Irano-Sinica (Sino-Iranica)

IRANO-SINICA

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After dealing with the cultural elements derived by the Chinese from the Iranians, it will be only just to look also at the reverse of the medal and consider what the Iranians owe to the Chinese.

Square bamboo

1. Some products of China had reached Iranian peoples long before any Chinese set their foot on Iranian soil. When Čaṅ K'ien in 128 B.C. reached Ta-hia (Bactria), he was amazed to see there staves or walkingsticks made from bamboo of Kiuṅ <> and cloth of Šu (Se-č'wan) <>. What this textile exactly was is not known. Both these articles hailed from what is now Se-č'wan, Kiuṅ being situated in Žuṅ čou <> in the prefecture of Kia-tiṅ, in the southern part of the province. When the Chinese envoy inquired from the people of Ta-hia how they had obtained these objects of his own country, they replied that they purchased them in India. Hence Čaṅ K'ien concluded that India could not be so far distant from Se-č'wan. It is well known how this new geographical notion subsequently led the Chinese to the discovery of Yün-nan. There was accordingly an ancient trade-route running from Se-č'wan through Yün-nan into north-eastern India; and, as India on her north-west frontier was in connection with Iranian territory, Chinese merchandise could thus reach Iran. The bamboo of Kiuṅ, also called <>, has been identified by the Chinese with the so-called square bamboo (Bambusa or Phyllostachys quadrangularis). The cylindrical form is so universal a feature in bamboo, that the report of the existence in China and Japan of a bamboo with four-angled stems was first considered in Europe a myth, or a pathological abnormity. It is now well assured that it represents a regular and normal species, which grows wild in the north-eastern portion of Yün-nan, and is cultivated chiefly as an ornament in gardens and in temple-courts, the longer stems being used

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for staves, the smaller ones for tobacco-pipes. The shoots of this species are prized above all other bamboo-shoots as an esculent.

The Pei hu lu has the following notice on staves of the square bamboo: "Č'eṅ čou <> (in Kwaṅ-si) produces the square bamboo. Its trunk is as sharp as a knife, and is very strong. It can be made into staves which will never break. These are the staves from the bamboo of K'iuṅ <>, mentioned by Čaṅ K'ien. Such are produced also in Yuṅ čou <>, the largest of these reaching several tens of feet in height. According to the Čeṅ šeṅ tsi <>, there are in the southern territory square bamboo staves on which the white cicadas chirp, and which Č'eṅ Čeṅ-tsie <> has extolled. Moreover, Hai-yen <> produces rushes (lu <>, Phragmites communis) capable of being made into staves for support. P'an čou <> produces thousand-years ferns <> and walking-sticks which are small and resemble the palmyra palm <> (Borassus flabelliformis). There is, further, the su-tsie bamboo <>, from which staves are abundantly made for the Buddhist and Taoist clergy,— all singular objects. According to the Hui tsui <>, the t'uṅ <> bamboo from the Čen River <> is straight, without knots in its upper parts, and hollow."

The Ko ku yao lun states that the square bamboo is produced in western Se-č'wan, and also grows on the mountain Fei-lai-fuṅ <> on the West Lake in Če-kiaṅ; the knots of this bamboo are prickly, hence it is styled in Se-č'wan tse ču <> ("prickly bamboo").

According to the Min siao ki <> written by Čou Liaṅ-kuṅ <> in the latter part of the seventeenth century, square bamboo and staves made from it are produced in the district of Yuṅ-tiṅ <> in the prefecture of T'iṅ-čou and in the district of T'ai-niṅ <> in the prefecture of Sao-wu, both in Fu-kien Province.The Šan hai kiṅ mentions the "narrow bamboo (hia ču <>) growing in abundance on the Tortoise Mountain"; and Kwo P'o (A.D. 276-324), in his commentary to this work, identifies with it the bamboo of Kiuṅ. According to the Kwaṅ či, the Kiuṅ bamboo occurred in the districts of Nan-kwaṅ <> (at present Nan-k'i <>) and Kiuṅ-tu in Se-č'wan. The Memoirs of Mount Lo-fou (Lo-fou šan ki) in Kwaṅ-tuṅ state that the Kiuṅ bamboo was originally produced on Mount Kiuṅ, being identical with that noticed by Čaṅ K'ien in Ta-hia, and that village-elders use it as a staff. A treatise on bamboo therefore calls it the "bamboo supporting the old" <>. These texts are cited in the T'ai p'iṅ yü lan (Ch. 963, p. 3).

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It is said to occur also in the prefecture of Teṅ-čou <>, Šan-tuṅ Province, where it is likewise made into walking-sticks. The latter being much in demand by Buddhist monks, the bamboo has received the epithet "Lo-han bamboo" (bamboo of the Arhat).

It is perfectly manifest that what was exported from Se-č'wan by way of Yün-nan into India, and thence forwarded to Bactria, was the square bamboo in the form of walking-canes. India is immensely rich in bamboos; and only a peculiar variety, which did not exist in India, could have compensated for the trouble and cost which this long and wearisome trade-route must have caused in those days. For years, I must confess, it has been a source of wonder to me why Se-č'wan bamboo should have been carried as far as Bactria, until I encountered the text of the Pei hu lu, which gives a satisfactory solution of the problem.

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Silk

2. The most important article by which the Chinese became famously known in ancient times, of course, was silk. This subject is so extensive, and has so frequently been treated in special monographs, that it does not require recapitulation in this place. I shall only recall the fact that the Chinese silk materials, after traversing Central Asia, reached the Iranian Parthians, who acted as mediators in this trade with the anterior Orient. It is assumed that the introduction of sericulture into Persia, especially into Gilan, where it still flourishes, falls in the latter part of the Sasanian epoch. It is very probable that the acquaintance of the Khotanese with the rearing of silkworms, introduced by a Chinese princess in A.D. 419, gave the impetus to a further growth of this new industry in a western direction, gradually spreading to Yarkand, Fergana, and Persia. Chinese brocade (dībā-i čīn) is frequently mentioned by FirdausI as playing a prominent part in Persian decorations. He also speaks of a very fine and decorated Chinese silk under the name parniyān, corresponding to Middle Persian parnīkān. Iranian has a peculiar word for "silk," not yet satisfactorily explained: Pahlavi *aprēšum, *aparēšum; New Persian abrēšum, abrēšam (Arme-

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nian, loan-word from Persian, aprišum); hence Arabic ibarīsam or ibrīsam; Pamir dialects waršum, waršüm, Šugni wrežōm, etc.; Afghan wrēšam. Certain it is that we have here a type not related to any Chinese word for "silk." In this connection I wish to register my utter disbelief in the traditional opinion, inaugurated by Klaproth, that Greek ser ("silk-worm" ; hence Seres, Serica) should be connected with Mongol širgek and Manchu sirge ("silk"), the latter with Chinese se <>. My reasons for rejecting this theory may be stated as briefly as possible. I do not see how a Greek word can be explained from Mongol or Manchu, — languages which we merely know in their most recent forms, Mongol from the thirteenth and Manchu from the sixteenth century. Neither the Greek nor the Mongol-Manchu word can be correlated with Chinese se. The latter was never provided with a final consonant. Klaproth resorted to the hypothesis that in ancient dialects of China along the borders of the empire a final r might (peut-être) have existed. This, however, was assuredly not the case. We know that the termination ’r <>, so frequently associated with nouns in Pekingese, is of comparatively recent origin, and not older than the Yüan period (thirteenth century) ; the beginnings of this usage may go back to the end of the twelfth or even to the ninth century. At any rate, it did not exist in ancient times when the Greek ser came into being. Moreover, this suffix ’r is not used arbitrarily : it joins certain words, while others take the suffix tse <>, and others again do not allow any suffix. The word se, however, has never been amalgamated with ’r. In all probability, its ancient phonetic value was *si, sa. It is thus phonetically impossible to derive from it the Mongol-Manchu word or Korean sir, added by Abel-Rémusat. I do not deny that this series may have its root in a Chinese word, but its parentage cannot be traced to se. I do

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not believe, either, that Russian šolk ("silk"), as is usually stated (even by Dal'), is derived from Mongol širgek: first of all, the alleged phonetic coincidence is conspicuous by its absence; and, secondly, an ancient Russian word cannot be directly associated with Mongol; it would be necessary to trace the same or a similar word in Turkish, but there it does not exist; "silk" in Turkish is ipäk, torgu, torka, etc. It is more probable that the Russian word (Old Slavic šelk, Lithuanian szilkaĩ), in the same manner as our silk, is traceable to sericum. There is no reason to assume that the Greek words ser, Sera, Seres, etc., have their origin in Chinese. This series was first propagated by Iranians, and, in my opinion, is of Iranian origin (cf. New Persian sarah, "silk"; hence Arabic sarak).

Persian kimxāw or kamxāb, kamxā, kimxā (Arabic kimxāw, Hindustani kamxāb), designating a "gold brocade," as I formerly explained, may be derived from Chinese <> kin-hwa, *kim-xwa.

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Peach and apricot

3-4. Of fruits, the West is chiefly indebted to China for the peach (Amygdalus persica) and the apricot (Prunus armeniaca). It is not impossible that these two gifts were transmitted by the silk-dealers, first to Iran (in the second or first century B.C.), and thence to Armenia, Greece, and Rome (in the first century A.D.). In Rome the two trees appear as late as the first century of the Imperium, being mentioned as Persica and Armeniaca arbor by Pliny and Columella. Neither tree is mentioned by Theophrastus, which is to say that they were not noted in Asia by the staff of Alexander's expedition. De Candolle has ably pleaded for China as the home of the peach and apricot, and Engler holds the same opinion. The zone of the wild apricot may well extend from Russian Turkistan to Sungaria, south-eastern Mongolia, and the Himalaya; but the historical fact remains that the Chinese have been the first to cultivate this fruit from ancient times. Previous authors have justly connected the westward migration of peach and apricot with the lively intercourse of China and western Asia following Čaṅ K'ien's mission. Persian has only descriptive names for these fruits, the peach being termed šaft-ālu, ("large plum"), the apricot zard-ālu

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("yellow plum"). Both fruits are referred to in Pahlavi literature (above, pp. 192, 193).

As to the transplantation of the Chinese peach into India, we have an interesting bit of information in the memoirs of the Chinese pilgrim Hüan Tsaṅ. At the time of the great Indo-Scythian king Kaniṣka, whose fame spread all over the neighboring countries, the tribes west of the Yellow River (Ho-si in Kan-su) dreaded his power, and sent hostages to him. Kaniṣka treated them with marked attention, and assigned to them special mansions and guards of honor. The country where the hostages resided in the winter received the name Cīnabhukti ("China allotment," in the eastern Panjāb). In this kingdom and throughout India there existed neither pear nor peach. These were planted by the hostages. The peach therefore was called cīnanī ("Chinese fruit"); and the pear, cīnarājaputra ("crown-prince of China"). These names are still prevalent. Although Hüan Tsaṅ recorded in A.D. 630 an oral tradition overheard by him in India, and relative to a time lying back over half a millennium, his well-tested trustworthiness cannot be doubted in this case: the story thus existed in India, and may indeed be traceable to an event that took place under the reign of Kaniṣka, the exact date of which is still controversial. There are mainly two reasons which prompt me to accept Hüan Tsaṅ's account. From a botanical point of view, the peach is not a native of India. It occurs there only

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in a cultivated state, and does not even succeed well, the fruit being mediocre and acid.1 There is no ancient Sanskrit name for the tree; nor does it play any rôle in the folk-lore of India, as it does in China. Further, as regards the time of the introduction, whether the reign of Kaniska be placed in the first century before or after our era, it is singularly synchronous with the transplantation of the tree into western Asia.

