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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

THE TS`UNG-LING IN ANTIQUITY.

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The Indian »Hon as well as the Chinese, the Ganges and the Huang-ho, both are here supposed to have their sources in the Kun-lun, an idea which very much reminds us of the old European maps where the Kun-lun, Transhimalaya and Himalaya, the whole of the Tibetan highlands, are pressed together as if only one single range separated India from Central Asia. It is, however, possible though not probable, that the author of the Kua-ti-chi, somewhat in the same way as ROBERT SHAW, regards the whole massif of Tibetan

mountains as one single system.

Even so late as 1824 when the Hsi-yii-shut-íao-chi was published, a Chinese author found it difficult quite to abandon the old belief regarding the situation of the real source

of the Yellow river:

Von der ersten Behauptung der alten Bücher der Chin (Ts`in), welche den ,Fluß'

aus dem Kun-lun hervorkommen, aber die Lage desselben unerwähnt läßt, die von dem 'ho' sagt, er fließe verborgen, ohne zu erwähnen, wo er aus dieser Verborgenheit wieder hervortritt, kam man bis zu den Worten der Geschichte der Han, in denen zuerst die Rede

davon ist, daß die Quelle aus dem Ts ung-ling komme, in Yii-f ien (Khotan) sich unter der

Erde verliere und im Süden aus dem Chi-shih hervortrete, womit man die erste Quelle des Ho erlangt hatte, um die wichtigere Quelle zu verlieren.'

4. THE ROADS OVER THE TSUNG-LING.

Regarding the roads which in the days of the Han dynasty connected east and west over the Tsung-ling or Onion Passes, the Annals note that they go out from the

barriers Yü-men   pi] and Yang   (W. from Tun-huang). Then according to CHAVANNES'
translation it is said:

A partir de Chan-chan (au Sud du Lop-nor) pour franchir les Ts ong-ling (Pamirs) et pour sortir dans les divers royaumes d'Occident, il y a deux routes : celle qui va parallèlement aux montagnes et qui suit le Fleuve pour se diriger vers l'Ouest et arriver à So-kiu (Yarkand), est la route du Sud. Cette route du Sud franchit à l'Ouest les Ts ongling (Pamir) et débouche dans les royaumes des Ta Yue-tche (Indo-scythes) et de Ngan-si (Parthes). La route du Nord est celle qui partant de la cour royale antérieure de Kiu-che (Tourfan), longe les montagnes du Nord, suit le Fleuve et, allant vers l'Ouest, débouche à Sou-le (Kachgar); plus à l'Ouest, la route du Nord franchit les Ts`ong-ling (Pamirs)

et débouche à Ta-yuan (Ura-töpa), dans le K`ang-kiu (Samarkand, Tashkent etc.) et chez les Yen-ts ai (Alains). 2

But if we turn our attention from this general description of roads to the dates regarding the separate Kingdoms, we find that during the Han dynasty not only two but even four roads were known crossing the Tsung-ling. HERRMANN has proved their much greater importance then than now. The Tarim and the Sir-darya were joined by the road viâ Terek-davan, but the roads to the countries on the Oxus, and to the ancient city of

Kien-shih or Bactria (?) were still more frequented. Most important of all was the compara-

tively easy road from Su-lo or Kashgar to Kien-slzih crossing the Pamir and being a part of the great road between China and Rome. The principal road between Eastern Turkistan and North-western India (Gandhära) was in its beginning the same as the one which went

from Pi-shan to Kien-shih, and which in the neighbourhood of the source of the Oxus,

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I KARL HIMLY , Ein chinesisches Werk über das westliche Innerasien. Ethnolog. Notizblatt, Vol. III, Heft 2, Berlin 1902, p. 74.

2 Les pays d'occident d'après le Heou Han chou. Toung pao, Série II, Vol. VIII, 1907, p. 169 et seq.