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

Its title is: »Map of the Western Regions and India« (Pl. V). It was published
in 1714 in a Japanese Encyclopedia: »O han-san-ts'ai-t'u-hui.« Klaproth who calls
it an important work, believes that it was composed in the 15th century, although
published some three hundred years later. But the materials must be much older
still, at least those regarding India must be even from the 7th century. Klaproth
points out that the Chinese, who originally collected the material, at that epoch had
a much clearer knowledge of the interior of Asia than the Greek geographers,
especially Ptolemy.

The source of Hwangho is represented in accordance with the ancient Chinese
belief. It is formed by two rivers joining N.W. of Khotan. The southern one comes
from the mountains west of Yarkand, called Ts'ung-ling. This river is the Yarkand-
darya. The northern one comes from the lake Lung-ch'ih or Dragon lake, the
Kara-kul, which, as Klaproth believed, gave rise to Kashgar-darya. ¹ These two rivers
formed the Tarim, which runs eastwards to the Lop-nor, represented on the map,
and then continued as the Hwangho. ²

The kingdom of Khotan and the great sand desert are there. North of Tarim
is Hami. The Hindu-kush of the map is called Hsüeh-shan or Snow Mountains and
a range further south Hei-ling or Black Mountains. It would seem more plausible,
however, to identify the Snow Mountains with Kwen-lun, the Black Mountains with
the Kara-korum and the range south of this with the Himalaya. There is very little
space left on the map for Tibet, — just as on so many European maps, where, as
we shall find, this country sometimes almost disappears.

As to the Manasarovar and the rivers Klaproth says in his text:

»L'Indus, le Setledj et le Gange ont tous leur source au sud du lac O neou tchy,³ qui
est le Manassarovar. Au nord-ouest du lac O neou tchy ³ est le pays de Po lou lo,⁴ qui est
le Bolor de nos jours. Les montagnes qui avoisinent ce lac sont appelées en tubetain Gangdis
dans le Choui king,⁵ qui est une très-ancienne hydrographie chinoise, elles portent le nom d'O
neou ta.⁶ Les commentateurs de ce livre disent que cette dénomination se retrouve dans les
livres bouddhiques. En effet, on lit dans les ouvrages des Cingalais, que le grand lac Anotatte
wille, se trouve dans un vaste désert, et que les quatre principales fleuves du monde en sortent
par quatre portes, dont une forme un gueule de lion, l'autre celle d'un éléphant, la troisième
celle d'un cheval, et la quatrième celle d'un bœuf sauvage. Encore aujourd'hui les quatre