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1 C. Joret, Plantes dans l'antiquité, Vol. II, p. 281.

Cinnamon

5. As indicated by the Persian name dār-čīnī or dār-čīn ("Chinese wood" or "bark"; Arabic dār ṣīnī), cinnamon was obtained by the Persians and Arabs from China. Ibn Khordādzbeh, who wrote between a.d. 844 and 848, is the first Arabic author who enumerates cinnamon among the products exported from China. The Chinese export cannot have assumed large dimensions: it is not alluded to in Chinese records, Čao Žu-kwa is reticent about it. Ceylon was always the main seat of cinnamon production, and the tree (Cinnamomum zeylanicum) is a native of the Ceylon forests. The bark of this tree is also called dar-čīnī. It is well known that cassia and cinnamon are mentioned by classical authors, and have given rise to many sensational speculations as to the origin of the cinnamon of the ancients. Herodotus places cinnamon in Arabia, and tells a wondrous story as to how it is gathered. Theophrastus seeks the home of cassia and cinnamomum, together with frankincense and myrrh, in the Arabian peninsula about Saba, Hadramyt, Kitibaina, and Mamali. Strabo locates it in the land of the Sabæans, in Arabia, also in Ethiopia and southern India; finally he has a "cinnamon-bearing country" at the end of the habitable countries of the south, on the shore of the Indian ocean. Pliny has cinnamomum or cinnamum grow in the country of the Ethiopians, and it is carried over sea on rafts by the Troglodytae.

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The descriptions given of cinnamon and cassia by Theophrastus show that the ancients did not exactly agree on the identity of these plants, and Theophrastus himself speaks from hearsay ("In regard to cinnamon and cassia they say the following: both are shrubs, it is said, and not of large size... Such is the account given by some. Others say that cinnamon is shrubby or rather like an under-brush, and that there are two kinds, one black, the other white"). The difference between cinnamon and cassia seems to have been that the latter possessed stouter branches, was very fibrous, and difficult to strip off the bark. This bark was used; it was bitter, and had a pungent odor.

Certain it is that the two words are of Semitic origin. The fact that there is no cinnamon in Arabia and Ethiopia was already known to Garcia da Orta. An unfortunate attempt has been made to trace the cinnamon of the ancients to the Chinese. This theory has thus been formulated by Muss-Arnolt: "This spice was imported by Phoenician merchants from Egypt, where it is called khisi-t. The Egyptians, again, brought it from the land of Punt, to which it was imported from Japan, where we have it under the form kei-chi ('branch of the cinnamon-tree'), or better kei-shin ('heart of the cinnamon') [read sin, *sim]. The Japanese itself is again borrowed from the Chinese kei-ši [?]. The -t in the Egyptian represents the feminine suffix." As may be seen from O. Schrader, this strange hypothesis was first put forward in 1883 by C. Schumann. Schrader himself feels somewhat sceptic about it, and regards the appearance of Chinese merchandise on the markets of Egypt at such an early date as hardly probable. From a sinological viewpoint, this speculation must be wholly rejected, both in its linguistic and its historical bearings. Japan was not in existence in 1500 B.C., when cinnamon-wood of the country Punt is spoken of in the Egyptian inscriptions; and China was then a small agrarian inland community restricted to the northern part of the present empire, and

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not acquainted with any Cassia trees of the south. Certainly there was no Chinese navigation and sea-trade at that time. The Chinese word kwei <> (*kwai, kwi) occurs at an early date, but it is a generic term for Lauraceae; and there are about thirteen species of Cassia, and about sixteen species of Cinnamomum, in China. The essential point is that the ancient texts maintain silence as to cinnamon; that is, the product from the bark of the tree. Cinnamomum cassia is a native of Kwaṅ-si, Kwaṅtuṅ, and Indo-China; and the Chinese made its first acquaintance under the Han, when they began to colonize and to absorb southern China. The first description of this species is contained in the Nan faṅ ts'ao mu čwaṅ of the third century. This work speaks of large forests of this tree covering the mountains of Kwaṅ-tuṅ, and of its cultivation in gardens of Kiao-či (Tonking). It was not the Chinese, but non-Chinese peoples of Indo-China, who first brought the tree into cultivation, which, like all other southern cultivations, was simply adopted by the conquering Chinese. The medicinal employment of the bark (kwei p'i <>) is first mentioned by T'ao Huṅ-kiṅ (A.D. 451-536), and probably was not known much earlier. It must be positively denied, however, that the Chinese or any nation of Indo-China had any share in the trade which brought cinnamon to the Semites, Egyptians, or Greeks at the time of Herodotus or earlier. The earliest date we may assume for any navigation from the coasts of Indo-China into the Indian Ocean is the second century B.C. The solution of the cinnamon problem of the ancients seems simpler to me than to my predecessors. First, there is no valid reason to assume that what our modern botany understands by Cassia and Cinnamomum must be strictly identical with the products so named by the ancients. Several different species are evidently involved. It is perfectly conceivable that in ancient times there was a fragrant bark supplied by a certain tree of Ethiopia or Arabia or both, which is either extinct or unknown to us, or, as Fée inclines to think, a species of Amyris. It is further legitimate to conclude, without forcing the evidence, that the greater part of the cinnamon supply came from Ceylon and India, India being expressly included by Strabo. This, at least, is infinitely more reasonable than acquiescing in the wild fantasies of a Schumann or Muss-Arnolt, who lack the most elementary knowledge of East-Asiatic history.

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Zedoary

6. The word "China " in the names of Persian and Arabic products,

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or the attribution of certain products to China, is not always to be understood literally. Sometimes it merely refers to a far-eastern product, sometimes even to an Indian product, and sometimes to products handled and traded by the Chinese, regardless of their provenience. Such cases, however, are exceptions. As a rule, these Persian-Arabic terms apply to actual products of China.

Schlimmer mentions under the name Killingea monocephala the zedoary of China : according to Piddington's Index Plantarum, it should be the plant furnishing the famous root known in Persia as jadwāre xitāi ("Chinese jadvār"); genuine specimens are regarded as a divine panacea, and often paid at the fourfold price of fine gold. The identification, however, is hardly correct, for K. monocephala is kin niu ts'ao <> in Chinese, which hardly holds an important place in the Chinese pharmacopoeia. The plant which Schlimmer had in mind doubtless is Curcuma zedoaria, a native of Bengal and perhaps of China and various other parts of Asia. It is called in Sanskrit nirviṣā ("poisonless") or ṣida, in Kuča or Tokharian B viralom or wiralom, Persian jadvār, Arabic zadvār (hence our zedoary, French zedoaire). Abu Mansur describes it as zarvār, calling it an Indian remedy similar to Costus and a good antidote. In the middle ages it was a much-desired article of trade bought by European merchants in the Levant, where it was sold as a product of the farthest east. Persian zarumbād, Arabic zeronbād, designating an aromatic root similar to zedoary, resulted in our zerumbet. While it is not certain that Curcuma zedoaria occurs in China (a Chinese name is not known to me), it is noteworthy that the Persians, as indicated above, ascribe to the root a Chinese origin: thus also kažūr (from Sanskrit karcūra) is explained in the Persian Dictionary of

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Steingass as "zedoary, a Chinese root." Further, we read under māhparwār or parwîn, "zedoary, a Chinese root like ginger, but perfumed."

Ginger

7. Abu Mansur distinguishes under the Arabic name zanjabīl three kinds of ginger (product of Amomum zingiber, or Zingiber officinale),— Chinese, Zanzibar, and Melinawi or Zurunbāj, the best being the Chinese. According to Steingass, Persian anqala denotes "a kind of China ginger." The Persian word (likewise in Arabic) demonstrates that the product was received from India : compare Prakrit singabēra, Sanskrit çṛṅgavera (of recent origin), Old Arabic zangabīl, Pahlavi šangavīr, New Persian šankalīl, Arabic-Persian zanjabīl, Armenian sṅrvēl or snkrvil (from *singivēl), Greek ζιγγίβερις, Latin zingiberi ; Madagasy šakavīru (Indian loan-word).

The word galangal, denoting the aromatic rhizome of Alpinia galanga, is not of Chinese origin, as first supposed by D. Hanbury, and after him by Hirth and Giles. The error was mainly provoked by the fact that the Arabic word from which the European name is derived was wrongly written by Hanbury khalanjān, while in fact it is khūlanjān (xūlandžān), Persian xāwalinjān. The fact that Ibn Khordādzbeh, who wrote about A.D. 844-848, mentions khūlanjān as one of the products of China, does not prove that the Arabs received this word from China ; for this rhizome is not a product peculiar to China, but is intensively grown in India, and there the Arabs made the first acquaintance of it. Ibn al-Baiṭār states expressly that khūlanjān comes from India ; and, as was recognized long ago, the Arabic word is derived from Sanskrit kulañja, which denotes Alpinia galanga. The European forms with ng (galangan, galgan, etc.) were suggested by the older Arabic pronunciation khūlangān. In Middle Greek we have

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κολούτζια, χαυλιζέν, and γαλαγγά ; in Russian, kalgán. The whole group has nothing to do with Chinese kao-liaṅ-kiaṅ. Moreover, the latter refers to a different species, Alpinia officinarum ; while Alpinia galanga does not occur in China, but is a native of Bengal, Assam, Burma, Ceylon, and the Konkan. Garcia da Orta was already well posted on the differences between the two.

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Mamiran

8. Abu Mansur mentions the medical properties of māmīrān. According to Achundow, a rhizome originating from China, and called in Turkistan momiran, is described by Dragendorff, and is regarded by him as identical with the so-called mishmee (from Coptis teeta Wall.), which is said to be styled mamiračin in the Caucasus. He further correlates the same drug with Ranunculus ficaria (χελιδόνιον τὸ μικρόν), subsequently described by the Arabs under the name mamirun. Al-Jafiki is quoted by Ibn al-Baiṭār as saying that the māmīrān comes from China, and that its properties come near to those of Curcuma ; these roots, however, are also a product of Spain, the Berber country, and Greece. The Sheikh Daūd says that the best which comes from India is blackish, while that of China is yellowish. Ibn Baṭūṭa mentions the importation of māmīrān from China, saying that it has the same properties as kurkum. Hajji Mahomed, in his account of Cathay (ca. 1550), speaks of a little root growing in the mountains of Succuir (Su-čou in Kan-su), where the rhubarb grows, and which they call Mambroni Cini (māmīrān-i Čīnī, "mamiran of China"). "This is extremely dear, and is used in most of their ailments, but especially where the eyes are affected. They grind it on a stone with rose-water, and anoint the eyes with it. The result is wonderfully beneficial." In 1583 Leonhart Rauwolf mentions

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the drug mamirani tchini for eye-diseases, being yellowish like Curcuma. Bernier mentions mamiran as one of the products brought' by the caravans from Tibet. Also according to a modern Mohammedan source, mamiran and rhubarb are exported from Tibet.1 Mamira is a reputed drug for eye-diseases, applied to bitter roots of kindred properties but of different origin. By some it is regarded as the rhizome of Coptis teeta (ttta being the name of the drug in the Mishmi country) ; by others, from Thalictrum joliosum, a tall plant common throughout the temperate Himalaya and in the Kasia Hills.2 In another passage, however, Yule3 suggests that this root might be the ginseng of the Chinese, which is highly improbable. It is most likely that by mamira is understood in general the root of Coptis teeta. This is a ranunculaceous plant, and the root has sometimes the appearance of a bird's claw. It is shipped in large quantities from China (Chinese hwan-lien !ic *H) via Singapore to India. The Chinese regard it as a panacea for a great many ills; among others, for clearing inflamed eyes.

