The Tsenpo Nomonhan's world geography (1820, revised 1830)

The Tsenpo Nomonhan Jampel Chokyi Tendzin Trinle (1789 to 1839) of Amdo wrote this world geography in 1820 and revised it in 1830. It covers Tibet, Mongolia, China, Russia, India, Central Asia and Europe, drawing on Tibetan, Mongolian and Chinese books and on informants, with his own observations for Amdo and Central Tibet. The card lists a 1980 Delhi reproduction of a cursive manuscript, scanned at BDRC, and Wylie's 1962 edition and translation of the Tibet section. The atlas does not hold the text of this edition: the corpus lists it but stores no text of it, under its rights rule, so nothing from it was read for this guide.

How they knew

Compiled from others

Who “Tartar” means here

The card describes the work as written without reference to the name Tartary. It names Mongols (Khalkha, Oirat and Torghut), Russians, Kazakhs and the Muslims of Turkestan by other names.

Why read it

It is a local Inner Asian description of the regions European maps called Tartary, written from inside the region and without that label.

Watch out

There are two redactions, and the sections outside Tibet rely on Chinese and Mongolian intermediaries and on Jesuit-derived Qing geography. Wylie translated only the Tibet section.