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0157 Sino-Iranica : vol.1
Sino-Iranica : vol.1 / Page 157 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000248
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JASMINE   331

originally in Persia, and that it was thence transplanted into Kwarntun. The first-named work adds that it is now (sixteenth century) - cultivated in Yiin-nan and Kwain-tun, but that it cannot stand cold, and is unsuited to the climate of China. The Tan k`ien tsuit lu PI of Yan Sen 4tk (1488-1559) is cited to the effect that "the name nai 71 used in the north of China is identical with what is termed in the

Tsin Annals   tsan nai hwa   (`hair-pin') A 4E.1 As regards this
flower, it entered China a long time ago."

Accordingly we meet in Chinese records the following names for jasmine :2-

' (I)    g ye-si-min, * ya-sit (sib) -min, = Pahlavi yâsmin,
New Persian yâsamin, yâsmin, yâsmün, Arabic yasmin, or Rf t

ye-si-mi, *ya-sit-mit (in Yu yan tsa tsu) =Middle Persian *yasmir (?).3 Judging from this philological evidence, the statement of the Yu yan tsa tsu, and Li Si-hen's opinion that the original habitat of the plant was in Persia, it seems preferable to think that it was really introduced from that country into China. The data of the Nan fan tstao mu `wan are open to grave suspicion; but he who is ready to accept them is compelled to argue, that, on the one hand, the Persian term was extant in western Asia at least in the third century A.D., and that, on the other hand, the Indian word mallikâ (see No. 2) had reached Ta Ts`in about the same time. Either suggestion would be possible, but is not confirmed by any West-Asiatic sources.' The evidence presented by the Chinese work is isolated; and its authority is _not weighty enough, the relation of the modern text to the original issue of about A.D. 300 is too obscure, to derive from it such a far-reaching conclusion. The Persian-Arabic word has become the property of the entire world: all European languages have adopted it, and the Arabs diffused it along the east coast of Africa (Swahili yasmini, Madagasy dzasimini) .

(2) c f' or   tl mo-/i,5 *mwat (mwal) -li =malli, transcription of

1 This is the night-blooming jasmine (Nyctanthes arbor tristis), the musk-flower of India (STUART, Chinese Materia Medica, p. 287).

2 There are numerous varieties of Jasminum,—about 49 to 70 in India, about 39 in the Archipelago, and about i 5 in China and Japan.

3 From the Persian loan-word in Armenian, yasmik, HÛBSCHMANN (Armen. Gram., p. 198) justly infers a Pahlavi *yasmik, beside ydsmin. Thus also *yasmit or *yasmir may have existed in Pahlavi.

4 It is noteworthy also that neither Dioscorides nor Galenus was acquainted with jasmine.

6 For the expression of the element li are used various other characters which may be seen in the Kwan k`iin fan p`u (Ch. 22, p. 8 b); they are of no importance for the phonetic side of the case.