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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

SARAT CHANDRA DAS ON A TIBETAN GEOGRAPHY.   129

'T`un-grol, may, perhaps, be the same as GERARD's Chomik Tingdol, for »chumik»

means spring.   He identifies the Manasarovar with the Anudata and reiterates the
old saying of the four rivers beginning from the Kailas. He tells us, as it were from his own experience, that the Indus begins in Balti, west of the Kailas. Concerning the river Pakshu, which rises from the north-western side of the Kailas, he knows that it goes to Bokhara and Khiva and falls into the sea called Manasarvara, which must be identical with the Mavarannar or Mavara-un-Nahr or Transoxiana. The river he made originate from the Kailas is thus the Oxus and the sea is the lake of Aral.

The Sita which he makes originate from the north-western ramifications of the Kailas goes to the salt lake of Turfan, that is to say Lop-nor. Thence it went to China. This is the old story of the Yellow river, the upper course of which was supposed to be the Tarim. WILFORD at one place says the Sita might be the Sitoda, supposed to communicate with the Satlej, and at another he tries to identify it with the Yellow river.

Minchul's description of the Kailas is rather good and very picturesque. His 'Brog-iad (Dshoshot) and Lun-k`a may be identified with Toshot and Lunkar.2

Amongst the four great northern tribes we miss the nomads of Bongba, for he only mentions Nags-ts'an, gNam-ru, Nag-c'u and Yans-pa-can.

Finally a few extracts will show how SARAT CHANDRA DAS has dealt with the Tibetan geography in his article: A brief account of Tibet from »Dsam Ling Gyeshe», the well-known geographical work of Lama Tsanpo Nomankhan of Amdo.3

From the sacred Buddhist scriptures called Chhos mngon -ar mdsod (Abhidharma koska) he quotes the following verse:

Hence northward there lie black mountains nine, Which passed, the lofty snow-clad peaks appear, Beyond which extend Himavat, the realm of snow.

According to Sarat Chandra Das these nine black mountains allude to the long ranges of both low and lofty mountains which intervene between Uddayana and Yun-nan. The country of Himavat is known by the general name of Po. On the N.W. it is touched by the Hor country of Kapistan, which should be Yarkand and Kashgar. At another place Hor is translated by the more general signification Tartary. Then Sarat Chandra Das makes us acquainted with the Tibetan text in the following very free way:

To the east of Upper Tibet are the snowy mountains of Tesi (Kailash), lake Mapham (Mansarovara), the fountain Hthûng-grol, which has the reputation of extending salvation to

I Passt ganz gut, da grol wie dol ausgesprochen wird, (Grünwedel).

2 Chandra Das has Dragsho and Lungkha.

3 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. LVI. Part I. N:o 1. Calcutta 1887, p. 1 et seq. The Tibetan geography of Nomankhan as it has been presented to us by Chandra Das is simply a bad translation of the same text which had been used by Vasiliev. (Grünwedel.)

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