Indian Antiquary Vol 62

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 94

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
MAY, 1033
But before tracing its line it will be convenient to deal first with the other great natural thoroughfare which in the south leads up to the main headwaters of the Oxus. For this route lies close to the Hindukush and the passes by which valleys on the Indian side can be gained. Another reason is that our records about the early use of this route are more ample. In this case, too, we may start from the west, and thus keep company with those early travellers who have left us the fullest account of this southern route.
Only the briefest reference need be made here to the ground over which the valley of the uppermost Ox118 separating the Hindukush from the Pamirs is approached. A look at the map will suffice to show that the easiest and most direct approach to it from the side of Balkh and the rest of Afghan Turkistán must always have led through the fertile main portion of Badakhshan, formed by the valley of the Kokcha, or Vardoj river. Badakhshån, a terri. tory favoured by its climate and provided with plenty of arable ground in its valleys and rich grazing-grounds on its mountains, formed part of ancient Bactria which, after its conquest in the first century B.c. by the Tokhari, a branch of the Indo-Scythians or Great Yüeh-chi, was known as Tokharistân down to the early Middle Ages.
It is under the Chinese transliteration of the name, Tu-huo-lo, that Hsuan-tsang, the great Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, mentions the several petty chiefships, including Badakhshan, through which he passed on his way back from India in A.D. 642 towards the Tårim basin and China. The description which Hsüan-tsang gives in his famous Memoirs of the Western Countries of the territory next entered to the east leaves no doubt about its being identical with the present Wakhân. This comprises the valley of the Ab-i-Panja, or uppermost Oxus, right up from the river's sharp northward bend to its sources on the Afghan Pamirs. Hsuantsang makes no exact reference to the route by which he entered the territory. But considering the configuration of the ground this could be no other than the one still regularly used which leads from Zebak in the uppermost Vardoj valley across an easy saddle into the village tract of Ishkoshm close to the bend of the Oxus.
More than a century before Hsüan-tsang's passage the route through Wakhân had been followed in A.D. 519 by two other Chinese pilgrims, Sung Yün and Hui-sbêng, on their way from China with an Imperial mission to the Hephthalite or White Hun ruler of Kabul, and the north-west of India. Their narrative shows that, after reaching the uppermost Vardoj valley above Zebak, they made their way across the Hindukush, probably by the Mandal pass into the Bashgol valley of Kafiristân, and thence down to Swat and the Peshawar valley. It is similarly from the head of the Vardoj valley that Chitral is reached across the Dåráh pass. This route provides the most direct and easiest approach to Indian terri. tory from the side of Badakhshan and the Russian territories on the right bank of the Oxus.
Sung Yün and Hui-shêng's narratives agree in quite correctly describing Wakhân, or Po ho as they transcribe its name, as a country "extremely cold; caves are dug out for quarters. As winds and snow are intense men and beasts huddle together. On the southern border of this kingdom there are great snowy mountains (i.e., the Hindukush); the snow melts on them in the morning and freezes again at night. From afar they look like peaks of Jade." How closely this description corresponds to characteristic features still observed in Wakhân is shown by the accounts of modern travellers.
2 See the translations in Julion, Mémoires sur lcs contrées occidentales, i, pp. 201 sqq.; Watters, on Yuan Chwang's Travels, ii, pp. 279 sqq.
8 Sung Yun's route has been fully discussd by me in Serindia, i, pp. 9 sqq.
4 CY. Wood, Journey to the source of the Owus, 2nd ed., pp. 208 sqq.; Gordon, The Roof of the Worll, nr 135 g. Stein, Turn moul Asia, ii. 895a44;11 , Schultz, Forschungen in Pamir, pp. 139 sqq.; Oluisen, In the link noun Pomirs, pasim.