Indian Antiquary Vol 62

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

Page 96

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ MAY, 1933
Aftər Hsüan-tsang's journey more than six centuries pags before we meet again with a traveller's account of Wakhân. We owe it to Marco Polo, the greatest of medieval travellers, who about 1272-3 followed this route on his way to the Påmirs and thence to Khotan and China. "In leaving Badashan," so the great Venetian's immortal narrative tells us," you ride twelve days between east and north-east, ascending & river that runs through land belonging to a brother of the Prince of Badashan, and containing a good many towns and villages and scattered habitations. The people are Muhammadans and valiant in war. At the end of those twelve days you come to a province of no great size, extending, indeed, no more than three days' journey in any direction, and this is called Vokhan. The people worship Mahommet, and they have a peculiar language. They are gallant soldiers, and they have a chief called None, which is as much as to say Count, and they are liegemen of the Prince of Badashan."10
It has been long ago recognized by Sir Henry Yule that "the river along which Marco travels from Badakhshån is no doubt the upper stream of the Oxus, known locally as the Panja . . . It is true that the river is reached from Badakhshån proper by ascending another river (the Vardoj) and crossing the Pass of Ishkashm, but in the brief style of our narrative we must expect such condensation." For the twelve days' journey which the Venetian records between Badakhshan and Vokhan' it is easy to account, I believe, by A38uming that here, as in similar cases, the distance from capital to capital is meant ; for the distance from Bahárak, the old Badakhshan capital on the Vardoj, to Kala Panja, the seat of the old chiefs of Wakhan and nowadays of the administration on the Afghan side of the river, is still reckoned at twelve marches. Marco Polo was right, too, in his reference to the peculiar language of Wakhân; for while Persian is spoken in Badakhshân, the Wakhi, spoken by the people of Wakhân, is a distinct language belonging to the Galcha branch of Eastern Iranian. The small size ascribed to the province of Vokhan,' "extending no more than three days' journey in any direction," is still more readily understood if the portion of the valley about Ishkashm together with Zebak formed then, as it had done down to recent times, a separate small chiefship. It may in Marco Polo's time have been ruled over by a brother of the Prince of Badashan',!1
Before following Hsian-tsang and Marco Polo further to the Great Påmir, across which their journey led, it will be convenient to trace the route to the source of the Oxus and thence across the Wakhjir pass down the Tåghdum-bash Påmir to Sarikol. We have no old traveller's account describing this route, but it offers distinct advantages for caravan traffic and is regularly followed nowadays by traders proceeding from Chinese Turkistán to Chitral, or to Badakhshan. From Sarhad upwards I got to know it in 1906 on my second expedition and beyond the Wakhjîr pass I have become familiar with it on no less than four journeys. The Taghdum-bash Påmir forms now the only approach by which travellers from India crossing the Hindukush can gain the Tarim basin without touching either Afghan or Russian ground. In the same way the Tâghdum-b&sh together with the Afghán portion of the Ab-iPanja valley has served, ever since the Påmir Boundary Commission's work in 1895, as a buffer between the territories of British India and Russia.
From Langar-kisht, where a Russian post guards the junction of the Ab-i-Panja with that of the Great Påmir branch of the river, two easy marches past a succession of small settlements bring the traveller to the group of hamlets collectively known as Sarhad on the right bank of the river. Together with detached holdings on the opposite side they form at present the highest place of permanent occupation on the Ab-i-Panja. Sarhad is a point of some strategic importance, for opposite to it there debouches the open valley which leads
19 Cf. Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, 3rd edition, i, pp. 170 egg. 11 Cl. Innermost Asia, i, p. 68.