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

140

THE SOURCE OF THE SATLEJ.

not proved, the Chu-kar carries more water than the Satlej at the junction, this fact alone is not sufficient to decide the problem in favour of the Chu-kar.

But there exists really an >>individual feature» in the case of the Satlej. If standing at the junction of the two rivers, and even knowing the volume of every

tributary from the Himalaya forming the Chu-kar, and of every one from the Trans-

himalaya forming the Tirtapuri branch, we should feel uncertain. Which is the head river and which the tributary ? The Chu-kar or the Tirtapuri branch ? Then

I should, without hesitation decide: the one, which so long as records exist, has been called Satlej by the natives, must be regarded as the head river. The Tirtapuri branch is called Langchen-kamba by the Tibetans and was called so already when the Lama surveyors visited the place. And Langchen-kamba means Satlej, and was supposed already in old legends to issue from the Elephant's mouth. The Langaktso or Lang-gak-tso is the Elephant's lake, or with a variation the Bull's throat, in which case the river is the Big Bull's river. Already in the names, the solution of the problem is found. They may have been given, originally, at an epoch when the river flowed out of the lake. But there may formerly have been periods when the lake was superficially cut off from the river, as is now again the case. But the names remain, independent of physical changes and pulsations. And a new rise in the hydrographical curve in a near or distant future may cause a new direct outflow from the Rakas-tai. I do not mean to say that popular legends or religious prejudices should decide in a matter like this. But when they, as in this case, agree with hydrographical laws and scientific deductions their weight is very great. We shall see that both in the case of the source of the Brahmaputra and that of the Indus the native view is the correct one. In such difficult matters as these the opinion of the natives is often sounder and more reasonable than all the complicated dogmatism of European scholars.

It can be promulgated as a general rule that all the great rivers of Asia coming down from Tibet have their sources in glaciers. A glacier is an eternal source in store, even if it feeds the river only during some four months in summer So is the case with the Darma-yankti-Chu-kar. And so is the case with Tage-tsangpo. But the latter river has a double reservoir en route, the Manasarovar and Rakas-tai.

mannigfaltig is der Bau der Flusssysteme, von denen jedes seine individuellen Züge hat die sich nicht in ein allgemeines Schema einzwängen lassen ...,

A second great authority I should like to quote is Professor HERMANN WAGNER of Göttingen. He says: »Talseen sind Ruhepunkte in einem Stromsystem; es ist ein und derselbe Fluss, der in den See eintritt und ihn geläutert verlässt. Dagegen bezeichnen Quellseen die Geburtsstätte des Hauptstromes, der mit dem Austritt aus diesem erst seinen Anfang nimmt. Die Versuche, einen von der Randabdachung dem Quellsee zuströmenden Fluss als wahren Ursprung des den See verlassenden auszurufen, können vom wissenchaftlichen Standpunkt nur dann Erfolg haben, wenn die Wasserfüllung des fraglichen Sees als eine Schöpfung des Beckenrandflusses nachgewiesen wird.» Lehrbuch der Geographie. Hannover und Leipzig 1908. Band I, p. 446.

I believe that in this case we do not need any general rules. The wisest would be to say, with Professor Supan, that every source lake or valley lake has, as the river systems, individual features of their own, and that they cannot be forced under any written laws.