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

Mogol said that one of the four causes which had brought him by land from Jeru-
salem to India was: »to see your famous River Ganges, which is the Captayne of all
the Rivers of the World«. ¹

Regarding the mountain wall to the north, Pietro della Valle had the
same opinion as his predecessors. He says of Shah Selim that he was king of the
greater part of India »between Indus and Ganges, and whose Countries are extended
Northwards as far as the cliffs of Mount Taurus or Imaus, where it divides India
from Tartaria«. ²

Nor did Thomas Herbert increase the store of geographical knowledge of
his time, so far as India is concerned. He began his great journey in 1626, after
Andrade had returned from his first visit to Tibet. What he says of the Ganges
water is taken directly from Edward Terry. Concerning Cassimer and its Metropolis
Shyrenaker he has nothing new to tell. Panch-ob is a Persian word meaning five
waters, from the rivers Ravee, Behat, Ob-Chan, Wihy, and Synde. Some writers,
he thinks, have given too great limits to the garden of Paradise in making both the
Nile and the Ganges rise there. The Ganges rises from Imaus in Scythia. ³

It is always the same story that is told, and no new traveller dares to see
anything that has not been noted by his predecessors. There are long descrip-
tions of the marvels witnessed in India and long discussions upon historical events,
of customs and manners of the natives, and even of animals and plants. But the
geography is always the same. There are always the two great rivers with or with-
out tributaries, there is the wall of mountains to the north, separating Hindostan
from Tartaria or Scythia, nothing more than was known, and sometimes better known
by classical antiquity. In every new narrative we recognise Ptolemy's geography.
The grip of the great Alexandrine geographer is still so strong, that he overrules
the common sense and the faculty of observation of travellers in so recent times.
Ptolemy, and even earlier writers are often quoted. The northern mountains are
called Imaus, Taurus or Caucasus. The Satlej was much better represented by Pto-
lemy than by anyone of the travellers mentioned above, who as a rule did not even
know the existence of this river. The travellers do not seem to have had any con-
fidence in themselves. And if they went beyond Ptolemy, they still had to refer
to somebody else, for instance Terry or Roe, who were often simply copied.

So is also the case with Johan Albrecht von Mandelslo, who travelled
in India in 1638—39. He firmly believes in the authority of Sir Thomas Roe, though
in one important point he is independent, namely, regarding the source of the Indus.
Speaking of the rivers of Penjab he says that the first, Bagal or Begal, has its source