Rhubarb

9. Abu Mansur discriminates between two kinds of rhubarb,— the Chinese (rlwand-i stni) and that of Khorasan, adding that the former is most employed.4 Accordingly a species of rhubarb (probably Rheum ribes) must have been indigenous to Persia. Yaqut says that the finest kind grew in the soil of Nlsapur.5 According to E. Boissier,6 Rheum ribes occurs near Van and in Agerowdagh in Armenia, on Mount Pir Omar Gudrun in Kurdistan, in the Daena Mountain of eastern Persia, near Persepolis, in the province Aderbeijan in northern Persia, and in the mountains of Baluchistan. There is a general Iranian name for "rhubarb": Middle Persian rewas, New Persian rewas, rewand, riwand (hence Armenian erevant), Kurd riwas, rlbas; Baluci ravaS; Afghan rawa!!;., 7 The Persian name has penetrated in the same form into Arabic 1 Ch. Schefer, Histoire de l'Asie centrale par Mir Abdoul Kerim Boukhary, p. 239. Cf. also R. Dozy, Supplement aux dictionnaires arabes, Vol. II, p. 565. 2 Yule, Hobson-Jobson, p. 548. * Cathay, Vol. I, p. 292. 4 Achundow, Abu Mansur, p. 74. Chinese rhubarb is also called simply lini ("Chinese") in Persian, sini in Arabic. 8 Barbier de Meynard, Diet. geogr. de la Perse, p. 579. • Flora Orientalis, Vol. IV, p. 1004. Rheum ribes does not occur in China or Central Asia. 7 The Afghan word in particular refers to Rheum spiciforme, which grows wild and abundantly in many parts of Afghanistan. When green, the leaf-stalks are called rawds; and when blanched by heaping up stones and gravel around them, lukri; when fresh, they are eaten either raw or cooked (Watt, Dictionary, Vol.VI, p. 487). The species under notice occurs also in Kan-su, China: Forbes and

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and Turkish, likewise into Russian as reven' and into Serbian as reved. It is assumed also that Greek frrjov (from *rewon) and pa. are derived from Iranian, and it is more than likely that Iran furnished the rhubarb known to the ancients. The two Greek names first appear in Dioscorides, 1 who states that the plant grows in the regions beyond the Bosporus, for which reason it was subsequently styled rha ponticum or rha barbarum (hence our rhubarb, Spanish ruibarbo, Italian rabarbaro, French rhubarbe),—an interesting case analogous to that of the Hu plants of the Chinese. In the fourth century, Ammianus Marcellinus2 states that the plant receives its name from the River Rha ('Pa, Finnish Rau, Rawa), on the banks of which it grows. This is the Volga, but the plant does not occur there. It is clear that Ammianus' opinion is erroneous, being merely elicited by the homophony of the names of the plant and the river. Pliny3 describes a root termed rhacoma, which when pounded yields a color like that of wine but inclining to saffron, and which was brought from beyond the Pontus. Certain it is that this drug represents some species of Rheum, in my opinion identical with that of Iran.4 There is no reason to speculate, as has been done by some authors, that the rhubarb of the ancients came from China; for the Chinese did not know rhubarb, as formerly assumed, from time immemorial. This is shown at the outset by the composite name ta hwan 3s. if ("the great yellow one") or hwan liah lit Ji("the yellow good one"), merely descriptive attributes, while for all genuinely ancient plants there is a root-word of a single syllable. The alleged mention of rhubarb in the Pen kin or Pen ts x ao, attributed to the mythical Emperor Sen-nun, proves nothing; that work is entirely spurious, and the text in which we have it at present is a reconstruction based on quotations in the preserved Pen-ts'ao literature, and teems with interpolations and anachronisms.6 All that is certain is that rhubarb was known to the

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Hemsley, Journal Linnean Soc, Vol. XXVI, p. 355. There is accordingly no reason to seek for an outside origin of the Iranian word (cf. Schrader, Reallexikon, p. 685). The Iranian word originally designated an indigenous Iranian species, and was applied to Rheum officinale and palmatum from the tenth century onward, when the roots of these species were imported from China.

1 III, 2. Theophrastus is not acquainted with this genus.

2 XXII. vin, 28.

3 xxvii, 105.

4 Fltjckiger and Hanbury (Pharmacographia, p. 493) state, "Whether produced in the regions of the Euxine (Pontus), or merely received thence from remoter countries, is a question that cannot be solved." The authors are not acquainted with the Iranian species, and their scepticism is not justified.

5 It is suspicious that, according to Wu P'u of the third century, Sen Nun and Lei Kuh ascribed poisonous properties to ta hwan, while this in fact is not true. The Pen kin (according to others, the Pie lu) states that it is non-poisonous.

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Chinese in the age of the Han, for the name ta hwan occurs on one of the wooden tablets of that period discovered in Turkistan by Sir A. Stein and deciphered by Chavannes.1

Abu Mansur, as cited above, is the first Persian author who speaks of Chinese rhubarb. He is followed by a number of Arabic writers. It is therefore reasonable to infer that only in the course of the tenth century did rhubarb develop into an article of trade from China to western Asia. In n54 EdrisI mentions rhubarb as a product of China growing in the mountains of Buthink (perhaps north-eastern Tibet). 2 Ibn Sa'id, who wrote in the thirteenth century, speaks of the abundance of rhubarb in China.3 Ibn al-Baitar treats at great length of rawend, by which he understands Persian and Chinese rhubarb,4 and of ribds, "very common in Syria and the northern countries," identified by Leclerc with Rheum ribes.5

Marco Polo relates that rhubarb is found in great abundance over all mountains of the province of Sukchur (Su-cou in Kan-su), and that merchants go there to buy it, and carry it thence all over the world.6 In another passage he attributes rhubarb also to the mountains around the city of Su-cou in Kian-su, 7 which, Yule says, is believed by the most competent authorities to be quite erroneous. True it is that rhubarb has never been found in that province or anywhere in middle China; neither is there an allusion to this in Chinese accounts, which restrict the area of the plant to Sen-si, Kan-su, Se-c'wan, and Tibet. Nevertheless it would not be impossible that at Polo's time a sporadic attempt was made to cultivate rhubarb in the environs of Su-cou. Friar Odoric mentions rhubarb for the province Kansan (Kan-su), growing in such abundance that you may load an ass with it for less than six groats. 8

Chinese records tell us very little about the export-trade in this article. Cao 2u-kwa alone mentions rhubarb among the imports of

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1 Documents chinois d^couverts dans les sables du Turkestan oriental, p. 115, No. 527.

2 W. Heyd, Histoire du commerce du levant, Vol. II, p. 665. See also Fluckiger and Hanbury, Pharmacographia, pp. 493-494.

3 G. Ferrand, Textes relatifs a 1'ExtrSme-Orient, p. 350.

4 Leclerc, Traits des simples, Vol. II, pp. 155-164.

5 Ibid., p. 190. This passage was unknown to me when I identified above the Persian term riwand with this species, arriving at this conclusion simply by consulting Boissier's Flora.

6 Yule, Marco Polo, Vol. I, p. 217.

7 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 181.

8 Yule, Cathay, Vol. II, p. 247.

[550]

San-fu-ts'i (Palembang) and Malabar. 1 In vain also should we look in Chinese books for anything on the subject that would correspond to the importance attached to it in the West.

Garcia da Orta (1562) held it for certain that "all the rhubarb that comes from Ormuz to India first comes from China to Ormuz by the province of Uzbeg which is part of Tartary. The fame is that it comes from China by land, but some say that it grows in the same province, at a city called £amarcander (Samarkand) . 2 But this is very bad and of little weight. Horses are purged with it in Persia, and I have also seen it so used in Balagate. It seems to me that this is the rhubarb which in Europe we called ravam turquino, not because it is of Turkey but from there." He emphasizes the point that there is no other rhubarb than that from China, and that the rhubarb coming to Persia or Uzbeg goes thence to Venice and to Spain; some goes to Venice by way of Alexandria, a good deal by Aleppo and Syrian Tripoli, all these routes being partly by sea, but chiefly by land; 3 the rhubarb is not so much powdered, for it is more rubbed in a month at sea than in a year going by land.4 As early as the thirteenth century at least, as we see from Ibn al-Baitar, what was known to the Arabs as "rhubarb of the Turks or the Persians," in fact hailed from China. In the same manner, it was at a later time that in Europe "Russian, Turkey, and China rhubarb" were distinguished, these names being merely indicative of the various routes by which the drug was conveyed to Europe from China.5 Also Christoval Acosta notes the corruption of rhubarb at sea and its overland transportation to Persia, Arabia, and Alexandria.6

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1 Hirth, Chau Ju-kua, pp. 61, 88.

2 Probably Rheum ribes, mentioned above. s Leonhart Rauwolf (Beschreibung der Raiss inn die Morgenlander, 1583, p. 461) reports that large quantities of rhubarb are shipped from India to Aleppo both by sea and by land.

4 Cf. Markham, Colloquies,, pp. 390-392.

5 In regard to the Russian trade in rhubarb see G. Cahen, Le livre de comptes de la caravane russe a P£kin, p. 108 (Paris, 191 1).

6 Reobarbaro (medicina singular, y digna de ser de todo el linage humano venerada) se halla solamente dentro de la China, de donde lo traen a vender a Cataon (que es el puerto de mas comercio de la China, donde estan los Portugueses) y de alii viene po« mar a la India: y deste que viene por mar no se haze mucho caso, por venir, por la mayor parte corropido (por quanto el Reobarbaro se corrope co mucha facilidad enla mar) y dela misma tierra detro de la China, lo lleuan a la Tartaria, y por la prouincia de Vzbeque lo lleua a Ormuz, y a toda la Persia, Arabia, y Alexadria: de dode se distribuye por toda la Europa (Tractado de las drogas, y medicinas de las Indias Orientales, p. 287, Burgos, 1576). Cf. also Linschoten (Vol. II, p. 101, ed. of Hakluyt Society), who, as in most of his notices of Indian products, exploits Garcia.

[551]

John Gerarde1 illustrates the rhubarb-plant and annotates, "It is brought out of the countrie of Sina (commonly called China) which is towarde the east in the upper part of India, and that India which is without the river Ganges: and not at all Ex Scenitarum provincia, (as many do unadvisedly thinke) which is in Arabia the happie, and far from China," etc. "The best rubarbe is that which is brought from China fresh and newe," etc.

Watt2 gives a Persian term revande-hindi ("Indian rhubarb") for Rheum emodi. Curiously, in Hindustani this is called Hindi-revand lint ("Chinese rhubarb of India"), and in Bengali Bangla-revan llnl ("Chinese rhubarb of Bengal"), indicating that the Chinese product was preeminently in the minds of the people, and that the Himalayan rhubarbs were only secondary substitutes.

Salsola

10. Abu Mansur 3 mentions under the Arabic name ratta a fruit called "Indian hazel-nut" (bunduq-i hindl), also Chinese Salsola kali. It is the size of a small plum, contains a small blackish stone, and is brought from China. It is useful in chronic diseases and in cases of poisoning, and is hot and dry in the second degree. This is Sapindus mukorossi, in Chinese wu (or mu)-hwan-tse M (or 7fC) }& -J* (with a number of synonymes), the seeds being roasted and eaten.

