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Art. V.—Notes on Hwen Thsang's Account of the Principalities of Tokháristán, in which some Previous Geographical Identifications are Reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

Recently engaged in compiling a Map of Badakhshán and the adjoining regions, to illustrate a paper for the Geographical Society, I have naturally been led to consider the interesting geographical details which the Chinese pilgrim Hwen Thsang gives of those countries, as well as the current interpretations of his routes and localities. In several instances those interpretations seem to me open to amendment. The most eminent of Hwen Thsang's geographical illustrators are Major-General Cunningham and M. Vivien de St.-Martin; both of whom have dealt ably with the whole series of the Chinese Traveller's wanderings. If, after the careful study of a small part of these, I venture to differ from both accomplished commentators in regard to some of the identifications which concern that part only, I trust that I shall be guilty of no presumption. Recent documents, in part as yet unpublished, afford advantages for this discussion which were not available to my predecessors.

Type
Original Communications
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1807

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References

page 93 note 1 Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, xxxii., p. 11.

page 93 note 2 Ancient Geography of India, p. 47.

page 93 note 3 Under the different localities, the name in italics is the transcription of the Chinese syllables adapted from M. Julien; that in heavy type their alphabetical equivalent as given by him; that in capitals the identification; and the name within parentheses that of the original authority for the identification. Landresse I can only quote through Cunningham.

page 94 note 1 Journ. Asiat., ser. vi., tom, ix., pp. 47, 70; Deguignes, iv., 49; Gaubil, H. de Gmtchisean, p. 37.

page 94 note 2 Cathay, etc., p. 192; Sprenger, Post und Reise Routen, p. 20.

page 95 note 3 Lassen, i., 852; Ritter, vii., 697; V. de St.-Martin in W. Ann. des Voyages for 1849, vol. 3, pp. 25–27. If Ritter were correct in bringing the Tochari or Thogarii (as the name is in Justin) into battle with the Parthians in B.C. 197, this would show them to have been in Transoxiana long before the fall of Greco-Bactria. But Ritter has here (the rarest of all things) made a mistake. The date belongs to the death of Artabanus II., not I., and should be 128, not 197 B.C.

page 95 note 2 The fact, which Lassen notices, that the Tukhára brought to the Pandava king, among other presents, furs, iron, and silk, the three staples of the Seres, fits surely better to a people on the Khotan Frontier of China than to wild denizens of the buttresses of Pamir. (See Lassen, i., 848.)

page 95 note 3 Journ. Royal As. Soc., vol. xix., p. 151. The Tokari are also represented from an Egyptian wall-sculpture by Sir 6. Wilkinson in Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. iv., pp. 45–46.

page 96 note 1 See a recent paper on Karategin from the Russian in the Proceedings of the R. G. S. Meyendorff, however, applies the title of Khan of Ab-i-Garm to the chief of Karategín.

page 97 note 1 See “Extension de l'Empire Ohinois du coté de I'Occident,” in Mem. de l'Ac. des Inscr., tom. viii. p. 93.

page 98 note 1 See Ibn Khordádbah in Journ. Asiat., ser. vi., tom. v. p. 270; Edrisi, i., 483; Sprenger, p. 44. Reinaud puts the date about A.D. 794 (Mém, sur l'Inde, p. 161). He mentions moreover that the harrier was called Al-Báb.

page 98 note 2 We know nothing of the passes which descend from Pamir to Roshan and Darwáz except that there are such. It is probable that the Vallis Comedarum may be that of the great Oxus tributary from Pamir which joins the Panja at Bartang on the borders of Roshán and Darwáz. As some perplexity has arisen about Darwáz from the position assigned to “Darwdzi” territory in the Itinerary of Abdul Mejíd between Kokan and Kuláb, I may call attention to a passage in Mr. Wathen's paper on Kokan in vol. iii. of the Journ. Asiat. Soe., Bengal, p. 373. This paper, compiled in 1834 from the information afforded by a Wazír of Kokan, states that on the death of the last prince of Karategín (claiming, like so many others- of the old dynasties of Tokháristan, to be descended from Alexander), his sons having fought for the succession, the kingdom fell a prey to the Prince of Darwáz, and was still under his rule. The same authority had given Badakhshán, Karategín, and Darwáz, as the boundaries of Kokan on the south-east. Putting these things together, it seems easy to account for the continued existence of Darwáz authority so far north of the Oxus as Abdul Mejíd puts it, without the necessity of supposing that there is another Darwaz besides that on the Oxus.

page 99 note 1 Vie et Voyages de H. T., p. 268. It is there called Kouo (or Kwo).

page 100 note 1 The very name applied to the seat of government shows that the Chinese considered Yueichi = Tukhára. Both Ahwan and Hwo recall the Choana of Ptolemy in the same region. Compare the analogous name of ArtaKoana, capital of Aria.

page 100 note 2 See Journ. R.A.S. xvii., p. 184.

page 100 note 3 See Sprenger, p. 44. In Edrisi (i., pp. 474–5) Khulm is omitted, and Warwálin becomes only two days from Balkh,

page 100 note 4 See under No. 25.

page 101 note 1 Travels, ii., 402.

page 101 note 2 Rúí is mentioned by an early Arabian geographer, Mokaddasi (see Sprenger, p. 37). At least I presume that Rúb, which appears between Samangán and Baghl´n, is an error for Rúí.

page 101 note 3 In Sprenger's Map, No. 5, after Bírúini, attached to Balkh is the remark, “The old name is ” If this be Báki or Báka, it míght explain the form Poho.

page 102 note 1 Caravan Journeys, pp. 229–230.

page 102 note 2 See M. Garrez in Journ. As., ser. vi., tom, xiii., pp. 175–179.

