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I. The earliest extant literary allusion to alfalfa1 (''Medicago sativa'') is made in 424 B.C. in the Equites ("The Knights") of Aristophanes, who says (V, 606) :
"Hadiov 81 roiis irayobpovs o\vtI irolas nrjSiKrjsἬσθιον δὲ τοὺς παγούρους ἀντὶ ποίας μηδικῆς. <br>"The horses ate the crabs of Corinth as a substitute for the Medic.*! "
The term "Medike" is derived from the name of the country Media. In his description of Media, Strabo* states that the plant constituting the chief food of the horses is called by the Greeks "Medike" from its growing in Media in great abundance. He also mentions as a product of Media silphion, from which is obtained the Medic juice. 3 Pliny 4 intimates that "Medica" is by nature foreign to Greece, and that it was first introduced there from Media in consequence of the Persian wars under King Darius. Dioscorides6 describes the plant without referring to a locality, and adds that it is used as forage by the cattlebreeders. In Italy, the plant was disseminated from the middle of the second century B.C. to the middle of the first century a.d., 8—almost coeval with its propagation to China. The Assyriologists claim that aspasti or aspastu, the Iranian designation of alfalfa, is mentioned in a Babylonian text of ca. 700 B.C.; 7 and it would not be impossible that its favorite fodder followed the horse at the time of its introduction from Iran into Mesopotamia. A. de Candolle8 states that Medicago
____________________ <references/> 1 1 use this term (not lucerne) in accordance with the practice of the U. S. Department of Agriculture; it is also the term generally used and understood by the people of the United States. The word is of Arabic origin, and was adopted by the Spaniards, who introduced it with the plant into Mexico and South America in the sixteenth century. In 1854 it was taken to San Francisco from Chile (J. M. Westgate, Alfalfa, p. 5, Washington, 1908). \
1 XI. xni, 7.
8 Origin of Cultivated Plants, p. 103.
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6 The mere fact that the Greeks received Medicago from the Persians, and christened it "Medic grass," by no means signifies or proves at the outset that Medicago represents a genuinely Iranian cultivation. It is well known how fallacious such names are: the Greeks also had the peach under the name "Persian apple," and the apricot as "Armenian apple;" yet peach and apricot are not originally Persian or Armenian, but Chinese cultivations: Iranians and Armenians in this case merely
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1 As to Kashmir, it will be seen, we receive a confirmation from an ancient Chinese document. See also G. Watt, Dictionary of the Economic Products of India, Vol. V, pp. 199-203.
6 Schlimmer, Terminologie, p. 365. He gives yond£e as the Persian name, which, however, is of Turkish origin (from yont, "horse"). In Asia Minor there is a place Yonjali ("rich in alfalfa").
6 Leclerc, Traite" Traité des simples, Vol. Ill, p. 35.
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In the inscription of Persepolis, King Darius says, "This land Persia which Auramazda has bestowed on me, being beautiful, populous, and abundant in horses— according to the will of Auramazda and my own, King Darius—it does not tremble before any enemy." I have alluded in the introduction to the results of General Can K'ien's memorable expedition to Central Asia. The desire to possess the fine Iranian thoroughbreds, more massively built than the small Mongolian horse, and distinguished by their noble proportions and slenderness of feet as well as by the development of chest, neck, and croup, was one of the strongest motives for the Emperor Wu (140-87 B.C.) to maintain regular missions to Iranian countries, which led to a regular caravan trade with Fergana and Parthia. Even more than ten such missions were dispatched in the course of a year, the minimum being five or six. At first, this superior breed of horse was obtained from the Wu-sun, but then it was found by Can K'ien that the breed of Fergana was far superior. These horses were called "blood-sweating" (han-hue ff jfiL), 1 and were believed to be the offspring of a heavenly horse {Vien ma % fi$). The favorite fodder of this noble breed consisted in Medicago sativa; and it was a sound conclusion of General Can K'ien, who was a practical man and possessed of good judgment in economic matters, that, if these much-coveted horses were to continue to thrive on Chinese soil, their staple food had to go along with them. Thus he obtained the seeds of alfalfa in Fergana, 2 and presented them in 126 B.C. to his imperial master, who had wide tracts of land near his palaces covered
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1 This name doubtless represents the echo of some Iranian mythical concept, but I have not yet succeeded in tracing it in Iranian mythology.