Emblic myrobalan

11. Arabic suk, a drug composed of several ingredients, according to Ibn Sina, was originally a secret Chinese remedy formed with amlaj (Sanskrit dmalaka, Phyllanthus emblica, the emblic myrobalan).4 It is the 3$tMWi an-mo-lo, *an-mwa-lak, of the Chinese.5 In Persian it is amala or amula.

Althaea

12. Persian guli xaird (xairu) is explained as Chinese and Persian hollyhock (Althaea rosea). 6 This is the iw k'wei 16 l£ ("mallow of Se- 6'wan") of the Chinese, also called Zuh kxwei ("mallow of the Zun"). It is the common hollyhock, which Stuart7 thinks may have been originally introduced into China from some western country.

Rose of China

13. Ibn al-Baitar8 speaks of a "rose of China" (ward sini), usually called nisrln. According to Leclerc, this is a malvaceous plant. In Persian we find gul-lml ("rose of China"), the identification of which,

____________________

1 The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes, p. 317 (London, 1597).

2 Dictionary, Vol. VI, p. 486.

3 Achundow, Abu Mansur, p. 74.

4 E. Seidel, Mechithar, p. 215.

5 Pen ts'ao kan mu, Ch. 30, p. 5 b; Fan yi min yi tsi, Ch. 8, p. I. Stuart (Chinese Materia Medica, p. 421) wrongly identifies the name with Spondias amara.

6 Steingass, Persian Dictionary, p. 1092.

7 Chinese Materia Medica, p. 33.

8 Leclerc, Traite" des simples, Vol. Ill, pp. 369, 409.

[552]

judging from what Steingass says, is not exactly known. The Arabic author, further, has a $ah-slm ("Chinese king"), described as a drug in the shape of small, thin, and black tabloids prepared from the sap of a plant. It is useful as a refrigerant for feverish headache and inflamed tumors. It is reduced to a powder and applied to the diseased spot. 1 Leclerc annotates that, according to the Persian treatises, this plant originating from China, as indicated by its name, is serviceable for headache in general. DimaSkI, who wrote about 1325, ascribes lah-llnl to the island of Cankhay in the Malayan Archipelago, saying that its leaves are known under the name "betel."2 Steingass, in his Persian Dictionary, explains the term as "the expressed juice of a plant brought from China, good for headaches." I do not know what plant is understood here.

Mango

14. According to Ibn al-Baitar, the mango (Arabic anba) is found only in India and China.3 This is Mangifera indica (family Anacardiaceae), a native of India, and the queen of the Indian fruits, counting several hundreds of varieties. Its Sanskrit name is antra, known to the Chinese in the transcription ^ M an-lo, *am-la(ra). Persian amba and Arabic anba are derived from the same word. During the T'ang period the fruit was grown in Fergana.4 Malayan manga (like our mango) is based on Tamil mangas, and is the foundation of the Chinese transcription mun W. . The an-lo tree is first mentioned for Cen-la (Camboja) in the Sui Annals,5 where its leaves are compared with those of the jujube (Zizyphus vulgaris), and its fruits with those of a plum (Prunus triflora).

Sandal

15. Isak Ibn Amran says, "Sandal is a wood that comes to us from China."6 Santalum album is grown in Kwan-tun to some extent, but it is more probable that the sandal-wood used in western Asia came from India (cf. Persian Zandan, Zandal, Armenian candan, Arabic sandal, from Sanskrit candana).

Birch

16. Antaki notes the xalen tree ("birch") in India and China; and Ibn al-Keblr remarks that it is particularly large in China, in the country of the Rus (Russians) and Bulgar, where are made from it vessels and plates which are exported to distant places; the arrows made of this wood are unsurpassed. According to Qazwlnl and Ibn

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1 Ibid., p. 314.

2 G. Ferrand, Textes relatifs a l'Extr&ne-Orient, p. 381.

3 Leclerc, Traits des simples, Vol. II, p. 471. Cf. Ibn Batata, ed. of Defremery and Sanguinetti, Vol. Ill, p. 127; Yule, Hobson-Jobson, p. 553.

4 T'ai p'in hwan yii ki, Ch. 181, p. 13 b.

5 Sui 1m, Ch. 82, p. 3 b.

6 Leclerc, op. tit., p. 383.

[553]

Fadlan, the tree occurred in Tabaristan, whence its wood reached the comb-makers of Rei.1 The Arabic xaleit, Persian xadan or xadanj, is of Altaic origin: Uigur qadan, Koibal, Soyot and Karagas kaden, Cuwas' xoran, Yakut xatyn, Mordwinian kilen, all referring to the birch (Betula alba). It is a common tree in the mountains of northern China (hwa %& ), first described by C'en Ts'an-k'i of the eighth century. 2 The bark was used by the Chinese for making torches and candles filled with wax, as a padding or lining of underclothes and boots, for knife-hilts and the decoration of bows, the latter being styled "birch-bark bows." 3 The universal use of birch-bark among all tribes of Siberia for pails, baskets, and dishes, and as a roof-covering, is well known.

Tea

17. It would be very desirable to have more exact data as to when and how the consumption of Chinese tea (Camellia theifera) spread among Mohammedan peoples. The Arabic merchant Soleiman, who wrote about a.d. 851, appears to be the first outsider who gives an accurate notice of the use of tea-leaves as a beverage on the part of the Chinese, availing himself of the curious name sax.4 It is strange that_ the followinglArabic authors who wrote on Chinese affairs have nothing^' to say on the subject.J In the splendid collection of Arabic texts relative to the East, so ably gathered and interpreted by G. Ferrand, tea is not even mentioned. It is likewise absent in the Persian pharmacology of Abu Mansur and in the vast compilation of Ibn al-Baitar. On the other hand, Chinese mediaeval authors like Cou K'u-fei and Cao 2u kwa do not note tea as an article of export from China. As far as we can judge at present, it seems that the habit of tea-drinking spread to western Asia not earlier than the thirteenth century, and that i*j was perhaps the Mongols who assumed the r61e of propagators. In Mongol, Turkish, Persian, Indian, Portuguese, Neo-Greek, and Russian, we equally find the word &w, based on North-Chinese <?'a. 5 Ramu-

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1 G. Jacob, Handelsartikel der Araber, p. 60.

2 Pen ts"ao kan mu, Ch. 35 B, p. 13.

3 Ko ku yao lun, Ch. 8, p. 8 b. Cf. also O. Franke, Beschreibung des Jehol- Gebietes, p. 77.

4 Reinaud, Relation des voyages, Vol. I, p. 40 (cf- Yule, Cathay, new ed., Vol. I, p. 131). Modern Chinese Va was articulated *ja (dza) in the T'ang period; but, judging from the Korean and Japanese form sa, a variant sa may be supposed also for some Chinese dialects. As the word, however, was never possessed of a final consonant in Chinese, the final spirant in Soleiman's sax is a peculiar Arabic affair (provided the reading of the manuscript be correct).

5 The Tibetans claim a peculiar position in the history of tea. They still have the Chinese word in the ancient form ja (dZa), and, as shown by me in T'oung Pao (1916, p. 505), have imported and consumed tea from the days of the T'ang. In fact, tea was the dominant economic factor and the key-note in the political relations of China and Tibet.

[554]

sio, in the posthumous introduction to his edition of Marco Polo published in 1545, mentions having learned of the tea beverage from a Persian merchant, Hajji Muhammed.1 A. de Mandelslo,2 in 1662, still reports that the Persians, instead of Th&, drink their Kahwa (coffee). In the fifteenth century, A-lo-tih, an envoy from T'ien-fah (Arabia), in presenting his tribute to an emperor of the Ming, solicited tealeaves. 3

The Kew Bulletin for 1896 (p. 157) contains the following interesting information on "White Tea of Persia:" —

"In the Consular Report on the trade of Ispahan and Yezd (Foreign Office, Annual Series, 1896, No. 1662) the following particulars are given of the tea trade in Persia: 'Black or Calcutta tea for Persian consumption continues to arrive in steady quantities, 2,000,000 pounds representing last year's supply. White tea from China, or more particularly from Tongking, is consumed only in Yezd, and, therefore, the supply is limited.' Through the courtesy of Mr. John R. Preece, Her Majesty's Consul at Ispahan, Kew received a small quantity of the 'White tea' above mentioned for the Museum of Economic Botany. The tea proved to be very similar to that described in the Kew Bulletin under the name of P'u-erh tea (Kew Bulletin, 1889, pp. 118 and 139). The finest of this tea is said to be reserved for the Court of Peking. The sample from Yezd was composed of the undeveloped leaf buds so thickly coated with fine hairs as to give them a silvery appearance. Owing to the shaking in transit some of the hairs had been rubbed off and had formed small yellow pellets about y& inch diameter. Although the hairs are much more abundant than usual there is little doubt that the leaves have been derived from the Assam tea plant (Camellia theifera, Griff.) found wild in some parts of Assam and Burma but now largely cultivated in Burma, Tongking, etc. The same species has been shown to yield Lao tea (Kew Bulletin, 1892, p. 219), and Leppett tea (Kew Bulletin, 1896, p. 10). The liquor from the Persian white tea was of a pale straw colour with the delicate flavour of good China tea. It is not unknown but now little appreciated in the English market."

Onyx

18. The Arabic stone-book sailing under the false flag of Aristotle distinguishes several kinds of onyx (jiza'), which come from two places, China and the country of the west, the^ latter being the finest. Qazwlnl gives Yemen and China as localities, telling an anecdote that the Chinese disdain to quarry the stone and leave this to specially privileged slaves, who have no other means of livelihood and sell the stone only outside of China.4 As formerly stated, 5 this may be the pi yil H 3£ of the Chinese.

19

19. Qazwini also mentions a stone under the name husyat iblis ("devil's testicles") which should occur in China. Whoever carries it is

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1 Yule, Cathay, new ed., Vol. I, p. 292; or Hobson-Jobson, p. 906.

2 Travels, p. 15.

3 Bretschneider, Mediaeval Researches, Vol. II, p. 300.

4 J. Ruska, Steinbuch des Aristoteles, p. 145; and Steinbuch des Qazwlnl, p. 12; Leclerc, Traits des simples, Vol. I, p. 354.

5 Notes on Turquois, p. 52.

[555]

not held up by bandits; also his baggage in which the stone is hidden is safe from attack, and its wearer rises in the esteem of his fellow-mates.1 I do not know what Chinese stone is understood here.

Tootnague

20. It is weil known that the Chinese have a peculiar alloy of copper consisting of copper 40.4, zinc 25.4, nickel 31.6, iron 2.6, and occa~J sionally sorne silver and arsenic. It looks white or silver-like in the .finish, and is hence called pai-t'un ("white copper"). In Anglo-Indian it is tootnague (Tamil tutunagum, Portuguese tutanaga).2 It is also known to foreigners in the East under the Cantonese name paktung. (It is mentioned as early as A.D. 265 in the dictionary Kwan ya l3é lfffi,3 where the definition occurs that pai-t'u1i is called wut.

