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| Sino-Iranica : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
424 SING—IRANICA
passage : the two texts differ both as to descriptive matter and nomenclature. In regard to the Fu-lin information of Twan, HIRTH'S opinion' is perfectly correct: it was conveyed by the monk Wan, who had hailed directly from Fu-lin.2 The time when he lived is unknown, but most probably he was a contemporary of Twan. The Fu-lin names, accordingly, do not go back to the beginning of the eighth century, but belong to the latter half of the ninth.
An interesting point in connection with this subject is that both the Iranian and the Malayan Po-se play their rôle with reference to the plant and fruit in question. This, as far as I know, is the only instance of this kind. Fortunately, the situation is perfectly manifest on either side. The fact that Twan C`en-si hints at the Iranian Po-se (Persia) is well evidenced by his addition of the Iranian name; while the tree itself is not found in Persia, and merely its fruit was imported from Syria or India. The Po-se, alluded to in the Cen lei pen ts`ao and presumably traceable to Cten Ts`an-k`i, unequivocally represents the Malayan Po-se: it is joined to the names of Sumatra and P`o-lo-men; and Cassia fistula is said to occur there, and indeed occurs in the Malayan zone. Moreover, Li Si-ben has added such an unambiguous definition of the location of this Po-se, that there is no room for doubt of its identity.
45. Reference has been made to the similarity of cassia pods to carob pods, and it would not be impossible that the latter were included in the " Persian Gleditschia " of the Chinese.
Ceratonia siliqua, the carob-tree, about thirty feet in height, is likewise a genus of the family Leguminosae, a typical Mediterranean cultivation. The pods, called carob pods, carob beans, or sometimes sugar pods, contain a large quantity of mucilaginous and saccharine matter, and are commonly employed in the south of Europe for feeding live-stock, and occasionally, in times of scarcity, as human food. The popular names "locust-pods" or "St. John's Bread" rest on the supposition that the pods formed the food of St. John in the wilderness (LUKE, xv, z 6) ; but there is better reason to believe that the locusts of St. John were the animals so called, and these are still eaten in the Orient. The common Semitic name for the tree and fruit is Assyrian xarûbu, Aramaic xdrûbd, Arabic xarrûb and xarnub.3 New Persian xurniib (khurnûb) or xarnûb, also xarrûb (hence Osmanli xarûp,4 Neo-
' Journal Am. Or. Soc., Vol. XXX, 191o, p. 18.
2 Cf. above, p. 359.
3 Egyptian dzarudz, garuta, darruga; Coptic garate, are Greek loan-words (tile tree never existed in Egypt, as already stated by Pliny, x1", 16), from,cEparca.
4 Also ketsibujnuzu (" goat's horn").
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