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

more respectable people, as Mr. Schnabel informed me, the other one for poor people
and such as die of infectious diseases. The graves consist of rocks and stones above the
ground. Some corpses are even thrown into the river, especially those of people who die
of dropsy. Do the people of Poo believe that the accumulation of water in the body of
a sick person is a sign that the Nāgas (Klu) claim the body?

Before leaving Poo, I consider it necessary to write a short note about the line of kings
who reigned here in former days. As has already been stated, King Ye-shes-'od, whose
inscription we discovered at Poo, reigned at mTho-lding, the old capital of Guge, in the
days of the great teacher Atīśa. Now a king of the same name is mentioned among the
descendants of the first king of Zangskar, and closer research reveals the fact that the
Zangskar kings actually reigned at mTho-lding in Guge. How is this to be accounted
for? My explanation is this: King Nyi-ma-mgon of Western Tibet divided his empire
among his three sons. The eldest received Ladakh, the second received Guge and Pu-
rang with mTho-lding as his capital, the third one's portion was Zangskar. The histori-
cal accounts of the Tibetans relate of descendants of the first and third sons, but they do
not give any names of descendants of the second son. There were apparently none.
The king of Guge and Purang died without issue. Then his country was seized by the
king of Zangskar, whose sway thereby extended over Zangskar, Guge and Purang, and
whose glory almost eclipsed that of the kings of Leh. Ye-shes-'od is a member of the
important line of kings who reigned over the three countries mentioned above and whose
capital was at mTho-lding.

We left Poo on the 6th July on our way to Shipke. At first our road took us
down to the rocky banks of the Satluj where we had to cross a rope bridge. The
place of this bridge is called mTho-rang, or 'Height itself.' From inscriptions on
both banks of the river, it becomes evident that there has been a bridge in this place
from ancient times. The oldest inscription is in Gupta characters, and too much
effaced to allow of reading more than sya, the termination of the genitive case, at the end
of the line. Several of the Tibetan inscriptions seem to be almost a thousand years of age,
judging by the form of their characters. It is interesting to note that two of them, one
on each bank of the river, give the following advice to the person who intends crossing:
Ma-yi-grongs-shig! "Do not forget the maṇi (the Oṁ maṇi padmē hūṁ) [when crossing]"!
This was very appropriate advice, for unpleasant as this bridge is now-a-days, it was far
more unpleasant in the old days when the traveller had to entrust his life to three rotten
ropes plaited of willow twigs at an altitude of about 100 feet above a broad and violent
stream. No wonder, people called the bridge 'Height itself.' At the present day, the
bridge consists of a strong steel cable provided by the Public Works Department;
and the usual trolley being broken, a wooden saddle with two rope slings attached to it,
has to do service instead. As Mr. Schnabel informs me, hardly a year passes by without
accidents on this bridge, and even a battered traveller like Sven Hedin who had to cross it
ten months before us, clothed his feelings in the words: "This bridge is a proper place
for people desirous of committing suicide!"