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

KLAPROTH.

42

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Klaproth call the upper part of the river R. Danak boutchou ? On the Ta-ch'ing map it is called Daghri phou tchou. It is obviously the same name in both cases. Both the Ta-ch'ing map and Klaproth have mixed two rivers or rather made one river of two. This may be seen already from my preliminary account which runs as follows : I »Tanak-puchu is a great valley coming down from the north, and its river irrigates the fields in Tanak. I could not obtain a clear description of this valley: all I heard was that it came from a pass to the north; so I do not know whether it comes from the Transhimalaya, like the Mii-chu and Shang-chu valleys. If such is the case, however, then the eastern watershed of the Mü-chu is a hydro-graphic boundary between it and the Tanak-puchu, not the Shang-chu. The question can only be solved by future investigations on the spot.»

Of course Klaproth's Danak boutchou and the Ta-ch'ing map's Daghri phou tchou are the same as my Tanak-puchu. The name should be written Tanak-pu-chu, which means »the river of the upper part of the valley of the black horse». For pi is the upper part of a valley. The name may also be written Ta-nakpo-chu.2 My Rung-chu, by which I came down to the Tsangpo in 1907, is obviously the Rongtchou of the Ta-ch'ing map, where the confluence is correctly situated above the confluence of the Sab-tchou (Shap-chu) and the Tsangpo. On Klaproth's map the Rung-chu is somewhat changed and drawn out considerably longer than on the Chinese map, but it has no name. The situation of the Delden (Terten) and Temple Delden shows, however, that it is the same river in both cases. As the situation of Delden corresponds to Ye-shung it may be either Ganden-gompa or Tugdengompa. I cannot make out the Kiet-tchou of Klaproth, Kié tchou of the Chinese map. Probably it is some small valley. But the fact that both maps have added the upper part of the Tanak-valley to the Shang-valley or assumed that the Shang river was called Tanak in its upper part, seems to permit us to draw two conclusions, viz. that my above quoted suggestion was correct, namely, that the Tanakpu-chu comes from a pass in the water-parting range of the Transhimalaya, and secondly that the surveyors of the Ta-ch'ing map have not been up the whole way to Khalamba-la, for if that had been the case, they would have observed that the river came from N.E. and not from N.N.W. And if the Chinese surveyors had really followed the Tanak-valley from its head and down to the Tsangpo, they would have observed that the river joined the Tsangpo and not the Shang river.

The region in which the source of the Tanak river is situated still remains absolutely unknown, for, from a European point of view, the two maps I am discussing cannot be accepted as real or even approximate knowledge. Not even Nain Sing, from his northern route, has been able to see anything in this direction. The map is still left blank. Only my first crossing, over the Sela-la, gave an

2

I »Trans-Himalaya.» Vol. I, p. 286 and map.

Compare Vol. II, p. 296. The name of the village on the left bank of the Tsangpo is Tanak, or generally Tana or Dana.