IIIF Color HighRes
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Sino-Iranica : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
AROMATICS—STYRAX BENJOIN 465
combined two different aromatics,— an ancient product of Iranian regions, as yet unidentified; and the benjoin yielded by the Styrax benjoin, a small tree of the Malay Archipelago.' It is necessary to discriminate sharply between the two, and to understand that the ancient term originally relating to an Iranian aromatic, when the Iranian importation had ceased, was subsequently transferred to the Malayan article, possibly on account of some outward resemblance of the two, but that the two substances have no botanical and historical interrelation. The attempt of CaoLu-kwa to establish a connection between the two, and to conjecture that the name is derived from An-si (Parthia), but that the article was imported by way of San-fo-tsti (Palembang on Sumatra),2 must be regarded as unfounded; for the question is not of an importation from Parthia or Persia to Sumatra, but it is the native product of ;a plant actually growing in Sumatra, in Borneo, and other Malayan islands.3 The product is called in Malayan kaminan (GARCIA: cominham), Javanese menan, Sunda minan. The duplicity of the article and the sameness of the term have naturally caused a great deal of confusion among Chinese authors, and perhaps no less among European writers. At least, the subject has not yet been presented clearly, and least of all by BRETSCHNEIDER.4
According to Su Kun, nan-si hian is produced among the Western
Lun ±SG (Si-duh),—a vague term, which may allude to Iranians
(p. 203). Li San, in his Hai yao pen ifao, written in the second half of the eighth century, states that the plant grows in Nan-hai (" Southern Sea"; that is, the Archipelago) and in the country Po-se. The coordination with Nan-hai renders it probable that he hints at the Malayan Po-se rather than at Persia, the more so, as Li Si-ben himself states that the plant now occurs in Annam, Sumatra, and all foreign countries.5 The reason why the term nan-si was applied to the Malayan
1 The word "benjoin" is a corruption of Arabic lubdn jdun (" incense of Java"; that is, Sumatra of the Arabs). The Portuguese made of this benzawi, and further beijoim, benjoim (in Vasco da Gama and Duarte Barbosa) ; Spanish benjui, menjui; Italian beizuino, belguino; French benjoin. Cf. R. DOZY and W. H. ENGELMANN, Glossaire des mots espagnols et portugais dérivés de l'arabe, p. 239; S. R. DALGADO, Influência do vocabulario português, p. 27.
2 HIRTH, Chao Ju-kua, p. 20I.
3 According to GARCIA (C. Markham, Colloquies, p. 49), benjoin is only known in Sumatra and Siam. According to F. PYRARD (Vol. II, p. 360, ed. of Hakluyt Society), who travelled from 16oI to 161o, it is chiefly produced in Malacca and Sumatra.
4 Bot. Sin., pt. III, No. 313.
6 As the Malayan product does not fall within the scope of the present investigation, this subject is not pursued further here (see HIRTH, Chau Ju-kua, pp. 20 1-202). In Bretschneider's translation of this matter, based on the unreliable
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