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

290   FATHER TIEFFENTHALER FATHER GAUBIL AND ANQUETIL DU PERRON.

Tieffenthaler's pilgrim, who knew that this river was the uppermost part of the Satlej of Panjab, had no idea of its going through the Rakas-tal or Lanka Dhé which he had so near to the west. But he never even went so far as to ascertain where the river went to, and thus on the map the neck of land between the two lakes is not pierced by any channel.'

But so much was gathered by the pilgrim that a river issued from the Lanka Dhé. It is a pity that just, here a Persian legend is missing. There is only a legend of Tieffenthaler, who says that it is really the Gagra that goes out from the lake, and as to the lake, he informs us that it is through the reports of »travellers» the source of the river is known. But he must have felt the unreliability of the statement as he adds the really charming words: »certiora alias exploranda».

Disregarding the Brahmaputra, the most curious feature of Tieffenthaler's hydrography is that the eastern lake is regarded as belonging to the Indus-system and the western lake to the Ganges-system and that the two lakes are perfectly independent of each other. The Lama map made both lakes belong to the Ganges-system, but in this case we have seen that the hydrography was perfectly correct and the only thing unknown was where the river went to. Even if Tieffenthaler believed in the tale of the Brahmaputra going out of the lake to the east, and the Satlej to the west, it is surprising that Anquetil du Perron could ever accept such an extraordinary bifurcation, a case that, at least to such an extent, would be perfectly unique.

And still it is easy to explain the mistake of Tieffenthaler's pilgrim. We only need to remember that there is one river leaving the Manasarovar to the west, and one river leaving the Rakas-tal to the west. • He did not know that the effluents, which he represents as two different rivers, were one and the same, or, in other words, that his Sardjou was in reality the continuation of the Satlej. When he saw the upper Map-chu above Taklakot, he found it probable that that river came out from the Rakas-tal.

Thus we are able to trace the outlines of truth even in this confusion.

In the Recueil published by P. SOUCIET, 2 P. GAUBIL gives some information of the sources of the Ganges. The title of Gaubil's article runs: 'Silualron aie

I Bonin has a quite correct view of this problem, 1. c. p. 346: Ane serait-ce pas là l'indice qu'il existait alors dans cette direction un canal de jonction entre les deux lacs, canal dont le visiteur indigène a seulement vu et dessiné l'amorce au Nord-Ouest du Mansarovar, sans la suivre jusqu'à son débouché dans le Rakas-tal? Les constatations de Sven Hedin ont établi que les eaux de ce dernier lac se déversaient dans le Sutledje lorsqu'elles atteignaient un certain niveau, comme il est marqué sur les cartes antérieures ... Si donc il y a eu communication entre les deux lacs, comme tout tend à l'établir, le fait de nommer Sutledje l'émissaire Nord-Ouest du Mansarovar n'était pas au fond absurde, bien que l'auteur indigène n'ait pas su où conduire et faire aboutir le canal dont il n'avait vu que la jonction avec ce dernier lac.

2 Observations Mathématiques, Astronomiques, Chronologiques, et Physiques Tirées des anciens livres chinois, ou faites nouvellement aux Indes et a la Chine, Par les Peres de la Compagnie de Jesus. Redigées et publiées Par le P. E. Souciet, de la même Compagnie. Paris 1729.