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

246

RYDER, RAWLING, SANDBERG AND OTHERS.

Chema-yundung flows in a fairly straight line E.S.E., and it keeps north of the high peak instead of south of it. Ryder's main river receives two tributaries from S.W. One of them may be meant as the upper course of the Kubi, although, as we know, the confluence of the Chema and Kubi takes place below the confluence of the Chema and Maryum-chu.

Ryder has mixed the two rivers and made the Chema and the Kubi to one river. I do not say this as a criticism of Ryder's brilliant map, which is by far the best ever made of any part of Tibet, and from his route which kept north of the joint river, the Kubi and the Chema, it was practically impossible to solve the problem, nay, even to tell where the different streams came from. I only say it to show how necessary a survey was, step by step up to the very source of the main branch. If we let the Chema, as Nain Sing does, start from the Tamlung-la, it flows in an almost straight line towards the confluence. But if we regard the river from its real source in Chema-yundung-pu, it indeed flows in a sharp angle. This angle points to the north and not to the south as on Ryder's map.

It is curious, from the point of view of historical exploration, to observe that almost the same misunderstanding we have found on Ryder's map was made already 200 years earlier by the Lamas and represented on d'Anville's map of 1733. The Lamas made one river of the upper Chema and the lower Kubi, and they made the lower Chema join the Maryum-Chu. Ryder makes the Kubi a tributary to the Chema, which joins the Maryum-chu. On his map the lower Kubi has dwindled to a separate tributary. Hydrographically the Lama map is more correct, for there the Kubi may also be recognised in the name Tamhhok, which is its source.

GRAHAM SANDBERG in his last book I returns to the problem of the source of the Tsangpo, and it should be remembered that it appeared after the publication of Ryder's and Rawling's reports. Sandberg translates Tåmchhok Khåbab by »the downflowing mouth of the best horse>, 2 and says the Tåmchhok is a fabulous steed

I Tibet and the Tibetans, London 1906, p. 74 et seq.

2 In his Tibetan-English Dictionary, p. 531 and 1,000 Sarat Chandra Das says of our river and its name: »rta-mchog 'the best horse', the ideal horse which makes its possessor a wealthy man; the mythological horse of Indra, a sort of Pegasus which partakes of divine properties ... He is called Balåhaka the prince of horses ... Rta-mchog Kha-hbab lit. 'the down-flowing mouth of the best horse'. This is the appellation of the Yeru = Tsangpo or Brahmaputra during the earlier portion of its course in Western Tibet. Throughout Ngari it is known as Tamjo Kha-bab. The river is supposed to issue from a rock shaped like an horse's mouth, but in reality rises in a swamp in a mountain-locked valley I2 miles east of Gur-lha in West Purang.» From a Tibetan source he adds the following quotation: »Rising from the eastern range of Kailas and receiving the waters of the streams coming from Byan, Nags, Tshans, it flows eastward past Lhar-tse and Phun-tsho-ling ...» F. von Zach translates Zangbochu, or gtsang-po-ch'u with »Strom der Reinhet».

Looking up some old and new editions of the map of Tibet in Stieler's Hand-Atlas, I find, in the edition of 1849 by F. von Stülpnagel, for the upper part of the Tsangpo, the names Tamdju Eritschumbo and Yaru-zzang bo-tsiu ; the same nomenclature is found on Berghaus' great map of Asia. In the edition of 1861 by Hermann Berghaus the names are the same except Tamdschu instead of Tamdju; in the edition of 1875, by A. Petermann the river is called Brahmaputra or Tamdschan Khamba, which comes from Nain Sing's map and, further down: Jaru-dzang-bo and Dihong; in the