IIIF Color HighRes
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
282 SING-IRANICA
are smaller and pale red. When they open, they display a purple calyx of bright and attractive hues." A poem of Li Te-yü 4 g (787-849) opens with the words, "In front of the hut where I live there is a wild pomegranate."'
Fa Hien m, the celebrated Buddhist traveller, tells in his Fu kwo ki ' El ne (" Memoirs of Buddhist Kingdoms "), written about A.D. 420, that, while travelling on the upper Indus, the flora differed from that of the land of Han, excepting only the bamboo, pomegranate, and sugar-cane.' This passage shows that Fa Hien was familiar with that tree in China. Haan Tsan observed in the seventh century that pomegranates were grown everywhere in India.' Soleiman (or whoever may be the author of this text), writing in A.D. 851, emphasizes the abundance of the fruit in India.4 Ibn Batûta says that the pomegranates of India bear fruit twice a year, and emphasizes their fertility on the Maldive Islands.' Seedless pomegranates came to the household of the Emperor Akbar from Kabul.'
The pomegranate occurred in Fu-nan (Camboja), according to the Nan Tsti . u. or History of the Southern Ts'i (A.D. 479-501), compiled by Siao Tse-hien in the beginning of the sixth century.' It is mentioned again by Cou Ta-kwan of the Yüan dynasty, in his book on the "Customs of Camboja."8 In Han-6ou, large and white pomegranates were styled
yii liu 3 (" jade" liu), while the red ones were regarded as inferior or
of second quality.'
The following ancient terms for the pomegranate, accordingly, are on record .--
(1) t t'u-lin, *du-lim. Aside from the Po wu 6i, this term is
used by the Emperor Yüan of the Liang dynasty in a eulogy of the fruit.1° HIRTH1I identified this word with an alleged Indian darim; and, according to him, Can Kien must have brought the Indian name to
' Li wei kun pie tsi, Ch. 2, p. 8 (Ki fu ts'un Su, t'ao to). 2 Cf. J. LEGGE, A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, p. 24.
E Ta T'an si yü ki, Ch. 2, p. 8 b (S. BEAL, Buddhist Records of the Western World, Vol. I, p. 88).
4 M. REINAUD, Relation des voyages, Vol. I, p. 57.
5 DEFRÉMERY and SANGUINETTI, Voyages d'Ibn Batoutah, Vol. III, p. I29.
6 H. BLOCHMANN, Ain I Akbari, Vol. I, p. 65.
7 PELLIOT, Le Fou-nan, Bull. de l'Ecole française, Vol. III, p. 262.
8 PELLIOT, ibid., Vol. II, p. 168.
9 Mon Tian lu a by Wu Tse-mu 1 of the Sung (Ch. 18, p. 5 b;
ed. of ei pu tsu lai ts'un Su).
10 Yüan kien lei han, Ch. 402, p. 3 b. Further, in the lost Hu pen ts'ao, as follows from a quotation in a note to the Pei hu lu (Ch. 3, p. 12).
11 T'oung Pao, Vol. VI, 1895, p. 439.
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