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0042 Sino-Iranica : vol.1
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doi: 10.20676/00000248
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216   SING-IRANICA

3. Trigonella fcenunm graecum. In this case the compromise is a failure, or the identification of kunci with kan-sun even results from an error; the Sanskrit term for the spikenard is gandhamansi.

We must not draw inferences from mere Sanskrit names, either, as to the origin of Chinese plants, unless there is more substantial evidence. Thus STUART' remarks under h (Prunus domestica) that the Sanskrit equivalent 3 14 kü-lin-kia indicates that this plum may have been introduced from India or Persia. Prunus domestica, however, is a native of China, mentioned in the Si kin, Li ki, and in Mon-tse. The SinoIndian word is given in the Fan yi min yi tsi (section 24) with the translation li. The only corresponding Sanskrit word is kulingâ, which denotes a kind of gall. The question is merely of explaining a Sanskrit term to the Chinese, but this has no botanical or historical value for the Chinese species.

Thus the records of the Chinese felicitously supplement the meagre notices of alfalfa on the part of the ancients, and lend its history the proper perspective: we recognize the why and how of the worldwide propagation of this useful economic plant.' Aside from Fergana, the Chinese of the Han period discovered mu-su also in Ki-pin (Kashmir),s and this fact is of some importance in regard to the early geographical distribution of the species; for in Kashmir, as well as in Afghanistan and Baluchistan, it is probably spontaneous.'

Mu-su gardens are mentioned under the Emperor Wu (A.D. 265-29o) of the Tsin dynasty, and the post-horses of the Tang dynasty were fed with alfalfa.'

The fact that alfalfa was used as an article of human food under the Tang we note from the story of Sie Lin-6i 6T* , preceptor at the Court of the Emperor Yüan 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.' The good teacher, of course, was not familiar with the highly nutritive food-values of the plant.

1 Chinese Materia Medica, p. 358.

2 It is singular that A. DE CANDOLLE, in his Origin of Cultivated Plants, while he has conscientiously reproduced from Bretschneider all his plants wrongly ascribed to Can K'ien, does not make any reference to China in speaking of Medicago (pp. 102—I04). In fact, its history has never before been outlined correctly.

3 Ts'ien Han Su, Ch. 96 A.

4 A. DE CANDOLLE, op. cit., p. Io3; G. T. VIGNE, Travels in Kashmir, Vol. II, p. 455.

5 S. MATSUDA * W   N, On Medicago sativa and the Species of Medicago

in China (Botanical Magazinettt

Par

, Tokyo-, Vol. XXI, 1907, p. 243) •

This is a very interesting and valuable study written in Japanese.

6 Cf. C. PÉTILLON, Allusions littéraires, p. 35o.