2 In Fergana as well as in the remainder of Russian Turkistan Medicago sativa is still propagated on an immense scale, and represents the only forage-plant of that country, without which any economy would be impossible, for pasture-land and hay are lacking. Alfalfa yields four or five harvests there a year, and is used for the feeding of cattle either in the fresh or dry state. In the mountains it is cultivated up to an elevation of five thousand feet; wild or as an escape from cultivation it reaches
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with this novel plant, and enjoyed the possession of large numbers of celestial horses.1 From the palaces this fodder-plant soon spread to the people, and was rapidly diffused throughout northern China. According to Yen Si-ku (a.d. 570-645), this was already an accomplished fact during the Han period. As an officinal plant, alfalfa appears in the early work Pie lu. 1 The TsH min yao iu of the sixth century a.d. gives rules for its cultivation; and T'ao Hun-kin (a.d. 451-536) remarks that "it is grown in gardens at C'an-han (the ancient capital in Sen-si), and is much valued by the northerners, while the people of Kiah-nan do not indulge in it much, as it is devoid of flavor. Abroad there is another mu-su plant for healing eye-diseases, but different from this species." 3 Can K'ien was sent out by the Emperor Wu to search for the Yue-£i and to close an alliance with them against the Turkish Hiun-nu. The Yue-6i, in my opinion, were an Indo-European people, speaking a North-Iranian language related to Scythian, Sogdian, YagnObi, and Ossetic. In the course of his mission, Can K'ien visited Fergana, Sogdiana, and Bactria, all strongholds of an Iranian population. The "West" for the first time revealed by him to his astounded country men was Iranian civilization, and the products which he brought back were thoroughly and typically Iranian. The two cultivated plants (and only these two) introduced by him into his fatherland hailed from Fergana: Ferganian was an Iranian language; and the words for the alfalfa and grape, mu-su and p'u-Vao, were noted by Can K'ien in Fergana and transmitted to China along with the new cultivations. These words were Ferganian; that is, Iranian.4 Can K'ien himself was ____________________ <references/> an altitude up to nine thousand feet. Cf. S. Korzinski, Vegetation of Turkistan (in Russian), p. 51. Russian Turkistan produces the largest supply of alfalfa-seed for export (E. Brown, Bull. Dep. of Agriculture, No. 138, 1914). 1 Si ki, Ch. 123. 1 Cf. Chinese Clay Figures, p. 135. 8 Cen lei pen ts'ao, Ch. 27, p. 23. It is not known what this foreign species is. 1 Hirth's theory (Journal Am. Or. Soc, Vol. XXXVII, 1917, p. 149), that the element yuan of Ta-yuan (Fergana) might represent a "fair linguistic equivalent" of Yavan (Yavana, the Indian name of the Greeks), had already been advanced by J. Edkins {(Journal China Branch Roy. As. Soc, Vol. XVIII, 1884, p. 5). To me it 6eems seems eccentric, and I regret being unable to accept it. In the T'ang period we have from Huan Tsan a reproduction of the name Yavana in the form $Q |$f $5 Yen-mo-na, *Yam-mwa-na (Pelliot, Bull, de I'Ecole francaise, Vol. IV, p. 278). For the Han period we should expect, after the analogy of ^ M Ye-tiao, *Yap (Dzap)-div (Yavadvlpa, Java), a transcription |j| JJ5 Ye-na, *Yap-na, for Yavana. The term jfe j|j§ Yu-yue, *Yu-vat(var), does not represent a transcription of Yavana, as supposed by Chavannes (Memoires historiques de Se-ma Ts'ien, Vol. IV, 1901, pp. 558-559), but is intended to transcribe the name Yuan (*Yuvar, Yu,ar), Btill employed by the Cam and other peoples of Indo-China as a designation of
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Annam and the Annamese (cf. Cam Yuan or Yuon, Bahnar, Juon, Khmer Yuon, Stien Ju6n). This native name, however, was adapted to or assimilated with Sanskrit Yavana; for in the Sanskrit inscriptions of Campa, particularly in one of the reign of Jaya-Rudravarman dated a.d. 1092, Annam is styled Yavana (A. Bergaigne, L'Ancien royaume de Campa, p. 61 of the reprint from Journal asiatique, 1888). In the Old-Javanese poem NagarakrtSgama, completed in a.d. 1365, Yavana occurs twice as a name forAnnam (H. Kern,Bijdragen totde taal- land- envolkenkunde, Vol.LXXII, 1916, p. 399). Kern says that the question as to how the name of the Greeks was applied to Annam has not been raised or answered by any one; he overlooked the contribution of Bergaigne, who discussed the problem.
