________________
228
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[AUGUST, 1875.
ern tribes who brought to king Yudhish - Khorsum, with a large encampment of Tithira the paipilika gold the Khaśas are betan miners, and took the opportunity to gain expressly mentioned ; and not only are the information relative to the working of mines. In Khasas frequently alluded to in the KAé- the third expedition, in 1868, another Pandit mirian chronicle Rája Tarangini, which locates pushed on as far as Rudok, at the north-west them in the neighbourhood of the city of Kås- extremity of Chinese Tibet, on the frontier of mir,* but they are even known at the present Ladak, and on his way back from Radok visited day under the name of Khasiyas, as a the gold-fields of Thok-Nianmo, Thokpeople speaking one of the Indian languages, Sarlung, I and Thok-Jalung. The map and dwelling on the borders of Tibet. In the which accompanies Major Montgomerie's narrapassage relating to the tribute brought to the tive of the journeys of the Pandits gives in king by the Khasas and other northern tribes, addition the gold fields of Thok - Munnak, the Mahabharata also speaks of "sweet honey Thok Ragyok, Thok - Ragung, and made from the flowers of Himavat," and of Thok-Dalung, situate in the same district. "fine black châmaras, and others that were | Now we know from the Tibetan annals that the white and brilliant as the moon." Now Hima. Sarthol' or 'gold-country,' with which these vat is only another name for the Himalaya, expeditions of discovery have made us more and châmara is the name of the fans or fly. familiar, already bore this characteristic name flaps which in India kings only are allowed to in the tenth century of our era. And we will uge, and which are made from the tail of the now endeavour to prove that fifteen hundred Ya k or Tibetan ox (Bos grunniens). I
years before the tenth century this country was Tibet, and especially Eastern or Chinese the scene of the identical mining operations that Tibet, has for a long time been a terra incognita. are witnessed there at the present day-or, in We owe the best information of recent date other words, that the gold-digging ants of antirespecting this country to the Pandits, or quity are no other than the Tibetan miners with learned Brahmans, who were commissioned by whom the Pandits have made us acquainted. the British Government to explore Eastern In the first place the features of the country Tibet, and passed themselves off in that country agree with the descriptions of the ancient as Bisahiri merchants. The first expedition writers. Herodotus places the gold digging undertaken by them was in 1865-6, and in the ants in a desert (épnuin), and Strabo makes course of it one of the Pandits reached Lassa, them live on a mountain plateau (portédow) 3000 the capital of Eastern Tibet, and the course of the stadia, or from seventy to eighty geographical Brahmaputra was carefully observed. The second miles,t in circumference. This description very expedition, which took place in 1867, placed it fairly corresponds with the lofty plateau of Tibet, beyond a doubt that the Indus has near its containing the gold-fields of Nari-Khorsum. source, north of the Himalaya, an eastern The Pandits who visited the country in 1867 tributary, and that this tributary, named by the found that eastward of Garthok I it formed Tibetans Singh-gi. Chu or Singh-gi. a vast table-land, arid and desolate,& called, from Khamba, is is fact the true Indus; while the the great number of antelopes found there, other branch, till then wrongly considered the | Chojotol, or plain of antelopes.'ll "No signs principal one, is much smaller than the eastern of a path or of either houses or tents were to be one, and is called by the natives Garjung. seen, and the party became anxious as to fresh Chu. During this expedition, the Pandit who water.-No palatable water could be got till they had been at Lassa fell in at Thok-Jalung, found a glacier and melted its ice."|| The single an important gold-field in the province of Nari Pandit who, in spite of these difficulties, succeed.
• Troyer's transl. II. 321 ff.; Neumann, Geschichte des Jour. R. Geog. Soc. vol. XXXIX: pp. 146-187. englischen Reiches in Asien (Leipzig, 1857), I. 209; Lassen, T Proc. R. Geog. Soc. XIV. 210; Jour. XXXVIII. 174. Ind. Alt. I. 1020; Hue, Sourenirs d'un Voyage dans la • Sar is the Tibetan name for gold. Tartarie, &c. 264-66, 311, 321, 381.
t German geographical miles of 15 to a degree (P).-ED. + Hodgson in Jour. As. Soc. Beng. (1848) XVII. 546; I Garthok is situated on the banks of the GartungLassen, Ind. Alt. I. 24, 67, 459, 473-74, 646, 1020-21.
Chu. The second part of the name, Thok or Thos, 1 Ælian, de Not. An. XV. 14; conf. Bernier, Voyage
implies great elevation. Schlagintweit-Sakünlüneki, Reisen (Amst. 1699), II. 308.
in Indien und Hochasien, III. 54. $ Montgomerie, Report of a Route Survey, in Jour. Montgomerie, in Jour. R. Geog. Soc. XXXIX. 149, 150. P. Geog. Soc. (1868) vol. XXXVIII. pp. 129-219.
| Ibid.
