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0370 Sino-Iranica : vol.1
Sino-Iranica : vol.1 / Page 370 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000248
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544   SING-IRANICA

or the attribution of certain products to China, is not always to be understood literally. Sometimes it merely refers to a far-eastern product, sometimes even to an Indian product,' and sometimes to products handled and traded by the Chinese, regardless of their provenience. Such cases, however, are exceptions. As a rule, these Persian-Arabic terms apply to actual products of China.

SCHLIMMER2 mentions under the name Killingea monocephala the zedoary of China : according to Piddington's Index Plantarum, it should be the plant furnishing the famous root known in Persia as jadware xitai (" Chinese jadvar "); genuine specimens are regarded as a divine panacea, and often paid at the fourfold price of fine gold. The identification, however, is hardly correct, for K. monocephala is kin niu ts`ao

- in Chinese,' which hardly holds an important place in the Chinese pharmacopoeia. The plant which Schlimmer had in mind doubtless is Curcuma zedoaria, a native of Bengal and perhaps of China and various other parts of Asia.4 It is called in Sanskrit nirvi -a ("poison-less") or Vida, in Kuba or Tokharian B viralom or wiralom,5 Persian jadvar, Arabic zadvar (hence our zedoary, French zedoaire) . Abu Mansur describes it as zarvar, calling it an Indian remedy similar to Costus and a good antidote.' In the middle ages it was a much-desired article of trade bought by European merchants in the Levant, where it was sold as a product of the farthest east.' Persian zarumbad, Arabic zeronbad, designating an aromatic root similar to zedoary, resulted in our zerumbet.8 While it is not certain that Curcuma zedoaria occurs in China (a Chinese name is not known to me), it is noteworthy that the Persians, as indicated above, ascribe to the root a Chinese origin : thus also ka,6ûr (from Sanskrit karcûra) is explained in the Persian Dictionary of

1 Such an example I have given in T bung Pao, 1915, p. 319: bis, an edible aconite, does not occur in China, as stated by Damiri, but in India. In regard to cubebs, however, GARCIA DA ORTA (C. MARKHAM, Colloquies, p. 169) was mistaken in denying that they were grown in China, and in asserting that they are called kabdb-cini only because they are brought by the Chinese. As I have shown (ibid., pp. 282-288), cubebs were cultivated in China from the Sung period onward.

a Terminologie, p. 335.

3 Also this identification is doubtful (STUART, Chinese Materia Medica, p. 228).

4 W. ROXBURGH, ; Flora Indica, p. 8; WATT, Commercial Products of India, P. 444, and Dictionary, Vol. II, p. 669.

5 S. LAv1, Journal asiatique, 1911, II, pp. 123, 138.

6 ACHUNDOW, Abu Mansur, p. 79. See also LECLERC, Traité des simples, Vol. I,

P. 347-

' W. HEYD, Histoire du commerce du levant, Vol. II, p. 676.

8 YULE, Hobson-Jobson, p. 979.

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