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

CHRISTIAN LASSEN.

171

The western half is Kara-korum, the eastern Transhimalaya. However, he does not lose sight altogether of the two missing halves, or the real eastern Kara-korum and western Transhimalaya. But they have dwindled on his map to secondary ranges.

That this is really his meaning is clear from the Index map of his Atlas, where he only knows three »principal mountain chains of High Asia», and where the direct eastern continuation of Kara-korum and the direct western continuation of the Transhimalaya are called : »some of the secondary chains of High Asia».

This map was drawn a few years before Nain Sing's journey. But it is curious that the discoveries of Moorcroft and the Stracheys, with whose works Schlagintweit was familiar, have not in the least improved his extraordinary representation of the western Transhimalaya. Not even the Kailas is marked, although, in those days, it was believed to be situated on the range, which Cunningham called the Kailas or Gangri Range.

Schlagintweit's views do not seem to have found many followers, unless we should suspect some little influence from him on the Tibetan map in Stieler's Hand-Atlas for 1875. He has not contributed to the knowledge of our system. He has only complicated it a little more. The characteristic feature of his standpoint is that the northern tributaries of the Tsangpo should rise from the southern slopes of the Kara-korum, and that some of the rivers from its northern slopes went to Eastern Turkestan.

CHRISTIAN LASSEN has given a wonderful and excellent résumé of the history of geographical knowledge about India and its neighbours.' He keeps, regarding the modern geography, of course the general standpoint of his time, but in many respects he is more perspicacious than even professional geographers. He regards the Kwen-lun system or Kulkun, which from Kokonor stretches to the west and through the Tsungling is connected with the Belur-tagh and Hindu-kush, as the sharp natural boundary between the northern tribes and the Tibetans. But in a note he adds that perhaps it would be more correct to say that such a boundary were formed by the Gang-disri and Dzang-mountains, for north of these ranges the Khor or Mongols live. We remember from where this view originally dates, and in connection with these ranges Lassen has no new opinion of his own.

The situation and importance of the Gangdisri range he explains in these words:

»Der Kailâsa, Gangdisri der Tibeter, ist eine aussere Kette and gehört nicht dem eigentlichen Himâlaya; er ist eine der höchsten Erhebungen der Erde, aber noch ungemessen; er ist ein Ausläufer des Karakorum-Gebirges, welches vom Tsungling, wo dieser in den Kuenlun übergeht, sich abzweigt, and S.S.O. nach den heiligen Seen hinstreicht; durch den Kailâsa schart es sich dem Himâlaya an, selbst verbindet es das Quellgebiet Pamer and die Gegend des Sees Sirikul mit dem eben bezeichneten Quellgebiete der Indischen Flüsse and den heiligen Seen. Das Karakorum-Gebirge umwallt das obere Industhal von der rechten Seite, dem Flusse parallel . . . In der Senkung zwischen dem Karakorum and Himâlaya liegen am Indus die zwei

I Indische Alterthumskunde, Leipzig 1867, I, p. 16 et seq.

es