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『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

many rivers and places seen and passed over by the cloud on its lofty way to the
mountains.

It is not the object of this work to search the whole Sanscrit literature for
geographical extracts. The above quotations will be quite sufficient to give an idea
of the geographical knowledge of Indian antiquity, concerning the country north of
India. We have found that Kailas and Manasarovar were best known, and formed,
as it were, the central points round which the rest of the geographical knowledge
was grouped. The further north, east or west from the sacred mount and lake,
the more foggy became the conception of the mountainous country. This is quite
natural, for Manasarovar was, probably already in a very remote antiquity, an im-
portant tīrtha, and the pilgrims wandered to its shores to bathe in the sacred
water, as they still do in our days. Therefore their geographical knowledge was
most substantial regarding the region nearest to the lake. The country beyond
they knew only from hearsay.

In the preceding pages I have already had an opportunity to quote Professor
Wilson and some other scholars in connection with the Sanscrit geography of south-
western Tibet. It may be of interest to hear what Ritter, Lassen, and two or three
other scientists think of the same subject and how they try to reconcile the ancient
poetical geography with actual facts.

CARL RITTER believes that the cosmography of these oldest religious books and
epic songs embraces the whole of the Asiatic highlands, and emphasizes the relation
of the mountainous upheaval with the whole continent. To him mount Meru does
not indicate any special mountain range, but the whole grand mountainous region
of the continent, which we call High-Asia, the whole plateau of High Tartary and
Tibet. And the different ranges surrounding mount Meru, according to the Maha-
bhārata, he identifies with the highest regions of the snow-covered Himalayas and
Tibet, the sacred Kāilāsa, Çiva's paradise and the abode of gods, the world of
mountain giants round the sacred lakes, and beyond the inaccessible sources of the
Ganges and the Indus. ¹

In his classical work »Indische Alterthumskunde« CHRISTIAN LASSEN has
brought together the most important ancient knowledge of the region in question. The
elevated country, so difficult of access, and dreaming in undisturbed peace, situated
round the two lakes and mount Kailas, was regarded by the Indians as one of the
holiest tirthas or places of pilgrimage; Kāilāsa was the dwelling place of gods and
of wonderful heroes of the mythical poetry. He says of the source of the Indus
that it is situated in a region which is not less remarkable from a geographical
point of view than in the conception of the Indians, to whom it is one of the
holiest in the world. ²