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
INTRODUCTION 195
Iranian extraction.' BRETSCHNEIDER2 annotated, "If the character ku occurs in the name of a plant, it can be assumed that the plant is of foreign origin and especially from western Asia, for by Hu ien the ancient Chinese denoted the peoples of western Asia." This is but partially correct. The attribute hu is by no means a safe criterion in stamping a plant as foreign, neither does hu in the names of plants which really are of foreign origin apply to West-Asiatic or Iranian plants exclusively.
The word hu appears in a number of names of indigenous and partially wild plants without any apparent connection with the tribal designation Hu or without allusion to their provenience from the Hu. In the Li Sao, the famous elegies by K`ii Yiian of the fourth century
B.C., a plant is mentioned under the name hu .en , said to be a
fragrant grass from which long cords were made. This plant is not identified.3
The acid variety of yu (Citrus grandis) is styled hu kan
NI it,' apparently an ironical nickname, which may mean "sweet like the Hu." The tree itself is a native of China.
The term hu hien 101 h, occurs only in the T`u kin pen ts`ao of Su Sun of the eleventh century as a variety of hien (Amarantus), which is indigenous to China. It is not stated that this variety came from abroad, nor is it known what it really was.
Hu mien man fI X is a variety of Rehmannia,5 a native
of China and Japan. The name possibly means "the man with the face of a Hu."' C'en Ts`ail-k`i of the Tang says in regard to this plant that it grows in Lin-nan (Kwan-tun), and is like ti hwan it 2 (Rehmannia glutinosa).
The plant known as ku-sui-pu ' "I1 (Polypodium fortunei)
is indigenous to China, and, according to C'en Ts`an-k'i, was called
1 "Le terme est bien en principe, vers l'an Boo, une désignation des Iraniens et en particulier des Sogdiens" (CHAVANNES and PELLIOT, Traité manichéen, p. 231). This in general is certainly true, but we have well authenticated instances, traceable to the fourth century at least, of specifically Iranian plants the names of which are combined with the element Hu, that can but apply to Iranians.
2 Chinese Recorder, 1871, p. 221.
3 BRETSCHNEIDER, Bot. Sin., pt. II, No. 420; and Li Sao ts'a0 mu su (Ch. 2, p. 16 b, ed. of Ci pu tsu cai ts'un Su) by Wu Zen-kie A t f2 of the Sung period. See also T'ai p'in yü lan, Ch. 994, p. 6 b.
BRETSCHNEIDER, Op. cit., No. 236; W. T. SWINGLE in Planto Wilsonianae, Vol. II, p. 130.
= STUART, Chinese Materia Medica, p. 372.
Cf. analogous plant-names like our Jews-mallow, Jews-thorn, Jews-ear, Jews-
apple.
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