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
390 SINO-IRANICA
giraffes.' It likewise appears in the list of countries visited by Cen Ho,2 where Ma-lin and La-sa *tJNC are named, the latter apparently being identical with the older Lao-p`o-sa.3
The Chinese knew, further, that the date thrives in the country of the Arabs (Ta-si),4 further, in Oman, Basra, and on the Coromandel Coast.' It is pointed out, further, for Aden and Ormuz.'
There is no doubt that the date-palm has existed in southern Persia from ancient times, chiefly on the littoral of the Persian Gulf and in Mekrân, Baluchistan. It is mentioned in several passages of the Bûndahisn.7 Its great antiquity in Babylonia also is uncontested
(Assyrian gi.immaru) .8 Strabo9 reports how Alexander's army was greatly distressed on its march through the barren Gedrosian desert. The supplies had to come from a distance, and were scanty and un-frequent, so much so that the army suffered greatly from hunger, the beasts of burden dropped, and the baggage was abandoned. The army was saved by the consumption of dates and the marrow of the palmtree.10 Again he tells us that many persons were suffocated by eating unripe dates." Philostratus speaks of a eunuch who received Apollonius of Tyana when he entered the Parthian kingdom, and offered him dates of amber color and of exceptional size.12 In the Province of Fars, the date-palm is conspicuous almost everywhere.13 In Babylon, Persian and Aramaic date-palms were distinguished, the former being held in greater esteem, as their meat perfectly detaches itself from the stone, while it partially adheres in the Aramaic date.14 The same distinction
1 Ta Min i t'un ci, Ch. 9o, p. 24.
2 Min Si, Ch. 304.
3 It is not Ma-lift-la-sa, the name of a single country, as made out by GROENEVELDT (Notes on the Malay Archipelago, p. 17o).
4 T'ai p'in hwan yü ki, Ch. 186, p. 15 b.
6 HIRTH, Chau Ju-kua, pp. 133, 137, 96.
8 ROCKHILL, T'oung Pao, 1915, p. 609. The word to-sa-pu, not explained by him, represents Arabic düsâb ("date-wine"; see LECLERC, Traité des simples, Vol. II, p. 49). NOLDEKE (Persische Studien, II, p. 42) explains this word from dûs (" honey ") and Persian ab (" water").
7 Above, p. 193.
8 Herodotus, I, 193; E. BONAVIA, Flora of the Assyrian Monuments, p. 3; HANDCOCK, Mesopotamian Archæology, pp. 12-13.
9 XV, 2, § 7.
10 Cf. Theophrastus, Histor. plant., IV. IV, 13.
11 Ibid., IV. Iv, 5; and Pliny, XIII, 9.
12 C. JORET, Plantes dans l'antiquité, Vol. II, p. 93.
13 G. LE STRANGE, Description of the Province of Fars, pp. 31, 33, 35, 39, 40,
etc.
14 I. LOEW, Aramaeische Pflanzennamen, p. 112.
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