Ancient Khotan : vol.1 / 55 ページ（白黒高解像度画像）

0055	Ancient Khotan : vol.1
古代コータン : vol.1

The river of which they are the main feeders, and which takes its best known name from
Tāsh-kurghān, the chief place it passes, breaks through the great meridional range flanking
the Pāmīrs on the east, and ultimately joins the Yarkand river or Zarafshān. The collection
of valleys which the river of Tāsh-kurghān drains, together with some minor alpine tracts
adjoining them towards the Upper Yarkand river, constitutes the well-defined mountain district
now known as Sarîkol³. Topographical facts and historical evidence alike prove that the
position occupied by the present fort of Tāsh-kurghān and its neighbouring villages has from
very early times been the political centre of this whole territory. At Tāsh-kurghān ends the
open valley of the Tāghdumbāsh Pāmīr, and the importance of the latter as a route is mainly
due to the exceptionally easy access it provides to the central tract of Sarîkol, over more than
a hundred miles' distance. In view of this close connexion, it will be well to begin with a review
of the main data which throw light on the ancient topography of Sarîkol as a whole.

Small in extent, and devoid of natural resources, the territory of Sarîkol derives its importance Importance
solely from the advantages of its position with regard to the routes which from early times have of Sarîkol.
connected the Upper Oxus Valley with the oases to the south of the Turkestān Desert, and
hence with China. All the routes leading from the Oxus in that direction, whether they ascend
through Rōshān, Shighnān, or Wakhān, have to cross the water-parting on the east of the Pāmīrs,
and subsequently to surmount the still more elevated meridional range culminating in the Muztāgh-
Ata Peaks, which forms the link between the T'ien-shan system in the north, and the extreme
points of the Hindukush and Kun-lun in the south⁴. The chief valleys of Sarîkol extend
between this meridional range and the watershed which fences in the true Pāmīrs on the
eastern side. To this position they owe their relatively great width and also their prevailing
direction, the valley of the Tāghdumbāsh descending mainly from south to north and that of
Tagharma from north to south. Every route that crosses the Pāmīr watershed to the south
of the Muztāgh-Ata massif, is compelled to debouch at one point or the other into either of
these great valleys; in the opposite direction the same holds good of all the routes that lead
from the drainage area of the Yarkand river westwards into the Oxus Basin. The Tāghdumbāsh
and Tagharma Valleys meet at the point where the Tāsh-kurghān river takes its sudden turn
to the east; and Tāsh-kurghān, only some eight miles further south, is the place towards which
all the above routes, whether from east or west, naturally converge.

It is easy to show that this centre of the Sarîkol District must at all times have been

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