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『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

278

THE PUNDITS AND THE TSANGPO-BRAHDIAPUTRAPROBLEM.

The Assamese informed me, that the Burrampooter has a very long course previous to its entering Assam; and that it comes from the N.W. thro' the Thibet mountains. ... These facts, together with those respecting the Ava river and Nou Kian, establish (I think) the strongest presumptive proof possible of the Sanpoo and Burrampooter being one and the same river, under different names ...>>

In a letter to A. M. Delisle dated Peking, November 3rd, 1755, Father GAUBIL says : »M. d'Anville a raison de faire passer par Ava la grande rivière Yalou tsang pou, qui vient des pays à l'ouest de la source du Gange, et passe ensuite par le Tibet: cela est certain.>" But he does not say why he is sure of the correctness of his statement. 2

On DALRYMPLE's map of Burma the Tsangpo joins the Irrawaddi, whereas the Brahmaputra is short and cut off. On his journey to Ava in 1795 SYMES found that the river which comes down from Tibet and which was supposed to be the Arracan River, was really the Kienduem, the great western branch of the Ava River. 3

Rennell became the leader for the English cartographers in the TsangpoBrahmaputra problem. Richthofen relates how Rennell's view was confirmed by the researches of WILCOX, BURLTON and BEDFORD, 1823-28, and how RITTER brought together and discussed the whole literature of his time regarding the problem, without being sure as to which view was the right one.4

KLAPROTH says of Rennell that all the facts he quotes are correct but that his conclusions are false, and that those who so far had accepted d'Anville, now went over to Rennell's side and joined the Tsangpo with the Brahmaputra. On the maps in his Atlas: Tableaux Historiques de l'Asie, published in 1826 Klaproth himself had, however, adopted Rennell's view, for there we read the following legend to the river: »F. Yarou dzangbou ou Bourampoutra». But on these maps the geography was not the principal thing. In fact Klaproth was, already in 1825, persuaded that the Tsangpo and Brahmapoutra could not be the same river. In March 1825 he drew a map where the Irrawaddi is the continuation of the Tsangpo. 5 Two years afterwards he says: »En résumé, le Yarou dzangbo tchou ou le Grand fleuve du Tubet, qu'on avait regardé comme étant la partie supérieure du Brahmapoutra .. . se réunit, au-dessus de la ville de Bhammo, à une autre rivière considérable, venant du nord, et forme l'Iraouaddy qui passe devant Amirapoura, et va se jeter

T Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan etc. Second Edition. London 1785, p. 95.

2 Nouveau Journal Asiatique, Tome X, Paris 1832, p. 401.

3 Reise des brittischen Gesandten Herrn Michael Symes nach dem Königreiche Ava im Jale 1795. Übers. von M. C. Sprengel, Weimar 1801, p. 129.

4 China III, p. 381; Ritter: Asien, Bd III, p. 356 et seq.

5 He says: J'ai composé ce mémoire et la carte qui l'accompagne au mois de mars 1825, dans le moment même où le lieutenant Burlton, occupé de lever le cours supérieur du Burrampouter, reçut l'avis important, que ce fleuve avait sa source au sud des hautes montagnes de neige qui bordent le Tubet au midi, et qu'il ne pouvait être identique avec le Yarou dzangbo tchou. — Magasin Asiatique ou Revue Géographique, etc. Tome I, N:o II, Paris 1826, p. 302.