IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Southern Tibet : vol.7 |
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Citation Information
MONS IMAUS ON ANCIENT MAPS.
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anything whatever to do with the Kara-korum. From my visit in Khotan in 1896,
I only mention the name of the village, Karangu - tagh, »at the base of the mountains».' On HASSENSTEIN'S map accompanying my narrative 2, the mountains south of the village are also called Karangu-tagh. M. A. STEIN, who has visited both the village and the mountains around it, has a chapter: »In the Karanghu-tagh Mountains», but the name not entered on his map except for the village.3 There is no doubt that the name originally belonged to the mountains. ABEL-RÉMUSAT only mentions Karangu-tagh as a range, though he could not know the orography of these regions. He says:
Le nom de Carangoutac est pareillement turk; Karangouï tag, montagne ténébreuse; on sait que c'est le nom donné à cette chaîne qui vient de l'Himâlaya, et qui porte sur les cartes de Danville le nom de Belur, qui paraît avoir la même signification.4
If we have a look at early maps, we cannot, of course, expect to find any sign of the Kara-korum System on them. It may be sufficient to fix this statement with a few words. Already on the Genoese Map of the World of 1447, we find a great latitudinal range crossing the whole of Asia from west to east, and the Imaus montes inaccessibiles starting from its western end, and running to the N. E. The great features of orography are the same as on Ptolemy's map, on which, however, the range that comes nearest to the Kara-korum System, is called Paropanisus mons. The same is the case with FRA MAURO'S map of 1459, where both M. Imaus and Tebet are entered. On MARTELLUS GERMANUS' map from the end of the 15th
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century, we find a range of mountains with ramifications going through the whole of Asia and called by four different names: Paropanisus, Unaus mons, Emodi montes
, and Serice montes. 5 NICOLAS DESLIENS, on his map of 1541, does not pay any
special attention to the Montes Imani, which he represents as a group of mountains from which one of the feeders of the Ganges takes its origin.
The first map on which the influence of Ptolemy has completely disappeared, and where thus the mountains north of India, which so far had formed one single
i Pet. Mit., Erg. Band XXVIII, Gotha 1900, p. 24.
2 Ibidem, B1. I.
3 Ruins of Desert Cathay, Vol. I. London 1912, p. 197. — Cp. his map II, Vol. II of Ruins of Desert Cathay.
4 Histoire de la ville de Khotan, Paris 182o, p. 151. — Rémusat believes that the name is identical with GoEs' consangui Cascio, and quotes this passage from TRIGAULT : Abest mons iste ab hâc regiâ dierum XX itinere, et consangui Cascio id est, nions lapideus appellatur, quem verisimile est eum esse qui eodem nomine in geographicis descriptionibus hujus regni quibusdam nuncupatur. YULE quotes RITTER and states that his identification of Cansanghi Cascio with Karangui-Tagh must be a mistake. — Cathay, Vol. IV, p. 299 note. The place in Ritter alluded to runs thus: »Den Berg mit dem Ju-Bruche nennt er (Goes) Cosanguicascio, d. i. offenbar Karangoui Kash, oder Tak. » — Ritter, Erdkunde, VII, ). 383• — Yule gives the single correct identification : »But the words are Persian, Kin sang-i-Kash, The mine of Kash (or Jade) stone' ....»
5 A very good résumé of the history and geography of these names has been made by Dr. ALBERT HERRMANN in Pauly's Realencyclopädie, Second Edition, Berlin 192o.
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