IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Southern Tibet : vol.8 |
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Citation Information
CHAPTER I.
THE TS`UNG-LING IN ANTIQUITY,
1. THE FIRST CHINESE KNOWLEDGE OF MOUNTAINS IN CENTRAL ASIA.
To European knowledge the Kara-korum became recognized as a mountain system, or at least as a part of a mass of mountains, nearly hundred years earlier than the Transhimalaya and it took a century to model out of this mass the separate ranges which are members of the Kara-korum system, a work that is still going on, and that is far from being completed.
But to the Chinese the Kara-korum was known, to a certain extent, some i 5oo years ago. They did not visit the western regions as we do, as naturalists or explorers. They travelled either as pilgrims or as conquerors, and if their aims were not religious, they went for practical objects. Therefore they avoided the most difficult parts, and as comparatively practicable roads were at their disposal they had no interest in braving the dangers of the snow-passes and glacier cols. Of the great Kara-korum with the majestic peaks, amongst which the highest one until lately carried the famous name of Godwin-Austen, they had therefore only somewhat negative information. Still they were familiar with the existence of the snowcrowned giants of which European explorers have found out that they give birth to the greatest glaciers of the earth, outside the polar regions.
The Chinese had no special name for the Kara-korum. To them the enormous agglomeration of mighty mountain ranges forming a boundary wall to the Western countries and more especially to Eastern Turkistan, and including the western Tien span, the Pamirs, the Kara-korum, the North-western Himalaya and eastern Hindu-kush was
known since the first century B. C. under the common name of Ts` ung-ling i or the
Onion Passes.
It has been a question open to discussion whether the Tarim Basin or Eastern Turkistan together with the surrounding mountain systems, including the Kara-korum, were not known to the Chinese at a much earlier epoch. TERRIEN DE LACOUPERIE I believes in a passing knowledge during the year 985 B. C. in which king Mu Ot, who was praised in a special romance, is said to have undertaken an adventurous journey to the K`un-lun
Mountains r - Llj and the Hsi-wang-mu 3 —j, is e. the Royal Lady of the West.2
According to HIRTH the king proceeded so far as to the region of Khotan.3 CONRADY
I Origin of Early Chinese Civilisation, London 1894, p. 265 et seq.
2 See Part II of this Vol., Kapitel IV, 4: Hsi-wang-mu in der Geschichte, Sage und Kartographie.
3 F. HIRTTI, The ancient history of China to the end of the Chóu Dynasty, New York 1908, p. 145. Cf. E. J. EITEL, China Review, Vol. XVII, pp. 223, 247.
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