IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Sino-Iranica : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
526 SING-IRANICA
by PELLIOT.1 Pelliot, however, noticed well that what the Chinese
describe as yo-so or mo-so l' - is not bezoar, and that the tran-
scription is anomalous.' This being the case, it is preferable to reject the identification, and there are other weighty reasons prompting us to do so. There is no Chinese account that tells us that Persia had bezoars or traded bezoars to China. The Chinese were (and are) well acquainted with the bezoar3 (I gathered several in China myself), and bezoars are easy to determine. Now, if yo-so or mo-so were to represent Persian ptizahr and a Persian bezoar, the Chinese would not for a moment fail to inform us that yo-so is the Po-se niu-hwan or Persian bezoar; but they say nothing to this effect. On the contrary, the texts cited under this heading in the Pen ts'ao kcal mu4 do not make any mention of Persia, but agree in pointing to the Malay Archipelago as the provenience of the yo-so stone. Ma Ci of the Sung assigns it to the Southern Sea (Nan Hai). Li Si-éen points to the Ken sin yü ts'e
, written about 143o, as saying that the stone comes from San-fu-ts`i (Palembang on Sumatra).5 F. DE MELY designates it only as a "pierre d'épreuve," and refers to an identification with aventurine, proposed by Rémusat.6 Bezoar is a calculus concretion found in the stomachs of a number of mammals, and Oriental literatures abound in stories regarding such stones extracted from animals. Not only do the Chinese not say that the yo-so stone is of animal origin, but, on the contrary,
they state explicitly that it is of mineral origin. The Ken sin yü ts'e relates how mariners passing by a certain mountain on Sumatra break this stone with axes out of the rock, and that the stone when burnt
emits a sulphurous odor. Ma Ci describes this stone as being green
in color and without speckles; those with gold stars, and when rubbed j
yielding a milky juice, are the best. All this does not fit the bezoar. s:
Also the description in the Pen ts'ao yen i 7 refers only to a stone of 11'
mineral origin.
T`oung Pao, 1912, p. 438.
2 The initial of the Persian word would require a labial surd in Chinese. Whether
the yo-sa 4 of the Pei hu lu belongs here is doubtful to me; it is not explained
what this stone is. As admitted in the Pen ts`ao yen i (Ch. 4, p. 4 b), the form mo-so is secondary.
3 It is first mentioned in the ancient work Pie lu, then in the Wu Si pen ts`ao of the third century, and by T`ao Huh-kin.
4 Ch. 1o, p. Io b.
5 This text is cited in the same manner in the Tun si yan k`ao of 1618 (Ch. 3, p. Do). Cf. F. DE MÉLY, Lapidaire chinois, p. 120.
6 Ibid., pp. LXIV, 260.
7 Ch. 4, p. 4 b (ed. of Lu Sin-yüan).
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