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0287 Sino-Iranica : vol.1
Sino-Iranica : vol.1 / Page 287 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000248
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AROMATICSMYRRH   461

as), while this section opens with the remark, "The habitat of the myrrh tree 'fix is in Po-se."' It may be, however, that, as argued by HIRTH, mu may be intended in this case to transcribe Middle and New Persian miird, which means "myrtle " (not only in the B andahisn, but generally) .2 Myrrh and myrtle have nothing to do with each other, belonging not only to different families, but even to different orders; nor does the myrtle yield a resin like myrrh. It therefore remains doubtful whether myrrh was known to the Chinese during the Tang period; in this case, the passage cited above from the Nan cou ki (like many another text from this work) must be regarded as an anachronism. eao 2u-kwa gives the correct information that myrrh is produced on the Berbera coast of East Africa and on the Hadramaut littoral of Arabia; he has also left a fairly correct description of how the resin is obtained.'

Li Si-éen4 thinks that the transcription 'fix or represents a Sanskrit word. This, of course, is erroneous: myrrh is not an Indian product, and is only imported into India from the Somali coast of Africa and from Arabia. The former Chinese character answers to ancient *mut or *mur; the latter, to *mwat, mwar, or mar. The former no doubt represents attempts at reproducing the Semito-Persian name,— Hebrew môr, Aramaic mura, Arabic murr, Persian mor (Greek vpvpa, o-pûpov, Opov, Latin myrrha) .5

Whether the Chinese transcribed the Arabic or Persian form, remains uncertain : if the transcription should really appear as late as the age of the Sung, it is more probable that the Arabic yielded the prototype; but if it can be carried back to the Tang or earlier, the assumption is in favor of Iranian speech.

1 Cf. HIRTH, Journal Am. Or. Soc., Vol. XXX, p. 20. Owing to a curious misconception, the article of the Yu, yan tsa tsu has been placed under mi hian V If (" gharu-wood ") in the Pen ts'ao kan mu (Ch. 34, p. io b), for mu C hian is wrongly supposed to be a synonyme of mi hian.

2 Another New-Persian word for this plant is anibd or anitd. In late Avestan it is mustemesa (BARTHOLOMAE, Altiran. Wôrt., col. I189). I do not believe that the Persian word and Armenian murt are derived from Greek µvpotvrt (SCHRADER in Hehn, Kulturpflanzen, p. 238) or from Greek /. pros (NÔLDEKE, Persische Studien, II, p. 43).

3 HIRTH, Chau Ju-kua, p. 197.

4 Pen ts`ao haft mu, Ch. 34, p. 17.

6 Pliny, x11, 34-35; LECLERC, Traité des simples, Vol. III, p. Soo; V. LORET, Flore pharaonique, p. 95. The transcription *mwat appears to transcribe Javanese and Bali madu ("myrrh"; Malayan manisan lebah). In an Uigur text translated from Sogdian or Syriac appears the word zmurna or zmuran ("myrrh"), connected with the Greek word (F. W. K. MÜLLER, Uigurica, pp. 5-7).