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

tion beyond Ptolemy. He is not satisfied to place the source on the southern
slopes of the mountains north of Panjab; he looks beyond the crests and locates it
in the very heart of the mountain knot, at the same place where the Amu-darya
takes its rise.
Ibn Khordadhbeh's Tibet, in spite of his own ignorance about its real situation,
must no doubt coincide fairly well with the country between Panj, Khotan, and
Panjab. Even nowadays Ladak is called Tebbet by the Turks of Eastern Turkestan.
EDRISI who wrote more than 200 years after Ibn Khordadhbeh confounds Tibet
with Khotan.
The information our author received from a »reliable person», about the diffi-
culties in fording the river which sent off the Oxus and the Indus, as well as what
he was told of the mountain on the bank of the Oxus which could not be crossed
without guides, and which may have been any of the high passes at the Panj, the
description of camels used for transport over the river, and finally what he relates
about the caravan roads branching off to China and to India, — all this proves that he
is speaking of the country between Pamir and western Tibet, and that a very graphic
and trustworthy account of a merchant traveller has been his source.
Ibn Khordadhbeh does not seem to have heard of the Ganges. The Satlej
and the Brahmaputra he ignored completely.

AL-JA'KUBI who wrote about 880 has not much to say of Tibet. So, for
instance, that wares come to Bagdad from Hind, Sind, China, Tibet, and the prov-
inces of the Turks. He compares the air of Bagdad with that of Tibet, which is
so bad as to change the skin of the face of the Tibetans, and keep their bodies
small and make their hair curly. The city of Dsirm is, from the east, the last city
which borders upon the province of Tibet. He has also something to relate about
an embassy from Tibet asking for a teacher of Islam. The »Bisam of Tibet» is
mentioned, and the nard is a grass that grows in India and also in Tibet.
IBN ROSTEH wrote before 913, and borrowed some information directly from
Ibn Khordadhbeh. He mentions Tibet and Kabul amongst those places which
during the summer get no rain but in winter are snowed over on account of the
great cold of the air. To him also the Oxus has its source in Tibet. In the upper
part of the provinces El-Khottal, along the course of the river Vakhkhab, which
comes from Tibet and forms the source of the Dseihun. These are places where
gold is dug out, and from which gold is exported in pieces not bigger than pin-
heads. The fourth climate begins in the east, and stretches along the province
of Tibet.
ABU DOLEF began in 941 his journey eastwards from Bokhara. He says
that he reached the regions inhabited by Tibetan tribes, where he travelled for 40
days without difficulties. The Tibetans live on wheat, barley, beans, different sorts