page 102 note 3 J. A. S. Bengal, xxii., p. 164; Timoor's Institutes, p. 59; Erskine's Baber and Humayun, ii., pp. 373–6.

page 103 note 1 Caravan Journeys, p 217. The statement is a little vague, but the height implied can scarcely be less than 11,000 feet.

page 103 note 2 Baber calls it Shibertú, but it is not to be confounded with a high-level valley of that name to the west of Bamian, which was passed by Arthur Conolly on his journey from Kabul to Khorasan in 1840. I made this mistake in Cathay, p. 592.

page 103 note 3 One is tempted to seek some connexion with the name Kapisha in that of the Pashais, whose especial country this is. General Cunningham quotes the capital of Kapica as being 600 li from Bamian; but there is no such datum in either of the two works on Hwen Thsang's journey. He also makes Hupina or Hupian identical with this capital of Kapiça, and I do not think that one could discover from his discussion of the question that Hwen Thsang represents Hupina as the capital of a distinct kingdom, governed by a king of a different race. (See Ancient Geography of India, pp. 18 et seqq,)

page 104 note 1 M. V. de St.-Martin makes this Vardasthána, which would be convincing if it answered better to the Chinese phonetics. The Paráchis whom Baber mentions among the races of Kabul suggest the possibility of Paráchisthána (see Baber, p. 14O).

page 104 note 2 Vie et Voyages, p. 266. The position where the Traveller halts in Kapiça is too uncertain to guide us to this city. We find a resemblance to the first part of the name in Gul-bahár at the mouth of the Panjshir Valley, a favourite hunting-ground of Baber's. The term bahár seems also to point to Buddhist antiquity (vihâra).

page 104 note 3 The Parsiana of Ptolemy, a name very like Polosena certainly, is somewhere in this direction; all that one can venture to say of Ptolemy's localities with all their elaborate statements of co-ordinates, unless they are determined by other indications. Panshir itself may be formed from Parasena, by a like metathesis to that which in the same region has made Laghman and Paghmán out of Lamghan and Pamghán.

page 104 note 4 Vie et Voyages, p. 266.

page 105 note 1 It is in apparent contradiction to my view above stated of the meaning of this expression that in the Life and Travels (vol. i. of Julien, p. 268) Hwen Thsang is stated to have been two days on the journey from Hwo to Munkan, along with a party of merchants and an escort of soldiers. There are, however, many discrepancies between the Life and the Memoirs on the Western Countries.

page 105 note 2 See also Wood, p. 294.

page 106 note 1 Possibly the name of the Bangi may have some connexion with that of Mungán. Faiz Bakhsh calls the Mungán dialect Mungi.

page 106 note 2 I am obliged however to quote from a French version in the N. Ann. des Voyages, vol. 26.

page 106 note 3 H. de Timour, vol. i. pp. 172, 175; Institutes, p. 91. It may also be the Arhan Ferry of the old geographers (in Sprenger, p. 45), but the data there are too obscure.

page 107 note 1 See Nos. 546, 825, 1554, 1148.

page 108 note 1 Pasahu may be a genuine relic of a name like Parika; compare Samarkand, Samezkand, Kanerkes, Kanishka, etc.

page 108 note 2 Faiz Bakhsh is a very intelligent person, who travelled in 1870 from Kabul to Kashgar, under instructions from Mr. Douglas Forsyth, C.B.

page 109 note 1 M. V. de Si-Martin says (iii. 424), “sur une montagne escarpée,” but I do not find this particular in the translation.

page 109 note 2 Thus the old citadel of Faizábád, called Zagharchi, stood on a rock on the left bank, overlooking the town and commanding the defile up stream (Wood and Manphtúl). See also the remarks under No. 31.

page 110 note 1 See Sprenger, p. 44.

page 110 note 2 See Notices et Extraits, vol.xiv., part i., p. 490.

page 111 note 1 See Bitter, vii. 582.

page 114 note 1 Paper printed by Punjab Government on “Eelations between Gilghit, Chitrál and Kashmír”; see also Major Montgomerie's Exploration Eeport of 1870.

page 114 note 2 Journ. As. Soc., Bengal, xiv, 433.

page 114 note 3 See the passage quoted in Ritter, vii. 582.

page 114 note 4 Caubul, ed. 1839, vol. ii., p. 389.

page 115 note 1 Shanaki may however be connected with, the name of the Shiná Race of Dardístán.

page 116 note 1 See Ibrahim Khan in Proc. R. G. S., xv. p. 391.

page 117 note 1 Ladak, p. 45–46. In the J.A.S.B. xvii., Pt. 2, p. 56, he says that Balti is called Palolo by the Dards. At p. 34 of Ladak we are told that Balti “is called Palolo or Balor by the Dards.” Do they call it by both names?

page 119 note 1 The name of this State is written Uehha (Ou-tchha) in Klaproth's Extracts (Magazin Asiatique, i., 91, seq.). He follows his Chinese authorities in confounding it with Badakhshán; and Bitter does the like, as was natural in the absence of the information we now have. It is called Yadscha in Ritter's extract from P. Hyakinth (vii., 707, seqq.).

page 119 note 2 See Mahomed Amín's Itinerary in Punjáb Report App. iv. B., and Faiz Bakhsh's Journey. The Mirza calls it Chihil Situn (“Forty Pillars”).

page 119 note 3 App. to Panjáb Trade Report, p. cccxviii; The Haft Iklim quoted by Quatremère in Not. et Extraits, tom, xiv., pt. i., 475.

page 120 note 1 Choheukia appears to have been read by Klaproth Chuhiupho, whilst in Mr. Beal's Sung-yun it appears as Shihkupo. There is a town of some consequence in one of the valleys south of Yarkand called Oshokwas, a name certainly bearing a considerable likeness to Shihkupo.