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0283 Sino-Iranica : vol.1
Sino-Iranica : vol.1 / Page 283 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000248
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AROMATICS-STORAX   457

of this product."' Nothing is known, however, in Chinese records about this alleged country Su-ho (*Su-gab) ; hence it is probable that this explanation is fictitious, and merely inspired by the desire to account in a seemingly plausible way for the mysterious foreign word.

In the Annals of the Liang Dynasty,2 storax is enumerated among the products of western India which are imported from Ta Ts'in and An-si (Parthia). It is explained as "the blending of various aromatic substances obtained by boiling their saps; it is not a product of nature."3 Then follows the same passage relating to the manufacture in Ta Ts`in as in the Kwai ci; and the Liai §u winds up by saying that the product passes through the hands of many middlemen before reaching China, and loses much of its fragrancy during this process.' It is likewise on record in the same Annals that in A.D. 519 King Jayavarman of Fu-nan (Camboja) sent among other gifts storax to the Chinese Court.'

Finally, su-ho is enumerated among the products of Sasanian Persia.6 Judging from the commercial relations of Iran with the Hellenistic Orient and from the nature of the product involved, we shall not err in assuming that it was traded to Persia in the same manner as to India.

The Chinese-Sanskrit dictionaries contain two identifications of the name su-ho. In the third chapter of the Yü k`ie i ti lun tt OP 0 it & (Yogacdryabhümigdstra),7 translated in A.D. 646-647 by Hüan

Tsars, we find the name of an aromatic in the form   su-tu-
lu-kia, *sut-tu-lu-kyie; that is, Sanskrit *sturuka = storax.8 It is identified by Yüan Yin with what was formerly styled % fl tou-loup`o, *du-lyu-bwa.9 It is evident that the transcription su-tu-lu-kia is based on a form corresponding to Greek styrak-s, storak-s, styrdkion of the Papyri (Syriac stiraca, astorac) . This equation presents the

1 Fan yi min yi tsi, Ch. 8, p. 9; Tai yin yü lan, Ch. 982, p. 1 b.

2 Liars §u, Ch. 54, p. 7 b.

3 The Fan yi min yi tsi, which reproduces this passage, has, "It is not a single (or homogeneous) substance."

' Cf. HIRTH, China and the Roman Orient, p. 47.   '

5 Cf. PELLIOT, Bull. de l'Ecole française, Vol. III, p. 270.

6 Sui su, Ch. 83, p. 7 b; or 0ou §u, Ch. 5o, p. 6. It does not follow from these texts, that, as assumed by HIRTH (Chao Ju-kua, pp. 16, 262), su-ho or any other product of Persia was imported thence to China. The texts are merely descriptive in saying that these are products to be found in Persia.

7 BUNYIU NANJIO, Catalogue of the Chinese Tripitaka, No. 1170.

8 Yi ts`ie kin yin i, Ch. 22, p. 3 b (cf. PELLIOT, T'oung Pao, 1912, PP. 478-479). This text has been traced by me independently. I do not believe that this name is connected with turuska.

s Probably Sanskrit diirvd (cf. Journal asiatique, 1918, II, pp. 21-22).