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

Hindu's pilgrimage, which may have fallen within the years of the Father's travels.
The information he got, say about 1760 or 1765, from the pilgrim, namely, that the
Satlej went out of the Manasarovar to the N.W., and that a river issued out of the
Rakas-tal to the west, was, at any rate, in harmony with the much older map. We
have also other statements that there was an outflow from both lakes about 1760.

Gaubil's¹ map published 1729 by Father SOUCIET, is drawn from a Chinese
original and seems to date from the journey of the first Lama explorers, or
1711. There was then a channel between both lakes, and a great river, ›Ganga‹,
going out of the Lanka or Rakas-tal. As quoted above Bonin thinks that this map
may be later than the one from about 1590; there is no doubt that this is the case.

A much more detailed topography and hydrography is given on the Lama
map published by D'ANVILLE in 1733, and with material dating from 1717. His
map proves effluence from both lakes. In 1715 DESIDERI indirectly confirms the
description of the Lamas.

From 1762 we have the Shui-tao-ti-kang or Outlines of Hydrography. The
compilator CHICHAONAN, may have used material from a much earlier date. From
whatever time it is, perhaps the time of the Lamas' journeys, there was outflow
from both lakes. Or does the information really date from about 1762?

About 1770 PURANGIR visited the Manasarovar and saw ›the Ganges‹ flowing
out of the lake. Even in the dry season the channel carried water. Here is a case
touching only the channel from the Manasarovar. The fact that he calls it Ganges
indicates that it has a continuation down to India. The circumstance that it contained
water even during the dry season also makes it likely that water flowed out of
the Rakas-tal as well. But we can only be sure of the channel.

In 1792 DUNCAN's Fakir remembered that the Satlej issued from the Rakas-tal.
He had been on his pilgrimage to the lakes, which may have been in 1770—1780.
It is, however, unlikely that the Fakir ever visited the Rakas-tal, as it is not included
in the pilgrimage. He has seen the channel only, and heard that it was the Satlej,
and that this river also left the Rakas-tal.

HARBALLABH, Moorcroft's old Pundit, had crossed the channel between the
two lakes on a bridge in 1796, and in support of the truth of his assertion he could
produce the evidence of all the inhabitants of the neighbourhood.

ALEXANDER GERARD obtained positive information that ›about 20 years ago‹ a
rapid stream, crossed by bridges, ran from the Manasarovar to the Rakas-tal, and that
this channel had since dried up. As Gerard's statement is from 1817—1818, he speaks
of 1797 or 1798 as the date when there was still water issuing from the Manasarovar.

This statement is confirmed by Moorcroft's ›Ladaki Traveller‹, who asserted that
›8 years ago‹, or in 1804, the stream actually existed. But since that time the
channel had dried up and its bed filled with sand.