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0080 Sino-Iranica : vol.1
Sino-Iranica : vol.1 / Page 80 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000248
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THE WALNUT

4. The Buddhist dictionary Fan yi min yi tsi   t

compiled by Fa Yün it T.-7 contains a Chinese-Sanskrit name for the

walnut (hu t'ao   , Juglans regia) in the transcription po-lo-.i

411 ONft , which, as far as I know, has not yet been identified with its Sanskrit equivalent.' According to the laws established for the Buddhist transcriptions, this formation is to be restored to Sanskrit pdrasi, which I regard as the feminine form of the adjective pdrasa, meaning "Persian" (derived from Parsa, "Persia"). The walnut, accordingly, as expressed by this term, was regarded in India as a tree or fruit suspected of Persian provenience. The designation pârasi for the walnut is not recorded in Boehtlingk's Sanskrit Dictionary, which, by the way, contains many other lacunes. The common Sanskrit word for "walnut" is âkhôta, ak$5ta, aks5sa,3 which for a long time has been regarded as a loan-word received from Iranian.4

Pliny has invoked the Greek names bestowed on this fruit as testimony for the fact that it was originally introduced from Persia, the

1 Ch. 24, p. 27 (edition of Nanking).—BuNYIV NANJIO (Catalogue of the Buddhist Tripitaka, No. 1640) sets the date of the work at 1151. WYLIE (Notes on Chinese Literature, p. 210) and BRETSCHNEIDER (Bot. Sin., pt. 1, p. 94) say that it was completed in 1143. According to S. JULIEN (Méthode, p. 13), it was compiled from 1143 to 1157.

2 BRETSCHNEIDER (Study and Value of Chinese Botanical Works, Chinese Recorder, Vol. III, 1871, p. 222) has given the name after the Pen ts'ao kai mu, but has left it without explanation.

3 The last-named form occurs twice in the Bower Manuscript (HOERNLE'S edition, pp. 32, 90, 121). In Hindustani we have axrôl or dkrôl.

4 F. SPIEGEL, Arische Periode, p. 4o. The fact that the ancient Iranian name for the walnut is still unknown does not allow us to explain the Sanskrit word satisfactorily. Its relation to Hebrew egôz, and Persian kôz, gôz (see below), is perspicuous. Among the Hindu-Kush languages, we meet in Yidgha the word oghiizoh (J. BIDDULPH, Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh, Appendices, p. cLxvli), which appears as a missing link between Sanskrit on the one hand and the Semitic-Armenian forms on the other hand: hence we may conjecture that the ancient Iranian word was something like

  • agôza, angôza; and this supposition is fully confirmed by the Chinese transcription a-yüe (above, p. 248). Large walnuts of India are mentioned by the traveller Te toward the middle of the thirteenth century (BRETSCHNEIDER, Medixval Researches, Vol. I, p. 146). The walnuts of the province of Kusistan in Persia, which are much esteemed, are sent in great quantities to India (W. AINSLIE, Materia Indica, Vol. I, p. 464).

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