Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
incident from such an angle, we may say that this can be considered as an example
of Chinese Renaissance.
Let me now show you a restoration based on
A Commentary on the Book of
Rivers
: a map of Beijing and its surrounding areas, and several other maps recon-
structed from a series of later geographical studies in slides. As to the process of
their chronological developments, I am not going to discuss them here, as they are
not the content of our lecture.
Concerning the modern estimation of the value of the topic
Hsü Hsia-Ke's Travels
,
I would like to discuss it in the next lecture.
6.2
Hsü Xia-Ke's Travels
In my last lecture, I tried to use a specifi c example to illustrate how we discover the
scientifi c value of Li Tao-Yuan's topic:
A Commentary on the Book of Rivers
, which
was famous and well-remembered for its beautiful prose form. Today I would like
to introduce to you another famous Chinese topic which is also well-remembered by
the Chinese people for its excellent literary style and prose form. Through the
records of the author's geographical observations and investigations in his topic,
we discovered its scientifi c value and also the author's achievements and infl uence
in his time. To us modern students of geography, the latter point is more important.
The name of the topic is
Hsü Xia-Ke's Travels
which I mentioned in my last lecture.
As in Western history, there are also famous travellers in the Chinese history.
They also made long and diffi cult journeys and travels. The records and literature of
what they had done broadened our knowledge of geography and also helped to
promote the development of human civilization. For instance, in the fi rst half of the
second century B.C. (138-126 B.C.) the famous traveller Zhang Qian who by the
command of the Central Government of his time, started from Chang-An, the political
capital city, travelled westward and crossed the Pamir Plateau and fi nally reached
Central Asia. He made diplomatic contacts with the political sovereignty there.
He spent more than 10 years in his travels and return journey, conquering numerous
diffi culties and untold hardship. He became the pathfi nder of the famous “Silk
Route”. Again, for instance, in the last years of the fourth century (399-412),
Fa-Xien, a much respected monk, also travelled from Chang-An. After crossing the
Pamir Plateau, he turned down south to India. From India, he travelled by boat to
Ceylon, then sailed in a big sea-going boat back to China. Again, in the fi rst half of
the seventh century (627-645), another famous monk called Shuen-Zhaung,
followed a similar route taken by Fa-Xien some 200 years before. He started from
Chang-An, went westward and arrived in India where he stayed for more than
10 years. Then he travelled by land back to Chang-An. Without doubt, the achieve-
ments of these travellers are never to be neglected. Their achievements helped to
broaden the knowledge of the Chinese people. Also, they brought back the infl uence
of other people from abroad. However, to investigate into the aims of their endeavour,
we may obtain the conclusion that their achievements were by-products only.