This alloy was adopted by the Persians under the name xàr-éïnï (Arabie xàr-$ïnï).4 The Persians say that the Chinese make this allo-y} into mirrors and arrowheads, a wound from which is mortal.~ Vullers cites a passage from the poet Abu al Ma 'anï, "One who rejects and spurns his friend pierces his heart with xàr-$inï." Qazwinï speaks of very efficient lance-heads and harpoons of this metal. The Persians have further the term is]ulruj, which means "white copper", and which accordingly represents a literai rendering of Chinese pai-t'un. Moreover, there is Persian sepïdrtïi (Arabie ùbt'adàri, isbàdàrïh); that is, "whitish in appearance." English spelter (German spiauter, speauter, spialter, Russian spiauter), a designation of zinc, is derived from this word.6 Dimasqi, who wrote about I325, explains xàr-$ïnï as a metal from China, the yellow color of copper being mixed with black and white; the mirrors imported from China, called "mirrors of distortion," are made from this alloy. It is an artificial product, hard, and fragile; it is injured by fire, after being wrought. Qazwïnï adds that no other metal yields a ring equalling that of this alloy, and that none is so suitable for the manufacture of large and small bells.7

Saltpetre

21. In the thirteenth century the Arabs became acquainted with salt petre, which they received from China ; for they designate it as

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1 R US KA, ibid., p. 21.

2 Cf. YULE, Hobson-Jobson, p. 932. This, of course, is a misnomer, as the lndian ward, connected with Persian tütiya (above, p. 51 2), in fact refers to zinc.

3 Ch. 8 A, p. 16 (ed. of Ki fu ts'uti su).

4 Literally, "stone of China." Spanish kazini is derived from the Arabic word.

5 STEINGASS, Persian Dictionary, p. 438.

6 It seems also that the Persian ward is the source of the curious Japanese tenn sabari or sahari, which denotes the white copper of the Chinese. The foreign character of this product is also indicated by the writing ~ m ~.

7 Cf. E. WIEDEMAN:-<, Sitzber. Phys.-Med. Soz. Erl., Vols. XXXVII, 1905, pp. 403-·J.O.+; and XLV, 1913, p. 46; R. Dozv, Supplément, Vol. 1, p. 857.

[556]

ihelg as-sin ("Chinese snow"), and the rocket as sahm xatai ("Chinese arrow").1

Kaolin

22. Ibn al-Faqlh extols the art-industries of the Chinese, particularly pottery, lamps, and other such durable implements, which are admirable as to their art and permanent in their execution.2 Kaolin is known to the Persians as xdk-i clni ("Chinese earth"). In excellent quality it is found in Kermanshah, but the art of making porcelain there is now lost.3 The Persian term for porcelain is fagfurl or fagfur-i clnl.i Fagfur (Sogdian va7vur, "Son of Heaven"), as far as I know, is the only sinicism to be found in Iranian, being a literal rendering of Chinese fien-tse % ?.

Smilax pseudochina

23. Persian lubi cini ("China root"), Neo-Sanskrit cobaclnl or copaclnl (kub-cini in the bazars of India), is the root of Smilax pseudochina, so-called Chinese sarsaparilla {fu-fu-lih zh $t 4*), a famous remedy for the treatment of Morbus americanus, first introduced into Europe by the returning sailors of Columbus, and into India by the sailors of Vasco da Gama (Sanskrit phirangaroga, "disease of the Franks"). It is first mentioned, together with the Chinese remedy, in Indian writings of the sixteenth century, notably the Bhavaprakaga.5 Good information on this subject is given by Garcia da Orta, who says, "As all these lands and China and Japan have this morbo napolitano, it pleased a merciful God to provide this root as a remedy with which good doctors can cure it, although the majority fall into error. As it is cured with this medicine, the root was traced to the Chinese, when there was a cure with it in the year 1 53 5. " 6 Garcia gives a detailed description of the shrub which he says is called lampatam by the Chinese. 7 This transcription corresponds to Chinese len-fan-fwan <v f£ @8 (literally, "cold rice ball"), a synonyme of Vu-fu-lin; pronounced at

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1 G. Jacob, Oriental Elements of Culture In the Occident (Smithsonian Report for 1902, p. 520). See also Leclerc, Traits des simples, Vol. I, pp. 71, 333; and Quatremere, Journal asiatique, 1850, I, p. 222.

2 E. Wiedemann, Zur Technik bei den Arabern, Sitzber. Phys.-Med. Soz. Erl., Vol. XXXVIII, 1906, p. 355.

3 Schlimmer, Terminologie, p. 334.

4 See Beginnings of Porcelain, p. 126.

5 J. Jolly, Indische Medicin, p. 106.

6 C. Markham, Colloquies, p. 379. Cf. also Fluckiger and Hanbury, Pharmacographia, p. 712. F. Pyrard (Vol. I, p. 182; ed. of Hakluyt Society), who travelled in India from 1601 to 1610, observes, "Venereal disease is not so common, albeit it is found, and is cured with China-wood, without sweating or anything else. This disease they call farangui baescour (Arabic basur, 'piles'), from its coming to them from Europe." A long description of the remedy is given by Linschoten (Vol. II, pp. 107-112, ed. of Hakluyt Society).

7 C. Acosta (Tractado de las drogas, p. 80) writes this word lampatan.

[557]

Canton lan-fan-t'ün, at Amoy lin-hoan-toan. It must be borne in mind that final Portuguese tn is not intended for the labial nasal, but indicates the nasalization of the preceding vowel, am and â being alternately used. The frequent final guttural nasal n of Chinese has always been reproduced by the Portuguese by a nasalized vowel or diphthong; for instance, tujâo (" typhoon "), given by Fernao Pinto as a Chinese term, where fào corresponds to Chinese fun (" wind "); tutâo, reproducing Chinese tu-t'un W tiff ("Lieutenant-General"). Thus the transcription lampatam moves along the same line. The Portuguese designation of the root is raiz da China ("root of China").

There is an overland trade in this root from China by way of Turkistan to Ladakh, and probably also to Persia.1 The plant has been known to the Chinese from ancient times, being described by T'ao Hun-kiil.2 The employment of the root in the treatment of Morbus americanus (yan mei tu ewa1i ~ m ~ !lf) is described at length by Li Si-cen, who quotes this text from Wail Ki à:~. a celebrated physician, who lived during the Kia-tsiil period (1522-66), and author of the Pen ts'ao hui pim ::;.$: 1f. fr ti. This is an excellent confirmation of the synchronous account of Garcia.3 Li Si-cen states expressly, "The yan-mei ulcers are not mentioned in the ancient recipes, neither were there any people affiicted with this disease. Only recently did it arise in Kwail-tun, whence it spread to all parts of China."

Rag-paper

24. Of Chinese loan-words in Persian, HoRN 4 enumera tes on! Y\ lai ("tea"), cadan ("teapot"), ciiu ("paper money"), and perhaps also kagaô or kagiô ("paper"). As will be seen, there are many more Chinese loansinPersian; but thewordfor "paper" isnotoneof them,althoughthe Persians received the knowledge of paper from the Chinese.:1This theory was fust set forth by HrRTH,5 who asserts, "The Arabie word kiighid for paper, derived from the Persian,6 can without great difficulty be traced to a term ku-chih ~ ~ (ancient pronunciation kok-dz'), which means 'paper from the bark of the mulberry-tree,' and was already used in times of antiquity." This view has been accepted by

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1 T'oung Pao, 1916, p. 477·

2 Pen ts'ao kan mu, Ch. 8 B, p. 2; also Ch. 4 B, p. 6 b; BRETSCHNEIDER, Bot. Sin., pt. III, p. 320.

3 I bave sufficient material to enable me to publish at some later date a detailed history of the disease from Chinese sources.

4 Grundriss der iran. Phil., Vol. I, pt. 2, p. 7.

5 T'oung Pao, Vol. 1, 1890, p. 12; or Chines. Studien, p. 269. s In my opinion, the word is of Uigur origin (ka gat, kagas), and was subsequently adopted by the Persians, and from the Persians by the Arabs. In Persian we have the forms kii.-yad, kà-yid, kà-ya z, and kàgiz (Baluci kàgad). Aside from this vacillating mode of spelling, the word is decidedly non-Persian. See, further, below, p. 558.

[558]

Karabacek and Hoernle.1 Let us assume for a moment that the premises on which this speculation is based are correct: how could the Uigur, Persians, and Arabs make kdgad out of a Chinese kok-U (or dzi)? How may we account for the vocalization a, which persists wherever the word has taken root (Hindi kdgad, Urdu kdgaz, Tamil kdgidam, Malayalam kdyitam, Kannada kdgada) ? 2 The Uigur and Persians, according to their phonetic system, were indeed capable of reproducing the Chinese word correctly if they so intended; in fact, Chinese loan-words in the two languages are self-evident without torturing the evidence. For myself, I am unable to see any coincidence between kok-U and kdgad. But this alleged kok-U, in fact, does not exist. The word ku, as written by Hirth, is known to every one as meaning "grain, cereals;" and none of our dictionaries assigns to it the significance "mulberry." It is simply a character substituted for kou HI (anciently *ku, without a final consonant), which refers exclusively to the paper-mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera), expressed also (and this is the most common word) by c'u fit. The Pen ts'ao kan muz gives the character ku Wt on the same footing with lx u, quoting the former from the ancient dictionary Si min,4 and adding expressly that it has the phonetic value of m, and is written also W . The character ku, accordingly, to be read kou, is merely a graphic variant, and has nothing to do with the word ku (*kuk), meaning "cereals."

According to Li Si-cen, this word kou (*ku) originates from the language of C'u l§, in which it had the significance "milk" (%u #L); and, as the bark of this tree contained a milk-like sap, this word was *~ transferred to the tree. It is noteworthy in this connection that Ts'ai ; \ Lun, the inventor of paper in a.d. 105, was a native of C'u. The | ^dialectic origin of the word kou shows well how we have two root-words for exactly the same species of tree. This is advisedly stated by Li Si-cen, who rejects as an error the opinion that the two words should refer to two different trees; he also repudiates expressly the view that the word kou bears any relation to the word ku in the sense of cereals or rice. According to T'ao Huh-kih, the term kou U was used by the people of the south, who, however, said also £'w U; the latter word,

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1 Journal Roy. As. Soc, 1903, p. 671.

2 According to Buhler (Indische Palaographie, p. 91), paper was introduced into India by the Mohammedans after the twelfth century. The alleged Sanskrit word for "paper," kayagata, ferreted out by Hoernle {Journal Roy. As. Soc, 191 1, p. 476), rests on a misunderstanding of a Sanskrit text, as has been shown by Lieut.- Col. Waddell on the basis of the Tibetan translation of this text {{ibid., 1914, pp. 136-137).

3 Ch. 36, p. 4.

4 See above, p. 201.

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indeed, has always been more common. Hirth's supposition of a former pronunciation kok cannot be accepted; but, even did this alleged kok exist, I should continue to disbelieve in the proposed ctymology of the Persian-Arabic word. There is no reason to assume that, because paper was adopted by the Arabs and Persians from the Chinese, their designation of it should hail from the same quarter. I do not know of a foreign language that was willing to adopt from the Chinese any designation for paper. Our word cornes from the Greek-Latin papyrus; Russian bumaga originally means "cotton," being ultimately traceable to Middle Persian pambak. 1 The Tibetans learned the technique of paper-mak:ing from the Chinese, but have a word of their own to designate paper Uog-bu). So have the Japanese (kami) and the Koreans (mzmtsi). The Mongols caU paper tsagasun (Buryat tsiiraso, siirahan), a purely Mongol word, meaning "the white one." Among the Golde on the Amur I recorded the word xausal. The Lolo have t'o-i, the Annamese bia, the Cam baa, baar, or biar, the Khmer credas, which, like Malayan kertas, is borrowed from Arabie kirtas (Greek xapT7]S).2 As stated, the Persian-Arabic word is borrowed from a Turkish language: Uigur kagat or kagas; Tuba, Lebed, Kumandu, Comanian kagat; Kirgiz, Karakirgiz, Taranci, and Kazan kagaz. The origin of this word can be explained from Turkish ; for in Lebed, Kumandu, and Sor, we have kagas with the significance "tree-bark."

