Hudud Al-'Alam 'The Regions of the World' - a Persian Geography 372 A.H. (982 AD) by V. V. Minorsky & C. E. Bosworth

Author:V. V. Minorsky & C. E. Bosworth [Minorsky, V. V. & Bosworth, C. E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Middle East, General, Literary Criticism, Middle Eastern
ISBN: 9781909724730
Google: KTF1CQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Gibb Memorial Trust
Published: 2015-01-31T20:42:25+00:00

§ 11. Tibet3

I am greatly obliged to Prof. F. W. Thomas, M. Bacot, and Dr. W. A. Unkrig for valuable suggestions on matters concerning this chapter. Mīrzā Ḥaydar’s Tārīkh-i Rashīdī, trans. by E. D. Ross and commented by Ney Elias, 1895, contains a mass of important data on Tibet and the neighbouring countries, but more than five centuries separate it from the period interesting us, and our author has in view an entirely different situation near the K’un-lun. It is a pity that Minchul Khutukhtu’s Geography of Tibet, written circa A.D. 0–9 and translated into Russian by the late Prof. V. Vasilyev, SPb., 1895, is not accompanied by a commentary and is therefore difficult to use for a layman. A new translation of it by Dr. Unkrig is in the press. [See Barthold, Tibet, in EI.]

The present curious chapter on Tibet has no parallel in the known works of Arab geographers. On the other hand, its data are chiefly derived from a source (Jayhānī?) common with that used by Gardīzī, 8–9, 94. Gardīzī described three routes leading to Tibet:

(a) from Kāshghar a road passes between two mountains and follows an easterly direction until it reaches the province of Ādh.r 1 which is 40 farsangs long and consists of mountains, plains (read: instead of ), and barren hills (kauristān); the text, which is out of order, seems to indicate that Ādh.r formerly belonged to the khāqān of Tibet, but at the time to which the source refers was under Kāshghar. From the “province of Kāshghar” the road goes to Sār.msābkath and then to Alīshūr after which it follows the stream of K.jā on which, in the direction of the desert, lies the village of (or ) where Tibetans are found; then a river is crossed in a boat and the travellers reach the frontier of Tibet;2

(b) from Kāshghar to Khotan by the places enumerated in the note to 10. down to which is the first village of Khotan; “and at this stretch (andar in miyān) comes the river Y.ra ”; thence [from R.stūya or Y.ra?] to the village of S.mywb.m, then to the “barren hills belonging to the Muslims” ,3 then to a stream coming from China ( or *Khotan ?), then to the town of Khotan; at 15 days’ journey from Khotan lies the large town of Kay ( perhaps ) which is within the limits of China but is occupied by the Toghuzghuz;4

(c) from Khotan on, the road (b) is continued to the south: it goes to Al.shān, then to a bridge built by the Khotanese between two mountains and finally across the mountainous tract (Kūh-i zahr “Poisonous mountain”) where the travellers suffer from mountain sickness, to the “Gate (dar) of the khaqan of Tibet”.1

Our author says nothing on the first two roads but incorporates the names of the road (b) down to R.stūya (see notes to 10.-20.). The rest of the places of the present chapter is not in Gardīzī; of them 1., 3., 9., 21., 22. (K.lbānk) are also mentioned in the chapters on the mountains and rivers (§§5, 3.

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