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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
252 SING-IRANICA
pistân ("a place abounding with pistachio-nuts ").1 Again, the Persian
word in the transcription pi-se-ta' appears in the Pen ts'ao
kan mu . i i2 by Cao Hio-min, who states that the habitat of the plant is in the land of the Mohammedans, and refers to the work Yin an
cen yao3 of 1331, ascribed by him to Hu-pi-lie Z el; that is, the
Emperor Kubilai of the Yüan dynasty. We know, however, that this book was written in 1331 by Ho Se-hwi.4 Not having access to this,
I am unable to state whether it contains a reference to pi-se-ta, nor do
I know whether the text of Cao Hio-min, as printed in the second edition of 1765, was thus contained in the first edition of his work, which was published in 165o. It would not be impossible that the transcription pi-se-ta, accurately corresponding to Persian pista, was made in the Mongol period; for it bears the ear-marks of the Yüan style of transcription.
The Persian word pista (also pasta) has been widely disseminated: we find it in Kurd fystiq, Armenian fesdux and fstoül, Arabic fistaq or fustaq, Osmanli fistiq,5 and Russian fistaka.
In the Yüan period the Chinese also made the acquaintance of mastic, the resinous product of Pistacia lentiscus.8 It is mentioned in the Yin . an cen yao, written in 1331, under its Arabic name mastaki,
in the transcription ma-se-to-ki.7 Li Si-6en knew only the
medical properties of the product, but confessed his ignorance regarding the nature of the plant; hence he placed his notice of it as an appendix
to cummin W.-1o). The Wu tsa tsu 3i ' s , written in 161o, says that
mastaki is produced in Turkistan and resembles the tsiao * (Zanthoxylum, the fruit yielding a pepper-like condiment); its odor is very strong; it takes the place there of a condiment like pepper, and is beneficial to dige'stion.8 The Persian word for "mastic" is kundurak (from kundur, "incense "), besides the Arabic loan-word mastaki or
1 As already recognized by W. SCHOTT (Topographie der Producte des chinesischen Reiches, Abh. Berl. Akad., 1842, p. 371), who made use only of the new edition.
2 Ch. 8, p. 19; ed. of 1765 (see above, p. 229). 8 Cf. above, p. 236.
4 BRETSCHNEIDER, Bot. Sin., pt. I, p. 213.
Hence Pegoletti's fistuchi (YULE, Cathay, new ed. by CORDIER, Vol. III P. 167).
6 Greek uxivos (Herodotus, Iv, 177).
7 The Arabic word itself is derived from Greek pao rixfl (from Eiarr4Ety, "to chew "), because the resin was used as a masticatory. Hence also Armenian maztak'é. Spanish almdciga is derived from the Arabic, as indicated by the Arabic article al, while the Spanish form mdsticis is based on Latin mastix.
8 Quoted in the Pen ts'ao kcal mu Si i, Ch. 6, p. 12 b. The digestive property is already emphasized by Dioscorides (1, 9o).
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