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

291
*Poutala, demeure du Grand Lama, des sources du Gange & des pays circon-
voisins, le tout tiré des Cartes Chinoises & Tartares, par le P. Gaubil, de la
Compagnie de Jésus, avec des Remarques du même Père.*¹

Father Gaubil is by no means sure of the correctness of the Lamas' map,
as he says:

Je ne saurois bien répondre du détour & de la figure du Gange d'abord après sa source.
Le P. Régis croit aussi que cela doit être corrigé. Je suis bien sûr que les positions des deux
Cartes Chinoise & Tartare que j'ai vues, ne sont pas exactes dans cette carte de la source du
Gange. L'entredeux de toutes les rivières marquées dans cette Carte, les environs & tout le
pays est montagneux.

Gaubil gives a list of the positions of all the places entered on the map.
For Lake Lapama he has 29° 50′ N. lat., 35° 50′ W. long. of Peking, for Lake
Lanka 29° 50′ and 36° 30′ resp., and for Mont Cantès (Kailas) 30° 30′ and 35° 50
resp., and he adds:

Ces positions sont fort approchantes des Cartes Chinoises & Tartares que j'ai vues.
Elles me paroissent fautives. Elles n'ont été prises que sur le rapport des gens du pays. La
mesure actuelle, faite par des Lamas, a donné la position du Mont Cantès & des lac Lanka &
Lapama. Les Lamas y allèrent de Poutala en mesurant.

On d'Anville's map, the sheet of western Tibet (Pl. LI), the lakes and
Kailas are on the same latitude as on Gaubil's. Gaubil's material is drawn from
Chinese and Tartar maps. The whole situation and the hydrographical arrange-
ment is the same as on d'Anville's Lama map. The names on both maps are
also very much the same, although spelt in different ways. Otherwise the habitus
of the maps is somewhat different. Gaubil's map was published in 1729 in Souciet's
*Observations*, and d'Anville's in 1733. I am not aware whether Gaubil has got
his material from the first Lama map which was rejected in 1711 or whether he has
drawn his sketch from the same material as d'Anville, that is to say the later and
more reliable Lama map.² But it may be that Gaubil has used earlier native
material.³ It is also interesting to learn from Gaubil that the Lamas went from
Lhasa to the Kailas and the two lakes, surveying on their way up. That is why
the map is better in the west than in the east, where danger arose, and better along
the Tsangpo than north of this river. Perhaps they did not go at all to Bongba
and other places north of the Tsangpo and only had to trust the verbal information
they obtained about these regions. At least one gets that impression when compar-
ing the country round Kailas and the lakes with other parts of Tibet on their map.