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1 Strabo (XV. n, 8) observes, "The name of Ariana is extended so as to include some part of Persia, Media, and the north of Bactria and Sogdiana; for these peoples speak nearly the same language."
6 Pamir-Dialekte (Sitzber. Wiener Akad., 1880, p. 792).
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The least acceptable explanation of mu-su is that recently propounded by Hirth, 6 who identifies it with a Turkish burfak, which is Osmanli, and refers to the pea. 8 Now, it is universally known that a language like Osmanli was not in existence in the second century B.C., but is a comparatively modern form of Turkish speech; and how Can K'ien should have picked up an Osmanli or any other Turkish word for a typically Iranian plant in Fergana, where there were no Turks at that time, is unintelligible. Nor is the alleged identification phonetically correct: Chinese mu, *muk, *buk, cannot represent bur, nor can su,
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1 Cf. R. B. Shaw, On the Ghalchah Languages (Journal As. Soc. Bengal, 1876, pp. 221, 231). According to Tomaschek (op. cit., p. 763), this word is evolved from *bharaka, Ossetic bairag ("good foal").
6 Kara burlak means the "black pea" and denotes the vetch.
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A Sanskrit §§ M- fJ jM sai-pi-li-k'ie, *sak-bi-lik-kya, for the designation of mu-su, is indicated by Li Si-cen, 9 who states that this is the word for mu-su used in the Kin kwan min kin -§£%!$% W± (Suvarnaprabhasa- sutra). This is somewhat surprising, in view of the fact that there is no Sanskrit word for this plant known to us; 10 and there can be no doubt that the latter was introduced into India from Iran in comparatively recent times. Bretschneider's suggestion, 11 that in
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1 Final k in transcriptions never answers to a final r, but only to k, g, or x (cf. also Pelliot, T'oung Pao, 1912, p. 476). V
u Bot. Sin., pt. Ill, p. 404.
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Kabul the Trifolium giganteum is called sibarga, and Medicago sativa is styled rilka, is unsatisfactory. The word sibarga means "trefoil" (si, "three;" barga = Persian barak, varak, "leaf"), and is Iranian, not Sanskrit; the corresponding Sanskrit word is tripatra or triparna. The word rilka is Afghan; that is, likewise Iranian.1 Considering the fact that nothing is known about the plant in question in early Indian sources, it is highly improbable that it should figure in a Buddhist Sutra of the type of the Suvarnaprabhasa; and I think that Li Si-5en is mistaken as to the meaning of the word, which he says he encountered there. The above transcription occurs also in the Fan yi min yi tsi (section 27) and answers to Sanskrit gaka-vrika, the word caka denoting any eatable herb or vegetable, and vfika (or baka) referring to a certain plant not yet identified (cf. the analogous formation qaka-bilva, "eggplant"). It is not known what herb is to be understood by qdka-vfika, and the Chinese translation mu-su may be merely a makeshift, though it is not impossible that the Sanskrit compound refers to some species of Medicago. We must not lose sight of the fact that the equations established in the Chinese-Sanskrit dictionaries are for the greater part merely bookish or lexicographical, and do not relate to plant introductions. The Buddhist translators were merely anxious to find a suitable equivalent for an Indian term. This process is radically different from the plant-names introduced together with the plants from Iranian, Indian, or Southeast-Asiatic regions: here we face living realities, there we have to do with literary productions. Two other examples may suffice. The Fan yi min yi tsi (section 24) offers a Sanskrit botanical name in the form fl| W. j&I len-Vou-kia, anciently *tsin(tin)-du-k / ie, answering to Sanskrit tinduka (Diospyros embryopteris) , a dense evergreen small tree common throughout India and Burma. The Chinese gloss explains the Indian word by Si ffi, which is the well-known Diospyros kaki of China and Japan, not, however, found in ancient India; it was but recently introduced into the Botanical Garden of Calcutta by Col. Kyd, and the Chinese gardeners employed there call it lin ("Chinese"). 