National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

In the Rāmāyaṇa the following piece of Himalayan hydrography is also to be
found, in connection with the tale about the lord of monkeys, the successful Sugrīva,
who said to a leader of herds and lord of apes, named Vinata . . . »there, in
mountain fastnesses, and forests and rivers, do thou search Videha's daughter, Sītā,
as well as the abode of Rāvaṇa. And while on the search around for Rāma's
beloved wife, Sītā, . . . thou shouldst search the beautiful Bhāgīrathī, and the Sarayu,
and Kāuçikī, the Kālindī, and the charming Yamunā, and the mighty hill bordering
thereon; and the Sarasvatī, and the Sindhu, and the Çonā with water resembling
ruby.» ¹

Finally I quote the following passage about the Manasarovar, which for us is
the most interesting in the whole Rāmāyaṇa: ² »And Bibhishana obtained for his
wife the righteous (damsel) named Saramā — daughter unto the high-souled —
Çailūsha — sovereign of the Gandharvas. (Saramā) was born on the shores of the
lake, Mānasa. And while the lake, Mānasa, was swollen with water on the arrival
of the rains, her mother, hearing her cries, affectionately said, — Saromāvardhata
— 'O lake, do not swell', and from this circumstance, her name became Saramā.»
As the Rāmāyaṇa is the oldest of the Sanscrit epic poems, supposed to have been
composed about 500 years B.C., and even if it received its present form one or two
hundred years later, the quoted passage must indeed be said to be the first place
where not only the sacred lake has been mentioned but also the fact of its swelling
or the rise of its surface on arrival of the rains. Nay, it would require some 23
centuries before European geographers and explorers became aware of this most
characteristic fact of the periodical fluctuations of the lake, which in later ages gave
rise to so many mistakes and misunderstandings, and which I will try to explain, so
far as possible, in subsequent chapters.

Through Sir JOHN STRACHEY E. T. ATKINSON is able to give a paraphrase
of a portion of the Skānda Purāṇa, known as the Mānasa-khaṇḍa.³ »It occurs in
the usual form of a dialogue between Sūta, a pupil of Vyāsa, and Janamejaya, the
son of Parikshit, the Pāṇḍava ruler of Hastinapur, and professes to relate what was
formerly communicated by Vyāsa to Vasishṭha. In form and often in verbiage it
follows the model of the older Purāṇas and minutely describes the country from the
lake Mānasarowar in Tibet to Nanda Devi . . . The work itself is very popular
and is deeply interesting as showing the form in which the actual living belief of
the people is exhibited.» ⁴