I need not repeat here the oft-told story of how the manufacture of c paper was introduced into Samarkand by Chinese captives in A.D. 751. Prior to this date, as has been established by Karabacek, Chinese paper was imported to Samarkand as early as 65o-x, again in 707.3 Under the Sasanians, Chinese paper was known in Pcrsia ; but it was a very rare article, and reserved for royal state documents.4

Paper money

25. Another form in which paper reached the Persians was paper money. It is well known that the Chinese were the originators of

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1 See above, p. 490.

2 S. FRAENKEL, Die aramâischen Fremdwôrter im Arabischcn, p. 245.

3 Cf. Hoernle, Journal Roy. As. Soc., 1903, p. 670. I regret being unablc to accept his general result that the Arabs or Samarkandis should be creditcd with the invention of pure rag-paper (p. 674). This had already been accomplished in China, and indeed was the work of Ts'ai Lun. I expect to come back to this problem on another occasion. With al! respect for the researches of Karabacek, Wiesner, and Hocrnle, I am not convinced that the far-reaching conclusions of thcse scholars are ali justified. We are in nced of more investigations (and !css theorizing), especially of ancient papers made in China. There are numerous accounts of many sorts of paper, hitherto unnoticed, in Chinese records, which should be closely studied.

4 According to Masudi (B. DE MEYNARD, Les Prairies d'or, Vol. II, p. 202); see also E. DROUIN, Mémoire sur les Huns Ephthalites, p. 53 (reprint from Le Muséon, 1895).

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paper bank-notes.1 The Mongol rulers introduced them into Persia, first in 1294. The notes were direct copies of Kubilai's, even the Chinese characters being imitated as part of the device upon them, and the Chinese word llao i£ being employed. This word was then adopted by the Persians as lau or lav? The most interesting point about this affair is that in that year (1294) the Chinese process of block-printing was for the first time practised in Tabriz in connection with the printing of these bank-notes.

In his graphic account describing the utilization of paper money by the Great Khan, Marco Polo3 makes the following statement: "He makes them take of the bark of a certain tree, in fact of the mulberry tree, the leaves of which are the food of the silkworms,— these trees being so numerous that whole districts are full of them. What they take is a certain fine white bast or skin which lies between the wood of the tree and the thick outer bark, and this they make into something resembling sheets of paper, but black. When these sheets have been prepared they are cut up into pieces of different sizes." In the third edition of Yule's memorable work, the editor, Henri Cordier,4 has added the following annotation: "Dr. Bretschneider (History of Botanical Discoveries, Vol. I, p. 4) makes the remark: 'Polo states that the Great Khan causeth the bark of great mulberry trees, made into something like paper, to pass for money.' He seems to be mistaken. Paper in China is not made from mulberry-trees, but from the Broussonetia papyrifera, which latter tree belongs to the same order of Moraceae. The same fibres are used also in some parts of China for making cloth, and Marco Polo alludes probably to the same tree when stating that 'in the province of Cuiju (Kuei-chou) they manufacture stuff of the bark of certain trees, which form very fine summer clothing.' "

This is a singular error of Bretschneider. Marco Polo is perfectly correct: not only did the Chinese actually manufacture paper from the bark of the mulberry-tree (Morus alba), but also it was this paper which was preferred for the making of paper money. Bretschneider is certainly right in saying that paper is made from the Broussonetia, but

____________________

1 Klaproth, Sur l'origine du papier-monnaie (in his Mémoires relatifs à l'Asie, Vol. I, pp. 375-388); Yule, Marco Polo, Vol. I, pp. 426-430; Anonymus, Paper Money among the Chinese (Chin. Repository, Vol. XX, 1851, pp. 289-296); S. Saburo, The Origin of the Paper Currency (Journal Peking Or. Soc, Vol. II, 1889, pp. 265-307); S. W. Bushell, Specimens of Ancient Chinese Paper Money (ibid., pp. 308-316); H. B. Morse, Currency in China (Journal China Branch Roy. As. Soc, Vol. XXXVIII, 1907, pp. 17-31); etc.

2 For details consult Yule, /. c.

3 H. Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, Vol. I, p. 423- 4 Ibid., p. 430.

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he is assuredly wrong in the assertion that paper is not made in China from mulberry-trees. This fact he could have easily ascertained from S. Julien,1 who alludes to mulberry-tree paper twice, first, as "papier de racines et d'6corce de murier;" and, second, in speaking of the bark paper from Broussonetia —"On emploie aussi pour le meme usage T^corce d'Hibiscus Rosa sinensis et de murier; ce dernier papier sert encore a recueillir les graines de vers a soie." What is understood by the latter process may be seen from plate 1 in Julien's earlier work on sericulture, 2 where the paper from the bark of the mulberry-tree is likewise mentioned.

The Ci p'u %& Hf, a treatise on paper, written by Su Yi-kien W% m toward the close of the tenth century, enumerates, among the various sorts of paper manufactured during his lifetime, paper from the bark of the mulberry-tree (saw pH ^ &) made bY tne people of the north.3

Chinese paper money of mulberry-bark was known in the Islamic I world in the beginning of the fourteenth century; that is, during the Mongol period. Accordingly it must have been manufactured in China^j during the Yuan dynasty. Ahmed Sibab Eddin, who died in Cairo in 1338 at the age of ninety-three, and left an important geographical work in thirty volumes, containing interesting information on China gathered from the lips of eye-witnesses, makes the following comment on paper money, in the translation of Ch. Schefer:4 "On emploie dans le Khita, en guise de monnaie, des morceaux d'un papier de forme allongee fabrique' avec des filaments de muriers sur lequel est imprime' le nom de l'empereur. Lorsqu'un de ces papiers est us£, on le porte aux officiers du prince et, moyennant une perte rninime, on recoit un autre billet en echange, ainsi que cela a lieu dans nos hotels des monnaies, pour les matieres d'or et d'argent que Ton y porte pour 6tre converties en pieces monnay£es."

And in another passage: "La monnaie des Chinois est faite de billets fabriqués avec l'écorce du mûrier. Il y en a de grands et de

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1 Industries anciennes et modernes de l'empire chinois, pp. 145, 149 (Paris 1869).

2 Résumé des principaux traités chinois sur la culture des mûriers et l'éducation des vers à soie, p. 98 (Paris, 1837). According to the notions of the Chinese, Julien remarks, everything made from hemp, like cord and weavings, is banished from the establishments where silkworms are reared, and our European paper would be very harmful to the latter. There seems to be a sympathetic relation between the silkworm feeding on the leaves of the mulberry and the mulberry paper on which the cocoons of the females are placed.

3 Ko ci kin yuan, Ch. 37, p. 6.

4 Relations des Musulmans avec les Chinois (Centenaire de l'Ecole des langues orientales vivantes, Paris, 1895, p. 17).

[562]

petits. . . . On les fabrique avec des filaments tendres du murier et, apres y avoir appose un sceau au nom de l'empereur, on les met en circulation." 1

The bank-notes of the Ming dynasty were likewise made of mulberry- pulp, in rectangular sheets one foot long and six inches wide, the material being of a greenish color, as stated in the Annals of the Dynasty. 2 It is clear that the Ming emperors, like many other institutions, adopted this practice from their predecessors, the Mongols. Klaproth3 is wrong in saying that the assignats of the Sung, Kin, and Mongols were all made from the bark of the tree lu (Broussonetia), and those of the Ming from all sorts of plants. 4

In the Hui kiah ci E0 §1 f&, an interesting description of Turkistan by two Manchu officials Surde and Fusamb6, published in 1772, 5 the following note, headed "Mohammedan Paper" -J" %&, occurs: "There are two sorts of Turkistan paper, black and white, made from mulberrybark, cotton ftl ^, and silk-refuse equally mixed, resulting in a coarse, thick, strong, and tough material. It is cut into small rolls fully a foot long, which are burnished by means of stones, and are then fit for writing."

Sir Aurel Stein6 reports that paper is still manufactured from mulberry- trees in Khotan. Also J. Wiesner,7 the meritorious investigator

____________________

1 Ibid., p. 20.

2 Jdt**vCfa: 8i,p:i (gtl^MSiiril-KIAi'ffffe). The same text is found on a bill issued in 1375, reproduced and translated by W. Vissering (On Chinese Currency, see plate at end of volume), the minister of finance being expressly ordered to use the fibres of the mulberry-tree in the composition of these bills.

3 Mémoires relatifs à l'Asie, Vol. I, p. 387.

4 This is repeated by Rockhill (Rubrucl^, p. 201). I do not deny, of course, that paper money was made from Broussonetia." The Chinese numismatists, in their description of the ancient paper notes, as far as I know, make no reference to the material (cf., for instance, Ts'iian pu t'un ci Jfj, ^ $£ J^, Ch. 5, p. 42; 6 A, p. 2; 6 B, p. 44). The Yuan Si (Ch. 97, p. 3) does not state, either, the character of the paper employed in the Mongol notes. My point is, that the Mongols, while they enlisted Broussonetia paper for this purpose, used mulberry-bark paper as well, and that the latter was exclusively utilized by the Ming.

5 A. Wylie, Notes on Chinese Literature, p. 64. The John Crerar Library of Chicago owns an old manuscript of this work, clearly written, in 4 vols, and chapters, illustrated by nine ink-sketches of types of Mohammedans and a map. The volumes are not paged.

6 Ancient Khotan, Vol. I, p. 134.

7 Mikroskopische Untersuchung alter ostturkestanischer Papiere, p. 9 (Vienna, 1902). I cannot pass over in silence a curious error of this scholar when he says (p. 8) that it is not proved that Cannabis sativa (called by him "genuine hemp") is cultivated in China, and that the so-called Chinese hemp paper should be intended for China grass. Every tyro in things Chinese knows that hemp {Cannabis sativa)

[563]

of ancient papers, has included the fibre of Morus alba and M. nigra among the materials to which his researches extended.

Mulberry-bark paper is ascribed to Bengal in the Si yah Fao kuh tien lu IS ft & M & 8k by Hwan Sih-ts'eh ft % #, published in 1520. 1 Such paper is still made in Corea also, and is thicker and more solid than that of China.2 The bark of a species of mulberry is utilized by the Shan for the same purpose. 3

As the mulberry-tree is eagerly cultivated in Persia in connection with the silk-industry, it is possible also that the Persian paper in the bank-notes of the Mongols was a product of the mulberry. 4 At any rate, good Marco Polo is cleared, and his veracity and exactness have been established again.

Before the introduction of rag-paper the Persians availed themselves of parchment as writing-material. It is supposed by Herzfeld that Darius Hystaspes introduced the use of leather into the royal archives, but this interpretation has been contested.5 A fragment of Ctesias preserved by Diodorus6 mentions the employment of parchment (8i<t>depa) in the royal archives of Persia. The practice seems to be of Semitic, probably Syrian, origin. In the business life of the Romans, parchment (membrana) superseded wooden tablets in the first century ' a.d.7 The Avesta and Zend written on prepared cow-skins with gold ink is mentioned in the Artai-vlraf-namak (1, 7). The Iranian word post ("skin") resulted in Sanskrit pusta or pustaka ("volume, book"),8 from which Tibetan po-ti is derived.9 On the other hand, the Persians have borrowed from the Greek 8L<j>dkpa ("skin, parchment") their word daftar or defter ("book," Arabic daftar, diftar), which likewise

____________________

belongs to the oldest cultivated plants of the Chinese (see above, p. 293), and that hemp paper is already listed among the papers invented by Ts'ai Lun in a.d. 105 (cf. Chavannes, Les Livres chinois avant l'invention du papier, Journal asiatique, 1905, p. 6 of the reprint).

