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
GARDEN PEA AND BROAD BEAN 307
plants. One is termed hui-hui tou (" Mohammedan bean "), first mentioned in the Kiuhwan pen ts'ao of the fourteenth century, called also
na-ho tou â V., the bean being roasted and eaten. The other,
named hu tou, is identified with the wild hu tou of C`en Ts'an-k`i; and Wu K`i-tsün, author of the Ci wu min i t`u k`ao, adds the remark, "What is now called hu tou grows wild, and is not the hu tou [that is, the pea] of ancient times."
On the other hand, the term hu tou la refers also to Faba
sativa (F. vulgaris, the vetch or common bean), according to BRETSCHNEIDER,1 "one of the cultivated plants introduced from western Asia into China, in the second century B.C., by the famous general Chang K'ien." This is an anachronism and a wild statement, which he has not even supported by any Chinese text.' The history of the species in China is lost, or was never recorded. The supposition that it was introduced from Iran is probable. It is mentioned under the name pag (gdvirs) in the Bûndahisn as the chief of small-seeded grains.' Abu Mansur has it under the Persian name bdgild or bdgld.4 Its cultivation in Egypt is of ancient date.'
Ts'an tou UV. (" silkworm bean," so called because in its shape it resembles an old silkworm), Japanese soramame, the kidney-bean or horse-bean (Vicia faba), is also erroneously counted by BRETSCHNEIDER6 among the Can-K`ien plants, without any evidence being
produced. It is likewise called hu tou V, but no historical documents
touching on the introduction of this species are on record. It is not mentioned in Tang or Sung literature, and seems to have been introduced not earlier than the Yüan period (126o-1367). It is spoken of
in the Nun .0 A ("Book on Agriculture ") of Wan Cen E *I of
that period, and in the Kiu hwan pen ts'ao A * a of the early
1 Bot. Sin., pt. II, No. 29.
2 The only text to this effect that I know of is the Pen ts'ao kin, quoted in the T'ai p'in yü lan (Ch. 841, p. 6 b), which ascribes to Can K`ien the introduction of sesame and hu tou; but which species is meant (Pisum sativum, Faba sativa, or Vicia faba) cannot be guessed. The work in question certainly is not the Pen ts'ao kin of den-nun, but it must have existed prior to A.D. 983, the date of the publication of the T'ai p'in yü lan.
3 WEST, Pahlavi Texts, Vol. I, p. 90.
4 ACHUNDOW, Abu Mansur, p. 20.
b V. LORET, Flore pharaonique, P. 94.
6 Chinese Recorder, 1871, p. 221 (thus again reiterated by DE CANDOLLE, Origin of Cultivated Plants, p. 318). The Kwan k`ün fan p'u (Ch. 4, p. 12 b) refers the above text from the T'ai p'in yü lan to this species, but also to the pea. This confusion is hopeless.
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