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
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HENNA 335
Liang (A.D. 536) it came to China. At the time of the Liang dynasty, people of Kiln 6ou J1 1 used to gamble in their houses at backgammon with gold coins. When the supply of coins was exhausted, they resorted
to gold-coin flowers. Hence Yü Hun said, He who obtains flowers
makes money.' " The same work likewise contains the following note :1 "P ti-§i-§a i-. a t P it is a synonyme for the gold-coin flower,' which was originally produced abroad, and came to China in the first year of the period Ta-t`uin of the Liang (A.D. 535)." The gold-coin flower visualized by Twan Kun-lu and Twan C`en-si assuredly cannot be Inula chinensis, which is a common, wild plant in northern China, and which is already mentioned in the Pie lu and by Tao Hun-kin.3 It is patent that this flower introduced under the Liang must have been a different species. The only method of solving the problem would be to determine the prototype of p`i-i-a, which is apparently the transcription of a foreign word. It is not stated to which language it belongs; but, judging from appearances, it is Sanskrit, and should be traceable to a form like *visisa (or *viçesa). Such a Sanskrit plant-name is not to be found, however. Possibly the word is not Sanskrit.'
The Pei hu lu, accordingly, conceives the finger-nail flower as an introduction due to the Persians, but does not allude to its product, the henna. I fail to find any allusion to henna in other books of the Tang period. I am under the impression that the use of this cosmetic did not come into existence in China before the Sung epoch, and that the practice was then introduced (or possibly only re-introduced) by Mohammedans, and was at first restricted to these. It is known that also the leaves of Impatiens balsamina (fun sien a 'fill) mixed with alum are now used as a finger-nail dye, being therefore styled ian kia ts`ao
ra 43 (" plant dyeing finger-nails "),b— a term first appearing
in the Kiu hwan pen ts`ao, published early in the Ming period. The earliest source that mentions the practice is the Kwei sin tsa .i
1 Ch. 19, p. Io a.
2 The addition of 4 before kin in the edition of Pai hai surely rests on an error. 8 Cf. also BRETSCHNEIDER, Bot. Sin., pt. III, p. 158.
4 The new Chinese Botanical Dictionary (p. 913) identifies the gold-coin flower with Inula britannica. In Buddhist lexicography it is identified with Sanskrit jäti (Jasminum grandiflorum; cf. EITEL, Handbook, p. 52). The same word means also "kind, class"; so does likewise viçep, and the compound jâtiviçe,ca denotes the specific characters of a plant (HOERNLE, Bower Manuscript, p. 273). It is therefore possible that this term was taken by the Buddhists in the sense of "species of Jasminum," and that finally viola was retained as the name of the flower.
5 STUART, Chinese Materia Medica, p. 215; Pen ts`ao lean mu, Ch. 17 B, p. 12 b.
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