2 In this case it signifies only the Diospyros embryopteris of India. Under the heading kan-sun hian (see p. 455), which denotes the spikenard (Nardostachys jatamansi), Li Si-Sen gives a Sanskrit term i^r ffl B£ k'u-mi-Fe, *ku-mi-£i, likewise taken from the Suvarnaprabhasasatra; this corresponds to Sanskrit kunci or kuncika, which applies to three different plants,— 1. Abrus precatorius, 2. Nigella indica, ____________________ <references/> 1 There are, further, in Afghan sebist (connected with Persian supust) and dureSta. 8 W. Roxburgh, Flora Indica, p. 412.
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The fact that alfalfa was used as an article of human food under the T'ang we note from the story of Sie Lin-<H I? & £., preceptor at the Court of the Emperor Yuan Tsun (a.d. 713-755), who wrote a versified complaint of the too meagre food allotted to him, in which alfalfas with long stems were the chief ingredient. 6 The good teacher, of course, was not familiar with the highly nutritive food-values of the plant.
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1 Chinese Materia Medica, p. 358.
a Cf. C. Petillon, Allusions litteraires, p. 350.
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According to the $u i ki *& H Ifi, written by Zen Fan & B# in the beginning of the sixth century, "the mu-su (alfalfa) gardens of Can K'ien are situated in what is now Lo-yan; mu-su was originally a vegetable in the land of the Hu, and K'ien was the first to obtain it in the Western Countries." A work, Kiu Vi ki ffc %& ffi, 1 says that east of the capital there were mu-su gardens, in which there were three pestles driven by water-power.
K'ou Tsuh-Si, in his Pen ts'ao yen i, a written in a.d. 1116, notes that alfalfa is abundant in Sen-si, being used for feeding cattle and horses, and is also consumed by the population, but it should not be eaten in large quantity. Under the Mongols, the cultivation of alfalfa was much encouraged, especially in order to avert the danger of famines; 7 and gardens were maintained to raise alfalfa for the feeding of horses. 8 According to Li Si-cen (latter part of the sixteenth century), 9 it was in his time a common, wild plant in the fields everywhere, but was cultivated in Sen-si and Kan-su. He apparently means, however, Medicago denticulata, which is a wild species and a native of China. Forbes
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1 T'ai p'ift yii Ian, Ch. 824, p. 9.
9 Pen ts'ao kan mu, Ch. 28, p. 3 b.
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Under the title "Notice sur la plante mou-sou ou luzerne chinoise par C. de Skattschkoff, suivie d'une autre notice sur la menie plante traduite du chinois par G. Pauthier," a brief article of 16 pages appeared in Paris, 1864, as a reprint from the Revue de I 'Orient. 9 Skattschkoff, who had spent seven years in Peking, subsequently became Russian consul in Dsungaria, and he communicates valuable information on the agriculture of Medicago in that region. He states that seeds of this
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1 Journal Linnean Soc, Vol. XXIII, p. 154.
9 The work of Pauthier is limited to a translation of the notice on the plant in the Ci wu min Si t'u k'ao. The name Yu-lou nun frequently occurring in this work does not refer to a treatise on agriculture, as conceived by Pauthier, but is the literary style of Wu K'i-tsun, author of that work.
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The efforts of our Department of Agriculture to promote and to improve the cultivation of alfalfa in this country are well known; for this purpose also seeds from China have been introduced. Argentine chiefly owes to alfalfa a great amount of its cattle-breeding. 8
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1 Origin of Cultivated Plants, p. 103.