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

INTRODUCTION   199

In the following example there is no positive evidence as to the significance of hu. Hu wan gi ce Mfik A ("envoy of the king of the Hu") is a synonyme of to hwo fi'fix (Peucedanum decursivum) .1 As the same plant is also styled k`ian ts`in 1*, k`ian hwo, and hu k`ian .§i ce A* A, the term K`ian (*Gian) alluding to Tibetan tribes, it may be inferred that the king of the Hu likewise hints at Tibetans. In general, however, the term Hu does not include Tibetans, and the present case is not conclusive in showing that it does. In the chapter on the walnut it will be seen that there are two introduced varieties,—an Iranian (hu t`ao) and a Tibetan one (k`ian t`ao).

In hu ts`ai (Brassica raga) the element hu, according to Chinese tradition, relates to Mongolia, while it is very likely that the vegetable itself was merely introduced there from Iran.2

In other instances, plants have some relation to the Hu; but what this relation is, or what group of tribes should be understood by Hu, is not revealed.

There is a plant, termed hu hwan lien   AI the hwan-lien (Copt-is
teeta) of the Hu, because, as Li gi-Cen says, its physical characteristics, taste, virtue, and employment are similar to those of hwan-lien. It has been identified with Barkhausia repens. As evidenced by the

acter fan, on the authority of K'an-hi, could never have had the pronunciation po nor a final consonant, and that, accordingly, in the tribal name 1"u-fan (Tibet) the character fan, as had previously been assumed, could not transcribe the Tibetan word bod. True it is that under the character in question K'an-hi has nothing to

say about po, but   is merely a graphic variant of I, with which it is phonetically
identical. Now under this character, K`an-hi indicates plainly that, according to the Tsi yün and een yün, fan in geographical names is to be read p`o (anciently *bwa)

    (fa.n-ts'ie   lir ), and that, according to the dictionary .S`i wen, the same char-

acter was pronounced p'o (*bwa)     p'u , and p`an (cf. also SCHLEGEL, Secret of

the Chinese Method, pp. 21-22). In the ancient transcription * or*   fan-tou,
*par-tav, reproduction of Old Persian ParOava (see above, p. I 87), fan corresponds very well to par or bar; and if it could interchange with the phonetic DC pa, *bwat, bwar, it is perfectly clear that, contrary to Pelliot's theory, there were at least dialectic cases, where * was possessed of a final consonant, being sounded bwat or bwar. Consequently it could have very well served for the reproduction of Tibetan bod. From another phonetic viewpoint the above case is of interest: we have *bak-xa and *bwat-xa as ancient names for the mint, which goes to show that the final consonants of the first element were vacillating or varied in different dialects (cf. T'oung Pao, 1916, pp. 1I0-I14).

T`un ci (above, p. 196), Ch. 75, p. 12 b.

2 See below, p. 381. In the term hu yen (" swallow of the Hu "), hu appears to refer to Mongolia, as shown by the Manchu translation monggo'eibin and the Turki equivalent qalmaq garlogac (Mongol xatun xariyatsai, Tibetan gyi-gyi k`ug-rta; cf. Ross, Polyglot List of Birds, No. 267). The bird occurs not only in Mongolia, but

also in Ce-kian Province, China (see Kwei ki san fu'eu *   ., Ch. 2, p. 8;
ed. of Si yin hüan ts'un Su).