Indian Antiquary Vol 50

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 27

JAN., 1921)
THE DESERT CROSSING OF HSUAN-TSANG
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Once allowing for this lacuna, which unfortunately has its only too frequent counterparts in the Life' and is easily accounted for by the extent condition of its text, we can easily trace the stages and incidents of the desert journey. That the position indicated for the first signal-tower clearly points to the present Pei-tan-tzú, the first stage from An. hsi, has been shown above. The 480 li reckoned from the Su-lo Ho to the fifth signal-tower are in remarkably exact egreement with 96 miles marching distance recorded by cyclometer on our journey from the river to Hsing-hsing-hsia, the fifth halting-place on the present road. The statement about the dreaded Mo-ho-yen desert extending beyond the fifth signal-tower is in perfect accord with the marked change for the worse which the character of the ground exhibits after we leave Hsing-hsing-hsia. Nor is it difficult to prove that all the matter-of-fact indications which the narrative of Heüan-tsang's experiences in this desert furnishes, are fully consistent with what the map shows us.
We read there that the traveller, having been advised to evoid the fifth signal-tower, e. Hsing-hsing-hsia, turned off from the main route at the fourth tower in order to reach the “Spring of the Wild Horses," at a distance of 100 li. When he failed to find this and thought of regaining the fourth tower, he is said to have turned back to the east for a short while. This makes it quite clear that the Yeh-ma-ch'uan spring to which he had been directed must have lain in a westerly direction. Now a look at the Russian Trans-frontier map shows that the route from Tun-huang to Hami, &s surveyed by Captain Roborovsky's expedition, passes at a distance of about 30 miles west of Ma-lien-ching-tz, before joining the An-hsi--Hemi road at K'u-shui, and that one of its halting-places with 'water is to be found at about that distance to the west-north-west of Ma-lien-ching-tzů. Thus the existence, in the past or present, of a spring approximately in the position indicated for the Yeh-ma-ch'uan which Hsuan-tsang vainly sought for, becomes very probable. That the pilgrim unguided failed to find it is an experience with which I became only too often and painfully familiar myself when we made our way in September 1914 across unexplored portions of the Eastern Pei-shan (cf. Geographical Journal, 48, p. 200).
In any case it is certain that if at the present day a wayfarer from An-hsi had reason to avoid observation at Hsing-hsing-hsia he could do no better than leeve the main route at Ma-lien-ching-tzŭ and strike to the west-north-west. He would have to cross there a con. tinuation of what appears to be the highest of the decayed hill ranges of the Pei-shan, the one which the main road passes in tortuous gorges just above Hsing-hsing-hsia. On such ground it would obviously be difficult to follow a straight line, and this circumstance may weil account for the passage in the narrative telling us that "as the route made long détours he no longer knew which direction to follow." After vainly searching for the "Spring of the Wild Horses," and a brief attempt to regain the fourth tower, we are told that Hsuantsang turned resolutely to the north-west and continued his journey undaunted by thirst and the perils of the desert. It was a resolve needing all the religious fervour and courage of the great pilgrim, but it was also the wisest course to follow-for one who knew how to keep up that bearing. And that Heüan-tsang fully possessed that instinct of the compass, so prevalent among Chinese of whatever condition, is abundantly proved by the topographical records he has left us in his Hsi-yü-chi.'
As the map shows, this course to the north-west was bound to carry the traveller across! the utterly barren gravel glacis about K'u-shui down to the Yen-tun depression, and beyond this to the south-eastern edge of the loess belt, where subsoil drainage from the Karlik-taglu