国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

nomment les Chinois, lesquels étendent ce nom à toute la chaîne de montagnes
qui va à l'Occident; ou du moins dans le Pagode où ils s'arrêterent, pour s'informer
du cours du Gange qui sort à l'Occident de cette montagne, tandis que le Tsanpou,
qu'ils ont suivi & mésuré, vient à l'Orient vers Lasa.» ¹ From this, one gets the
impression that du Halde believed that the Ganges (i. e. Satlej) came from the
Kentaisse, and that such is also the case with the Tsangpo, although the latter river
takes the opposite direction, towards Lhasa.
This is the more curious as D'ANVILLE's maps from April 1733 are published
in du Halde's work, and d'Anville's maps are, both regarding the source of the
Satlej (his Ganges) and of the Tsangpo, and from a point of view of hydrographical
truth, by far the best I have ever seen before Ryder's map. On these maps (Vol. I,
Pl. LI, and Vol. III, Pl. I) the topographical detail is, of course, very wrong; I only
refer to the hydrography. The Lama surveyors and d'Anville, who has been their carto-
graphical interpreter to us, knew that the Tsangpo originates from the Himalayas in
the south and that Maryum-chu is only one of its first tributaries. This is the chief
point of the hydrographical problem. So, if we only pay our attention to the three
rivers which constitute the upper Tsangpo, the Maryum-chu is a priori not to be
taken into account. The Maryum-chu joins the Chema-yundung before it reaches the
confluence with the Tsangpo. This is also clearly to be seen on d'Anville's map,
although the river, which must be the Chema-yundung has no name there.
The principal river ought of course to be the one called Yarou Dsancpou or
Tsanpou R. But here d'Anville must have misunderstood the information of the
Lama surveyors or mixed up their observations. Or the Lamas must have made a
topographical mistake, believing that the Chema-yundung, which they may have
touched once in its lower course and once in its upper, was two different rivers.
In its lower course they saw it was joined by the Maryum-chu, and in the upper that
it was formed by several small source-branches from the southern mountains and
particularly those parts of them which are situated immediately east of Lanchen-
kabab. So they made this upper part of the real Chema-yundung join the Kubi-
tsangpo far too high up. But the fact that the name Yarou Dsancpou has been
placed along this mutilated Chema-yundung branch is certainly simply a slip of
d'Anville's pen unless he had never heard that his MM. Tamtchouc or the Tibetan
Tamchok-kabab or the »source of the horse-river», was regarded by the natives and
Chinese as the real source of the Brahmaputra.
On both d'Anville's maps M. Coconn Kentchian is placed immediately near
the MM. Tamtchouc, in such a way that the latter must be a part of the
former, as it no doubt is in reality, both from Tibetan and Chinese points of view.
Singi-kabab and Langchen-kabab are not greater mountains than Tamchok-kabab.
This does not exclude the possibility of the existence of a mountain massive