IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Sino-Iranica : vol.1 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
262 SING-IRANICA
much. The tree is found everywhere in eastern Tibet where horticulture is possible, and among the Tibetan tribes settled on the soil of Se-C`wan Province. W. W. ROCKHILL1 even mentions that in the Ba-t`an region barley and walnuts are used in lieu of subsidiary coinage. Lieut.-Col. WADDELL2 snakes two references to cultivated walnut-trees in Central Tibet. The Chinese authors mention "Tibetan walnuts" as products of the Lhasa district.3
While the Can-K`ien tradition is devoid of historical value, and must be discarded as an historical fact, yet it is interesting from a psychological point of view; for it shows at least that, at the time when this fiction sprang into existence, the Chinese were under the impression that the walnut was not an indigenous tree, but imported from abroad. An autochthonous plant could not have been made the object of such a legend. A direct reference to the introduction of the cultivated walnut with an exact date is not extant in Chinese records, but the fact of such an introduction cannot reasonably be called into doubt. It is supported not only by the terms hu t`ao and k'ian t`ao (" peach of the Hu," " peach of the K'ian "), but also by the circumstantial evidence that in times of antiquity, and even under the Han, no mention is made of the walnut. True it is, it is mentioned in the Kin kwei yao lio of the second century; but, as stated, this may be an interpolation.' Of all the data relating to this fruit, there is only one that may have a faint chance to be referred to the Han period, but even this possibility is very slight.
In the Si kin tsa ki it is said that in the gardens of the
San-lin Park k. of the Han emperors there were walnuts which
had come from the Western Regions or Central Asia. The Si kin tsa ki, however, is the work of Wu Kiln gt Y=7, who lived in the sixth century A.D.,s and cannot be regarded as a pure source for tracing the culture of the Han. It is not difficult to see how this tradition arose. When the San-lin Park was established, the high dignitaries of the empire were called upon to contribute famed fruits and extraordinary trees of distant lands. We know that after the conquest of Nan-yüe in III B.C. the Emperor Wu ordered southern products, like oranges, areca-nuts,
Diary of a Journey through Mongolia and Tibet, p. 347.
2 Lhasa and its Mysteries, pp. 307, 315. See also N. V. KÜNER, Description of Tibet (in Russian), Vol. I, pt. 2, p. 137.
3 ROCKHILL, Journal Royal As. Soc., 1891, p. 273.
4 Above, p. 205. Cali Ki says or is made to say, "Walnuts must not be eaten in large quantity, for they rouse mucus and cause man to drink" (Ch. c, p. 27).
b Ch. 1, p. 6 (ed. of Han Wei ts'un su).
6 WYLIE, Notes on Chinese Literature, p. 189; and CHAVANNES, roung Pao, 1906, p. 102.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.