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

II6

KAWAGUCHI.

a pond. After I I miles to the N. W. he found a road which led him to a tent,

»standing on the banks of a large river, named Ganga by the Tibetans. The next morning, August 3rd, he proceeded to the N. W. »This river, I ascertained, had

its rise in one of the snowy peaks that I saw to the south-east, and emptied its

waters into Lake Manasarovara.» He makes it 2 3o yards wide and »fairly deep». He followed it nearly 4 miles, made an ascent and came to a clear bubbling spring,

called »Chumik Ganga or the source of the Ganga and we drank deep of the sacred water». Climbing farther north he reached a second spring »from under an immense slab of white marble». It was called Chumik thong-ga Rangchung or the fountain of joy. »Both these springs are regarded by the Hindus, as by the Tibetans, as forming the sources of the sacred Ganga, and are both looked up to with religious reverence.»

Continuing N. W. he once more crossed the river Ganga. From the camp at the banks he saw Kang Rinpoche. »Its ancient name was Kang Tise.» He regards it as belonging to the Himalaya.

All this is of great interest and, in spite of his complete ignorance of the map and of his very untrustworthy bearings and dimensions, which occasionally are exaggerated tenfold, it is not difficult, in this case, to follow his route from his narrative, and the descriptions and names he gives. As no European except myself has been over this ground, nobody would have been able to give due interpretation to his report. The little river he crossed must be the one coming from Tamlung-la. Thus, we have first Kyang-chu which may be my Gyang-chu; this is even probable regarding dialects and provincialisms in pronunciation. Then he crosses Kubi-tsangpo and Chema-yundung as will be shown afterwards. And finally comes the Ganga, which must be my Tage-tsangpo. For, if he had crossed the united Brahmaputra, as suggested above, he would have had to cross the Chema-yundung twice, and in reality he crossed it only once, unless another little »mountain stream» he mentions should be the upper part of the Chema.

As to the Ganga there cannot be any doubt about its identity with Tagetsangpo. In its valley I never heard the name Ganga, but when I asked the Lamas of Chiu-gompa about the name of the channel between the lakes, they answered Ngangga or Ganga, and so I have called it on my preliminary map.' But as Kawaguchi found the name Ganga on the Tage-tsangpo as well, this points to the fact that the Tibetans regard the Tage-tsangpo as the upper part of the channel, a view which is scientifically correct. The fact that Kawaguchi makes the same mistake as the Lama surveyors and d'Anville in regarding the river as the uppermost part of the Ganges instead of the Satlej does not alter the question in the least. The chief point is that the river Ganga or Tage-tsangpo, together with its two sacred springs, is regarded as the source of a great Indian river. Or, as I formulated my

I »Trans-Himalaya», Vol. II.