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
THE GRAPE-VINE 233
road to Turkistan, and was the centre from which Iranian ideas radiated into China.
The curious point is that the Chinese, while they received the grape in the era of the Han from an Iranian nation, and observed the habit of wine-drinking among Iranians at large, acquired the art of wine-making as late as the Tang from a Turkish tribe of Turkistan. The Turks of the Han period knew nothing of grapes or wine, quite naturally, as they were then restricted to what is now Mongolia, where soil and climatic conditions exclude this plant. Vine-growing, as a matter of course, is compatible solely with a sedentary mode of life; and only after settling in Turkistan, where they usurped the heritage of their Iranian predecessors,' did the Turks become acquainted with grape and wine as a gift of Iranians. The Turkish word for the grape, Uigur özüm (other dialects üzüm), proves nothing along the line of historical facts, as speculated by VAMBÉRY.2 It is even doubtful whether the word in question originally had the meaning "grape"; on the contrary, it merely seems to have signified any berry, as it still refers to the berries and seeds of various plants. The Turks were simply epigones and usurpers, and added nothing new to the business of vine-culture.
In accordance with the introduction of the manufacture of grape-wine into China, we find this product duly noted in the Pen ts`ao of the Tang,3 published about the middle of the seventh century; further, in the Si liao pen ts'ao by Mon Sen S. at (second half of the seventh
century), and in the Pen ts'ao .i i by C'en a, who wrote
in the K`ai-yûan period (713-741). The T`an pen ts'ao also refers to the manufacture of vinegar from grapes.' The Pen ts'ao yen i, published in 1116, likewise enumerates grape-wine among the numerous brands of alcoholic beverages.
The Liait se kun tse ki by Can Yûe (667-73o)5 contains an anecdote to the effect that Kao-6`an offered to the Court frozen wine made from dried raisins, on which Mr. Kie made this comment: "The taste of grapes with thin shells is excellent, while grapes with thick shells are bitter of taste. They are congealed in the Valley of Eight Winds
(Pa fun ku A c: '4) . This wine does not spoil in the course of years."®
1 This was an accomplished fact by the end of the fourth century A.D.
2 Primitive Cultur des turko-tatarischen Volkes, p. 218.
3 Gen lei pen ts'ao, Ch. 23, p. 7.
4 Ibid., Ch. 26, p. i b.
6 See The Diamond, this volume, p. 6.
6 Pen ts'ao kan mu, Ch. 25, p. 14 b. A different version of this story is quoted in the T'ai p'in yü lan (Ch. 845, p. 6 b).
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