1 Ch. b., p. 10 b (ed. of Pie hia lai ts'un Su).

2 C. Dallet, Histoire de l'eglise de Coree, Vol. I, p. CLXXXin.

3 J. G. Scott and J. P. Hardiman, Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, pt. I, Vol. II, p. 411.

4 The Persian word for the mulberry, tilS, is supposed to be a loan-word from Aramaic <Horn, Grundriss iran. Phil., Vol. I, pt. 2, p. 6); but this is erroneous (see below, p. 582).

5 Cf. V. Gardthausen, Buchwesen im Altertum, p. 91.

6 n, 32.

7 K. Dziatzko, Ausgewahlte Kapitel des antiken Buchwesens, p. 131.

8 R. Gauthiot in MSmoires Soc. de Linguistique, Vol. XIX, 1915, p. 130.

9 T'oung Pao, 1916, p. 452.

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spread to Central Asia (Tibetan deb-fer, Mongol debter, Manchu debtelin)1

The use of parchment on the part of the people of Parthia (An-si) has already been noted by the mission of Can K'ien, who placed it on record that "they make signs on leather, from side to side, by way of literary records." It is accordingly certain that parchment was utilized in Iran as early as the second century B.C. There are also later references to this practice; for instance, in the Nan &,2 where it is said that the Hu (Iranians) uSe sheep-skin *p 2^ as paper. The Chinese have hardly * ever made use of parchment for writing-purposes, but they prepare parchment (from the skins of sheep, donkeys, or oxen) for the making of shadow-play figures. The only parchment manuscripts ever found in China were the Scriptures of the Jews of K'ai-foh, which are also mentioned in their inscriptions. 3

Chinese loan-words

26. Most of the Chinese loan-words in Persian were imported by the Mongol rulers in the thirteenth century (the so-called Il-Khans, 1 265-1335), being chiefly terms relative to official and administrative institutions. The best known of these is pdizah, being a reproduction of Chinese p'ai-tse #1 ?, an official warrant or badge containing imperial commands, letters of safe-conduct, permits of requisition, according to the rank of the bearer, made of silver, brass, iron, etc. They were taken over by the Mongols from the Liao and Kin,4 and are mentioned by Rubruck, Marco Polo, 6 and Rasid-eddin.

27

27. Titles like wan :£ ("king, prince"), Vai wan J£ zE ("great prince"), kao wan iti EE ("great general"), Vai huJ^Jn ("empress"), fu Sen (Persian fucln) ;£ A (title for women of rank), and kun cu fe ^ ("princess") were likewise adopted in Mongol Persia.6 Persian jinksdnak, title of a Mongol prefect or governor, transcribes Chinese Ven sian 2& $[ ("minister of state ")7

28

28. From Turkish tribes the Persians have adopted the word toy

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1 T'oung Pao, 1916, p. 481.

2 Ch. 79, p. 7.

3 Cf. J. Tobar, Inscriptions juives de K'ai-fong-fou, pp. 78, 86, 96 (note 2).

4 Chavannes, Journal asiatique, 1898, I, p. 396.

5 Yule's edition, Vol. I, p. 351, which consult for a history of the p'ai-tse; see, further, Laufer, Keleti Szemle, 1907, pp. 195-196; Zamtsarano, Paiza among the Mongols at the Present Time (Zapiski Oriental Section Russian Archceol. Soc, Vol. XXII, 1914, pp. 155-159).

6 E. Blochet, Introduction a l'histoire des Mongols de Rashid Ed-din, p. 183; and Djami el-TeVarikh, p. 473. Regarding the title wan, see also J. J. Modi, Asiatic Papers, p. 251.

7 Cf. my notes in T'oung Pao, 1916, p. 528.

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(togh) or tuy, 1 which designates the tassels of horse-hair attached to the points of a standard or to the helmet of a Pasha (in the latter case a sign of rank). Among the Turks of Central Asia, the standard of a high military officer is formed by a yak's tail fastened at the top of a pole. This is said also to mark the graves of saintly personages. 2 In the language of the Uigur, the word is tuk.z As correctly recognized by Abel-Remusat,4 who had recourse only to Osmanli, the Turkish word is derived from Chinese jfl tu, anciently *duk, that occurs at an early l date in the Cou li and TsHen Han £#. Originally it denoted a banner . carried in funeral processions; under the Han, it was the standard of the commander-in-chief of the army, which, according to Ts'ai Yun $% § (a.d. 133-192), was made of yak-tails. 6 Yak-tails (Sanskrit cdmara, Anglo-Indian chowry) were anciently used in India and Central Asia as i insignia of royalty or rank.6

Millet

29. The Cou iw7 states that in respect to the five cereals and the : fauna Persia agrees with China, save that rice and millet are lacking in Persia. The term "millet" is expressed by the compound iu lu W? fflt; that is, the glutinous variety of Panicum miliaceum and the glutinous variety of the spiked millet (Setaria italica glutinosa). Now, we find in Persian a word &*£« in the sense of "millet." It remains to study the history of this word, in order to ascertain whether it might be a Chinese loan-word. Schlimmer8 notes erzen as Persian word for Panicum miliaceum.

30

30. Persian (also Osmanli) tank ("a harp or guitar, particularly played by women") is probably derived from Chinese Zen ^ ("a harpsichord with twelve brass strings").

Walrus

31. One of the most interesting Chinese loan-words in Persian is xutu (khutu), from Chinese ku-tu (written in various ways), principally denoting the ivory tooth of the walrus. This subject has been dis-

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1 In Sugnan, a Pamir language, it occurs as tux (Salemann, in Vostocnye Zam'atki, p. 286).

2 Shaw, Turkl Language, Vol. II, p. 76.

3 Radloff, Wort, der Turk-Dial., Vol. Ill, col. 1425.

4 Recherches sur les langues tatares, p. 303.

5 See K'an-hi sub jfe.

6 Yule, Hobson-Jobson, p. 214. Under the Emirs of the Khanat Bukhara there was the title toksaba: he who received this title had the privilege of having a tug carried before him; hence the origin of the word toksaba (Veliaminof-Zernof, Melanges asiatiques, Vol. VIII, p. 576). Cf. also a brief note by Parker (China Review, Vol. XVII, p. 300).

7 Ch. 50, p. 6.

8 Terminologie, p. 420.

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cussed by me in two articles.1 Vullers2 gives no less than seven definitions of the Persian word: (i) cornu bovis cuiusdam Sinensis; (2) secundum alios cornu rhinocerotis; (3) secundum alios cornu avis cuiusdam permagnae in regno vastato, quod inter Chinam et Aethiopiam situm est, degentis, e quo conficiunt anulos osseos et manubria cultri et quo res venenatae dignosci possunt; (4) secundum alios cornu serpentis, quod mille annos natus profert; (5) secundum alios cornu viperae; (6) secundum alios cornu piscis annosi; (7) secundum alios dentes animalis cuiusdam. Of these explanations, No. 3 is that of al-Akfani, and the bird in question is the buceros. No. 4 is a reproduction of the definition of ku-tu-si in the Liao Annals ("the horn of a thousand-years-old snake"). How the Persians and Arabs arrived at the other definitions will be easily understood from my former discussion of the subject. In the Ethiopic version of the Alexander Romance are mentioned, among the gifts sent to Alexander by the king of China, twenty (in the Syriac version, ten) snakes' horns, each a cubit long. 3

Meanwhile I have succeeded in tracing a new Chinese definition of ku-tu. Cou Mi Ml $? (1 230-1320), in his Ci ya Van tsa Pao* states, "According to Po-ki fS ^,5 what is now styled ku-tu si # $§ JP is a horn of the earth (ti kio i& m, 'a horn found underground'?)." He refers again to its property of neutralizing poison and to knife-hilts made of the substance.

In the edition of the Ko ku yao lun* the text regarding ku-tu-si is somewhat different from that quoted by me in T'oung Pao (19 13, p. 325). Ku-tu-si is not identified there with pi-si, as appears from the text of the Pxei wen yiinfu and Pen ts'ao kan mu, but pi-si is a variety of ku-tu-si of particularly high value.

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1 Arabic and Chinese Trade in Walrus and Narwhal Ivory (T'oung Pao, 1913, PP- 3 I 5~364, with Addenda by P. Pelliot, pp. 365-370); and Supplementary Notes on Walrus and Narwhal Ivory (ibid., 1916, pp. 348-389). Regarding objects of walrus ivory in Persia, see pp. 365-366.

2 Lexicon Persico-Latinum, Vol. I, p. 659.

3 E. A. W. Budge, Life and Exploits of Alexander the Great, p. 180; likewise his translation of the Syriac version, p. 112 (Syriac edition, p. 200). In the Syriac occurs another gift from China, "a thousand talents of mai-kdsl" (literally, "waters of cups"). Budge leaves this problem unsolved. Apparently we face the transcription of a Chinese word, which I presume is *mak, mag 3H (at present mo), "China ink." In Mongol and Manchu we find this word as bexe, in Kalmuk as beke.

4 Ch. A, p. 29 b (ed. of Yiie ya fan ts'un Su).

5 Surname of Sien-yu £'u j$ -^ fl^ calligraphist and poet at the end of the thirteenth century (see Pelliot, T'oung Pao, 1913, p. 368).

6 Ch. 6, p. 9 b (ed. of Si yin hiian ts'un $u).

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The Chinese Gazetteer of Macao1 contains the following notice of the walrus (hai ma): "Its tooth is hard, of a pure bright white with veins as fine as silk threads or hair. It can be utilized for the carving of ivory beads and other objects."

Finally I have found another document in which the fish-teeth of the Russians are identified with the tusks of the walrus (morse). This is contained in the work of G. Fletcher, "The Russe Common Wealth," published in London, 1591, 2 and runs as follows: "Besides these (which are all good and substantiall commodities) they have divers other of smaller account, that are natural and proper to that country: as the fishe tooth (which they cal ribazuba), which is used both among themselves and the Persians and Bougharians, that fetcht it from thence for beads, knives, and sword hafts of noblemen and gentlemen, and for divers other uses. Some use the powder of it against poyson, as the unicornes home. The fish that weareth it is called a morse, and is caught about Pechora. These fishe teeth, some of them are almost two foot of length, and weigh eleven or twelve pound apiece." 3

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1 Ao-men li lio, Ch. B, p. 37.

