de Andrade, Op. supra cit. p. 29.

3 It has some resemblance also with the Rahia Tibbon of several maps, for instance Pl. XXIX, and Pl. XXXIII. In Terry's and Roe's lists of Indian provinces there are no names reminding of Rodorou or Ribron.