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

accepted system, regardless of pronunciation, which readers unacquainted with the
language will in any case distort—in obedience, it would seem, to a perverse instinct
misguiding all alike, whether *docti* or *indocti*, in the presence of unknown vocables.

Prior to the appearance of Cunningham's *Ladák* (London, 1854)—with which we
should associate the likewise valuable work (*Western Himalaya and Tibet*, London, 1852)
of his fellow-explorer, Dr. Thomas Thomson—information concerning Western Tibet
was based almost exclusively upon the reports of travellers, Chinese travellers from the
fourth to the ninth century A.D., Roman Catholic missionaries during the seventeenth
and eighteenth, British travellers (Moorcroft, Henderson, Vigne) during the first part
of the nineteenth. Some lists of kings were supplied by Csoma Cörösi, who lived in the
country from 1823 to 1830, in Prinsep's *Useful Tables*, pp. 131–2; and a few isolated
notices have been traced in the Sanskrit chronicles (*Rāja-taraṅginī*) of Kashmir.

Cunningham's work was of great importance, furnishing not only a great deal of
systematic information concerning the geography, topography, meteorology, and
economics of the whole region, but also a description of the ethnology and common
life, the government, the religion, the languages, and the history. He supplies
genealogies of kings and successions of priests for the several districts, and details the
substance of local chronicles and narratives. His remarkable historical and
topographical insight enabled him to produce a work which is susceptible much more
of amplification than of correction, and which will retain its value as an original
source. Since his time the region has been extensively visited by officials,¹ explorers,
mountaineers, scientists, travellers, and sportsmen; and Ladakh in particular has been
found not beyond the reach of ordinary tourists. The most marked deficiency in our
present knowledge of the whole territory affects its early history, which is not without
importance, seeing that the trade route viâ Ladakh has from ancient times connected
Kashmir and India with the life and politics of Central Asia. Dr. Francke's work,
providing definite outlines for the later centuries, may furnish threads leading back to
the beginnings.

F. W. Thomas.

*August*, 1925.