2 Ed. of E. A. Bond, p. 13 (Hakluyt Society, 1856).

3 The following case is interesting as showing how narwhal ivory could reach India straight from the Arctics. PietrodellaValle (Vol. I, p. 4, Hakluyt Soc. ed.), travelling on a ship from the Persian Gulf to India in 1623, tells this story: "On Monday, the Sea being calm, the Captain, and I, were standing upon the deck of our Ship, discoursing of sundry matters, and he took occasion to show me a piece of Horn, which he told me himself had found in the yar 161 1 in a Northern Country, whither he then sail'd, which they call Greenland, lying in the latitude of seventysix degrees. He related how he found this horn in the earth, being probably the horn of some Animal dead there, and that, when it was intire, it was between five and six feet long, and seven inches in circumference at the root, where it was thickest. The piece which I saw (for the horn was broken, and sold by pieces in several places) was something more than half a span long, and little less than five inches thick; the color of it was white, inclining to yellow, like that of Ivory when it is old; it was hollow and smooth within, but wreath'd on the outside. The Captain saw not the Animal, nor knew whether it were of the land or the sea, for, according to the place where he found it, it might be as well one as the other; but he believed for certain, that it was of a Unicorn, both because the experience of its being good against poyson argu'd so much, and for that the signes attributed by Authors to the Unicorn's horn agreed also to this, as he conceiv'd. But herein I dissent from him, inasmuch as, if I remember aright, the horn of the Unicorn, whom the Greeks call'd Monoceros, is, by Pliny, describ'd black, and not white. The Captain added that it was a report, that Unicorns are found in certain Northern parts of America, not far from that Country of Greenland; and so not unlikely but that there might be some also in Greenland, a neighbouring Country, and not yet known whether it be Continent or Island; and that they might sometimes come thither from the contiguous lands of America, in case it be no Island. . . . The Company of the Greenland Merchants of England had the horn, which he found, because Captains of ships are their stipendiaries, and, besides their salary, must make no other profit of their Voyages; but whatever they gain or find, in case it be known, and they conceal it not, all accrues

[568]

The term pi-si has been the subject of brief discussions on the part of Pelliot1 and myself. 2 The Ko ku yao lun, as far as is known at present, appears to be the earliest work in which the expression occurs. Hitherto it had only been known as a modern colloquialism, and Pelliot urged tracing it in the texts. I am now in a position to comply with this demand. T'an Ts'ui W. 4F, in his Tien hai yii hen ci, 3 published in 1799, gives an excellent account of Yun-nan Province, its mineral resources, fauna, flora, and aboriginal population, and states that pi-kia-si Ml ft 3 or pi-hia-pi H it *ifc or pi-si H $u are all of the class of precious stones which are produced in the Mon-mi t'u-se S $? i. ^ of Yunnan. 4 It is obvious that these words are merely transcriptions of a non-Chinese term; and, if we were positive that it took its startingpoint from Yun-nan, it would not be unreasonable to infer that it hails from one of the native T'ai or Shan languages. T'an Ts'ui adds that the best pi-si are deep red in color; that those in which purple, yellow, and green are combined, and the white ones, take the second place; while those half white and half black are of the third grade. We are accordingly confronted with a certain class of precious stones which remain to be determined mineralogically.

32

32. The Persian name for China is Cm, Cmistan, or Cinastan. In Middle Persian we meet Saini in the Farvardin Yast and Sini in the Bundahisn,5 besides Cen and Cenastan.6 The form with initial palatal is confirmed, on the one hand, by Armenian Cen-k', Cenastan, Cenbakur ("emperor of China"), Zenazneay ("originating from China"), lenik ("Chinese"), and, on the other hand, by Sogdian Cynstn (Cina-

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to the Company that employes them. When the Horn was intire it was sent to Constantinople to be sold, where two thousand pounds sterling was ofler'd for it: But the English Company, hoping to get a greater rate, sold it not at Constantinople, but sent it into Muscovy, where much about the same price was bidden for it, which, being refus'd, it was carry'd back into Turkey, and fell of its value, a much less sum being now proffer'd than before. Hereupon the Company conceiv'd that it would sell more easily in pieces then intire, because few could be found who would purchase it at so great a rate. Accordingly they broke it, and it was sold by pieces in sundry places; yet, for all this, the whole proceed amounted onely to about twelve hundred pounds sterling. And of these pieces they gave one to the Captain who found it, and this was it which he shew'd me."

1 T'oung Pao, 1913, p. 365.

2 Ibid., 1916, p. 375.

3 Ch. I, p. 6 (ed. of Wen yin lou yii ti ts'un $u). Title and treatment of the subject are in imitation of the Kwei hai yii hen ci of Fan C'eh-ta of the twelfth century.

4 T'u-se are districts under the jurisdiction of a native chieftain, who himself is more or less subject to the authority of the Chinese.

5 Cf. J. J. Modi, References to China in the Ancient Books of the Parsees, reprinted in his Asiatic Papers, pp. 241 et seq.

6 Hubschmann, Armen. Gram., p. 49.

[569]

stan). 1 The parallelism of initial I and 5 corresponds exactly to the Greek doublet SZvat and Qlvai ( = Cinai), and the Iranian forms with c meet their counterpart in Sanskrit Cina (Cina). This state of affairs renders probable the supposition that the Indian, Iranian, and Greek designations for China have issued from a common source, and that this prototype may be sought for in China itself. I am now inclined to think that there is some degree of probability in the old theory that the name "China" should be traceable to that of the dynasty Ts'in. I formerly rejected this theory, simply for the reason that no one had as yet presented a convincing demonstration of the case; 2 nor did I become converted by the demonstration in favor of Ts'in then attempted by Pelliot.3 Pelliot has cited several examples from which it appears that even under the Han the Chinese were still designated as "men of the Ts'in" in Central Asia. This fact in itself is interesting, but does not go to prove that the foreign names Cina, Cen, etc., are based on the name Ts'in. It must be shown phonetically that such a derivation is possible, and this is what Pelliot failed to demonstrate: he does not even dwell for a moment on the question of the ancient pronunciation of the character ts'in at?. If in ancient times it should have had the same articulation as at present, the alleged phonetic coincidence with the foreign designations would amount to nothing. The ancient phonetic value of ^ was *din, *dzin, *d2in (jin), *d2'in, with initial dental or palatal sonant; 4 and it is possible, and in harmony with phonetic

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1 R. Gauthiot, T'oung Pao, 1913, p. 428.

2 T'oung Pao, 1912, pp. 719-726.

3 Ibid., pp. 727-742. The mention of the name Cina in the Arthacastra of Canakya or Kautilya, and Jacobi's opinion on the question, did not at all prompt me to my view, as represented by Pelliot. I had held this view for at least ten years previously, and Jacobi's article simply offered the occasion which led me to express my view. Pelliot's commotion over the date of the Sanskrit work was superfluous. I shall point only to the judgment of V. A. Smith (Early History of India, 3d ed., 1914, p. 153), who says that "the Arthagastra is a genuine ancient work of Maurya age, and presumably attributed rightly to Canakya or Kautilya; this verdict, of course, does not exclude the possibility, or probability, that the existing text may contain minor interpolations of later date, but the bulk of the book certainly dates from the Maurya period," and to the statement of A. B. Keith (Journal Roy. As. Soc, 1916, p. 137), "It is perfectly possible that the Arthacastra is an early work, and that it may be assigned to the first century B.C., while its matter very probably is older by a good deal than that." The doubts as to the Ts'in etymology of the name "China" came from many quarters. Thus J. J. Modi (Asiatic Papers. p. 247), on the supposition that the Farvardin YaSt may have been written prior to the fourth or fifth century B.C., argued, "If so, the fact that the name of China as Saini occurs in this old document, throws a doubt on the belief that it was the Ts'in dynasty of the third century B.C. that gave its name to China. It appears, therefore, that the name was older than the third century B.C."

4 In the dialect of Shanghai it is still pronounced dzin.

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laws, that a Chinese initial d% was reproduced in Iranian by the palatal surd c. It is this phonetic agreement on the one hand, and the coincidence of the Sanskrit, Iranian, and Greek names for China on the other, which induce me to admit the Ts'in etymology as a possible theory; that the derivation has really been thus, no one can assert positively. The presence of the designation Ts'in for Chinese during the Han is an historical accessory, but it does not form a fundamental link in the evidence.

Alexander Romance

33. The preceding notes should be considered only as an outline of a series of studies which should be further developed by the cooperation of Persian scholars and Arabists familiar with the Arabic sources on the history and geography of Iran. A comprehensive study of all Persian sources relating to China would also be very welcome. Another interesting task to be pursued in this connection would be an attempt to trace the development of the idealized portrait which the Persian and Arabic poets have sketched of the Chinese. It is known that in the Oriental versions of the Alexander Romance the Chinese make their appearance as one of the numerous nations visited by Alexander the Great (Iskandar). In Firdausi's (935-1025) version he travels to China as his own ambassador, and is honorably received by the Fagfur (Son of Heaven), to whom he delivers a letter confirming his possessions and dignities, provided he will acknowledge Iskandar as his lord and pay tribute of all fruits of his country; to this the Fagfur consents. In Nizami's (1141-1203) Iskandarndme ("Book of Alexander "), Iskandar betakes himself from India by way of Tibet to China, where a contest between the Greek and Chinese painters takes place, the former ultimately carrying the day.1 In the Ethiopic version of the Alexander story, "the king of China commanded that they should spread out costly stuffs upon a couch, and the couch was made of gold ornamented with jewels and inlaid with, a design in gold; and he sat in his hall, and his princes and nobles were round about him, and when he spake they made answer unto him and spake submissively. Then he commanded the captain to bring in Alexander the ambassador. Now when I Alexander had come in with the captain, he made me to stand before the King, and the men stood up dressed in raiment of gold and silver; and I stood there a long time and none spake unto me."2 The Kowtow (k'o-fou) question was evidently not raised. It is still more amusing to read farther on that the king of China made the ambassador sit by his side upon the couch,— an impossible situation. The Fagfur sent to Alexander garments of finely woven stuff, one hundred pounds

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1 Cf. F. Spiegel, Die Alexandersage bei-den Orientalen, pp. 31, 46.

2 E. A. W. Budge, Life and Exploits of Alexander the Great, p. 173.

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in weight, two hundred tents, men-servants and maid-servants, two hundred shields of elephant-hide, as many Indian swords mounted in gold and ornamented with gold and precious stones of great value, as many horses suitable for kings, and one thousand loads of the finest gold and silver, for in this country are situated the mountains wherefrom they dig gold. The wall of that city is built of gold ore, and likewise the habitations of the people; and from this place Solomon, the son of David, brought the gold with which he built the sanctuary, and he made the vessels and the shields of the gold of the land of China.1 In the history of Alexander the Great contained in the "Universal History" of al-Makin, who died at Damascus in 1273-74, a distinction is made between the kings of Nearer China and Farther China.2

The most naive version of Alexander's adventures in China is contained in the legendary "History of the Kings of Persia," written in Arabic by al-Ta'alibi (961-1038) . 3 Here, the king of China is taken aback, and loses his sleep when Alexander with his army enters China. Under cover of night he visits Alexander, offering his submission in order to prevent bloodshed. Alexander first demands the revenue of his kingdom for five years, but gradually condescends to accept one third for one year. The following day a huge force of Chinese troops surrounds the army of Alexander, who believes his end has come, when the king of China appears, descending from his horse and kissing the soil (!). Alexander charges him with perfidy, which the king of China denies. "What, then, does this army mean? "-"I wanted to show thee," the king of China replied, "that I did not submit from weakness or owing to the small number of my forces. I had observed that the superior world favored thee and allowed thee to triumph over more powerful kings than thou. Whoever combats the superior world will be vanquished. For this reason I wanted to submit to the superior world by submitting to thee, and humbly to obey it by obeying thee and complying with thy orders." Alexander rejoined, "No demand should be made of a man like thee. I never met any one more qualified as a sage. Now I abandon all my claims upon thee and depart." The king of China responded, "Thou wilt lose nothing by this arrangement." He then despatched rich presents to him, like a thousand pieces of silk, painted silk, brocade, silver, sable-skins, etc., and pledged himself to pay an annual tribute. Although the whole story, of course, is pure invention, Chinese methods of overcoming an enemy by superior diplomacy are not badly characterized.

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1 Ibid., p. 179.

2 Ibid., pp. 369, 394.

3 H. Zotenberg, Histoire des rois des Perses, pp. 436-440.