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

the report of natives.¹ During the rains the lake is said to overflow, and several streams rush
down from the hills; but they soon dry up, even the sacred stream itself not excepted.²

Purangir was a pilgrim from Hindustan and a Gosein or a Brahmin religious,
who had been used several times by Warren Hastings as an interpreter and spy
in Bhutan and Tibet.² He had accompanied the first deputation from Tibet to Bengal,
in 1773.³ He had accompanied Bogle in 1774—75 and Turner in 1783. Between
those two missions he had travelled with the famous Tashi Lama to Peking in 1779,
a journey of which he has given a description.⁴ He seems to have been a very
reliable and trustworthy man. Therefore, the description he gives of the Manasarovar
is probably by far more conscientious and reliable than any other narrative of a
pilgrim from Hindustan. I am not aware of the date of his journey, but as he was
very much occupied in political work after 1773, it seems probable that his journey
to the Manasarovar took place some time before that date.

Purangir was told that the lake used to overflow during the rains, that is to
say, that the channel carried water in the rainy season; but in the dry season it
seemed to be dry. There is a yearly period of rise and fall in the level of the
lake, independent of the longer one during which the channel is dry even in the
wet season.

From his description it seems as if Purangir believed the Ganges was rising
from near the Kailas, entering the Manasarovar and then issuing from the lake.
Thus he regarded the lake as an intermediate stage in the course of the river below
its source. We have, as usual, only to substitute Satlej for Ganges to get the
right hydrographical situation.

Wilford continues: ⁵

«According to Pura'n-gir, and other pilgrims from India, this extensive plain is surrounded
on all sides by peaks, or conical hills, but very irregular: toward the North they rise gradually,
and a little beyond the sugar-loaf hill of Khyem-lung begins the base of Cantaisch. Toward
the East the range of peaks is very low, forming only a serrated crest. To the South this
crest is much higher than toward the other cardinal points: but, to the North, the mountains
beyond the crest are very high. The Southern crest is very near the banks of the lake. The
lake itself forms an irregular oval, approaching to a circle, but the two inlets or smaller lakes
to the north are said not to exist, for Pura'n-gir's route was to the north of the lake, and
close to its shore, and he did not see them. Pilgrims are five days in going round the lake,
and the place of worship, or Gombah, is to the south. It consists of a few huts, with irregular
steps down the banks of the lake. The Ganges issues from it, and during the dry season its
stream is hardly five or six inches deep. It does not go through the lake called Lanken in
the maps; it flows to the south-east of it, at the distance of two or three coss. This lake is