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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Sino-Iranica : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
THE POMEGRANATE 281
The Annals of the Liu Sung Dynasty, A.D. 420-477 (Sun su), contain the following account: "At the close of the period Yüan-kia 7C
(A.D. 424-453), when T'ai Wu (A.D. 424-452) J of the Wei dynasty
conquered the city Ku a'%~ ,i he issued orders to search for sugarcane and pomegranates (nan §i liu). Can C`an qrA Vi said that pomegranates (Si-liu) come from Ye." This is the same locality as mentioned above.
The Sian kwo ki A 511 22 reports that in the district of Lun-kan
1 3 there are good pomegranates (ki liu) . These various examples
illustrate that in the beginning the tree was considered as peculiar to certain localities, and that accordingly a gradual dissemination must have taken place. Apparently no ancient Chinese author is informed as to the locality from which the tree originally came, nor as to the how and when of the transplantation.
The Kwan die , written by Kwo Yi-kun prior to A.D.
527, as quoted in the Ts`i min yao .u, discriminates between two varieties of pomegranate (nan . i liu), a sweet and a sour one, in the same manner as Tao Hun-kin.' This distinction is already made by Theophrastus.5 As stated above, there was also a bitter variety.'
It is likewise a fact of great interest that we have an isolated instance of the occurrence of a pomegranate-tree that reverted to the wild state. The Di . an ki 1& il-i E7 contains this notice: "On the summit of the
Hian-lu fun !`= (` Censer-Top') there is a huge rock on which
several people can sit. There grows a wild pomegranate (§ an III 4) drooping from the rock. In the third month it produces blossoms. In color these resemble the [cultivated] pomegranate, but they
1 Modern Cen-tin fu in ti-li Province.
2 Thus in T'ai p'in yü lan, Ch. 970, p. 5 b; the Ts'i min yao Su (Ch. 4, p. 14)
ascribes the same text to the Kin k'ou ki ri â~G.
3 At present the district which forms the prefectural city of Sun-te in ci-li Province.
4 Above, Q. 279.
5 Historia plantarum, II. 11, 7.
6 Pliny (XIII, 113) distinguishes five varieties,—dulcia, acria, mixta, acida, vinosa.
7 T'ai p`in yü lan, Ch. 97o, p. 5. The Lü Mountain is situated in Kian-si Province, twenty-five li south of Kiu-kian. A work under the title Lü San ki was written
by C'en Lin-ka { û X in the eleventh century (WYLIE, Notes on Chinese Literature, p. 55); but, as the T'ai p'in yü lan was published in A.D. 983, the question here must be of an older work of the same title. In fact, there is a Lü San ki by Kin Si
A of the Hou Cou dynasty; and the Yüan kien lei han (Ch. 402, p. 2) ascribes the same text to the Cou Kin gi Lü San ki. The John Crerar Library of Chicago
(No. 156) possesses a Lü an Biao ci in 24 chapters, written by Tsai Yin and
published in 1824.
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