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

form, who inhabits a tent composed of turquoise and all kinds of precious stones.
In the midst of it grows a tree with a thousand branches, and every branch con-
tains a thousand cells in which a thousand lamas live. The lake tree has a double
crown, one rising like a sunshade and shading Kang-rinpoche, the other overshadow-
ing the whole world. Each of the 1022 branches bears an image of a god, and
all these images turn their faces towards Gossul-gompa, and in former times all the
gods gathered together here . . . The lake is the central point of the whole world.
Sambu Tashi grew out of the lake tree. Sochim Pema Dabge is of very holy,
clear, and pure water. The Gyagar Shilki chorten stands in the lake. The palace
of the lake god is in the lake.» ¹

Baron ANTON VON OW regards this document as very important and exclaims:
›Hier, auf der merkwürdigsten Höhe des Erdkreises, haben wir also den See leibhaftig
vor uns, der vor mehreren tausend Jahren schon als mythischer See Haomas und Schiwas
gepriesen wurde, hier haben wir vor uns den mythischen Pushkara, Lotusteich, aus welchem
Brahmâ sich erhebt, hier den mythischen See Chin der Chinesen, in dessen Mitte das göttliche
Knäblein auf Lotus gebettet ruht!‹ ²

He then shows how the legend of the lake-god in the centre of the lake is
familiar all over Asia and extended even to Egypt and Babylonia. At another
place von Ow has the following interesting passage: ³

›Das westliche Tibet und das merkwürdige Land der heiligen Seen im Norden des Hi-
malaya, wo das Quellgebiet von Indus, Ganges und Brahmaputra nahe zusammenstösst, muss
den Ahnen der arischen Inder wohl bekannt gewesen sein. Das Land am oberen Ganges ent-
hält die geheiligsten Stätten indischer Götterverehrung. Die Verlegung vieler Göttertaten
nach diesem Teile des Gebirges und das Wallfahrten dahin gehen in eine sehr frühe Zeit zurück.‹

Lassen believed that the Indians now living in the plains, attracted by the
wonders of the mountains, placed the abodes of their gods in the inaccessible regions
of north-western Himalaya. Now von Ow asks why no sacred tirthas were placed
in the central parts of the Himalayas; even Nepal does not play any important
part in the classical literature. As a rule peoples of the plains regard the high in-
hospitable mountains with respect or even fear. And therefore: why should the most
ancient Indians, only ›attracted by the wonders of the mountains‹, have placed their
holiest tirthas, not only in the highest abodes of eternal snow and ice in the north-