National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

> > > >
Color New!IIIF Color HighRes Gray HighRes PDF   Japanese English
0292 Sino-Iranica : vol.1
Sino-Iranica : vol.1 / Page 292 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

New!Citation Information

doi: 10.20676/00000248
Citation Format: Chicago | APA | Harvard | IEEE

OCR Text

 

466   SINO-IRANICA

~~.

product may be explained from the fact that to the south-west of

China, west of the Irawaddy, there was a city Nan-si    N, mentioned
in the Itinerary of Kia Tan and in the Man .N of the Tang period.' The exact location of this place is not ascertained. Perhaps this or another locality of an identical name lent its name to the product; but this remains for the present a mere hypothesis. The Tien hai yü hen ßi2 states that nan-si is produced in the native district Pa-po ta-tien

"ff   , formerly called A -a Mt la, of Yün-nan.

The Yu yan tsa tsu3 contains the following account : " The tree furnishing the nan-si aromatic is produced in the country Po-se.4 In

Po-se it is termed p`i-sie   3 S tree (` tree warding off evil influences ').5
The tree grows to a height of thirty feet, and has a bark of a yellow-black color. The leaves are oblong,' and remain green throughout the winter. It flowers in the second month. The blossoms are yellow. The heart of the flower is somewhat greenish (or bluish). It does not form fruit. On scraping the tree-bark, the gum appears like syrup, which is called nan-si aromatic. In the sixth or seventh month, when this substance hardens, it is fit for use as incense, which penetrates into the abode of the spirits and dispels all evil." Although I am not a botanist, I hardly believe that this description could be referred to Styrax benjoin. This genus consists only of small trees, which never reach a height of thirty feet; and its flowers are white, not yellow. Moreover, I am not convinced that we face here any Persian plant, but I think that the Po-se of the Yu yan tsa tsu, as in some other cases, hints at the Malayan Po-se.7

text of the Pen ts`ao, occurs a curious misunderstanding. The sentence

it A   a is rendered by him, " By burning the true an-si hiang incense
rats can be allured (?)." The interrogation-mark is his. In my opinion, this means, "In burning it, that kind which attracts rodents is genuine."

1 Cf. PELLIOT, Bull. de l'Ecole française, Vol. IV, pp. 178, 371.

2 Ch. 3, p. I (see above, p. 228). a Ch. 18, p. 8 b.

4 Both BRETSCHNEIDER (Bot. Sin., pt. III, Q. 466) and HIRTH (Chao Ju-kua, p. 202) identify this Po-se with Persia, without endeavoring, however, to ascertain what tree is meant; and Styrax benzoin does not occur in Persia. Garcia already stated that benjuy (as he writes) is not found in Armenia, Syria, Africa, or Cyrene, but only in Sumatra and Siam.

Pi-sie is not the transcription of a foreign word; the ancient form *bik-dza would lead to neither a Persian nor a Malayan word.

6 BRETSCHNEIDER, who was a botanist, translates this clause (1 f A), "The leaves spread out into four corners (!)." Literally it means "the leaves have four corners"; that is, they are rectangular or simply oblong. The phrase se len

with reference to leaves signifies "four-pointed," the points being understood as

acute.

7 See the following chapter on this subject.