National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

264   SING-IRANICA

.1 Another allusion to the walnut relative to the period Hien-ho (A.D. 326-335) has been noted above (p. 259). There is, further, a reference to the fruit in the history of Su , when, after the death of Li Hiun

in A.D. 334, Han Pao   from Fu-furs 3 J in S'en-si

was appointed Grand Tutor (t`ai fu fq) of his son Li K`i    , and
asked the latter to grant him seeds for the planting of walnut-trees, which, on account of his advanced age, he was anxious to have in his garden.'

During the third or fourth century, the Chinese knew also that walnuts grew in the Hellenistic Orient. "In Ta Ts`in there are jujubes,

jasmine, and walnuts," it is stated in the Wu i wai kwo ci   fq ~{-
("Memoirs of Foreign Countries at the time of the Wu ") .3

The Kwanci   by Kwo Yi-kun n4 contains the following

account: " The walnuts of C `en-ts `arn ß,   5 have a thin shell and a

large kernel; those of Yin-p`in {s are large, but their shells are brittle, and, when quickly pinched, will break."'

Coming to the Tang period, we encounter a description of the

walnut in the Yu yan tsa tsu   , written about A.D. 860,8 from
which the fact may be gleaned that the fruit was then much cultivated

i T'ai p'in yü lan, Lc.

2 This story is contained in the Kwan wu hin ki   H   qZ (according to

BRETSCHNEIDER, a work of the Sung literature). As the text is embodied in the T'ai p`in yü lan, it must have been extant prior to A.D. 983, the date of Li Fan's cyclope dia.

3 Presumably identical with the Wu Si wai kwo swan noted by PELLIOT (Bull. de l'Ecole française, Vol. IV, p. 27o) as containing information secured by the mission of K'an T'ai in the first part of the third century A.D. Cf. also Journal asiatique, 1918, II, p. 24. The Min Si ascribes walnuts to Ormuz (BRETSCHNEIDER, Notices of the Mediœval Geography, p. 294).

4 This work is anterior to the year A.D. 527, as it is cited in the   kin cu of

Li Tao-yuan, who died in that year. Kwo Yi-kun is supposed to have lived under the Tsin (A.D. 265-419). Cf. PELLIOT, Bull. de l'Ecole française, Vol. IV, p. 412.

5 Now the district of Pao-ki in the prefecture of Fun-sian, sen-si Province.

6 At the time of the Han period, Yin-p`in was the name for the present prefec-

ture of Lun-nan q   in the province of Se-6'wan. There was also a locality of the
same name in the prefecture of Kiai in the province of Kan-su, inhabited by the Ti, a Tibetan tribe (CHAVANNES, T'oung Pao, 1905, p. 525).

7 T'ai p'in yü lan, 1. c.; Ko ci kin yuan, Ch. 76, p. 5; Ci wu min Si tilt k`ao, 1. c. This text is cited also by Su Sun in his T'u kin pen ts'ao. The earliest quotation that I can trace of it occurs in the Pei hu lu, written by Twan Kun-lu about A.D. 875 (Ch. 3, p. 4 b, ed. of Lu Sin-yuan), where, however, only the last clause in regard to the walnuts of Yin-p`in is given (see below, p. 268).

8 PELLIOT, T'oung Pao, 1912, p. 375. The text is in the T'u . u tsi c`en and Ci wu min Si t`u k'ao (1. c.). I cannot trace it in the edition of the Yu yan tsa tsu in the Tsin tai pi su or Pai hai.