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
| 312 | SINO-IRANICA |
fron."1 It is borne out by the very form of these transcriptions that they cannot be older than the Mongol period when the final consonants had disappeared. Under the Tang we should have *dzap-fu-lam and *sat-fap-lain. This conclusion agrees with Li gi-Zen's testimony that saffron was mixed with food at the time of the Yüan,— an Indo-Persian custom. Indeed, it seems as if not until then was it imported and used in China; at least, we have no earlier document to this effect.
Saffron is not cultivated in Tibet. There is no Crocus tibetan us, as tentatively introduced by PERROT and HURRIER2 on the basis of the Chinese term " Tibetan red flower." This only means that saffron is exported from Tibet to China, chiefly to Peking; but Tibet does not produce any saffron, and imports it solely from Kashmir. STUART 3 says that " Ts`an hun hwa i`c *t 4 ( Red flower from Tsan,' that is, Central Tibet) is given by some foreign writers as another name for saffron, but this has not been found mentioned by any Chinese writer." In fact, that term is given in the Pen ts'ao kan mu 3i i4 and the Ci wu min .i t`u k`ao of 1848,5 where it is said to come from Tibet (Si-tsar) and to be the equivalent of the Fan hun hwa of the Pen ts`ao kan mu. Ts`an hwa is still a colloquial name for saffron in Peking; it is also called simply hun hwa ("red flower ") .6 By Tibetans in Peking I heard it designated gur-kum, . a-ka-ma, and dri-bzan (" of good fragrance "). Saffron is looked upon by the Chinese as the most valuable drug sent by Tibet, ts`an hian ("Tibetan incense ") ranking next.
Li Si-èen7 holds that there are two yü-kin 4g 4k, the yü-kin aromatic, the flowers of which only are used; and the yü-kin the root of which is employed. The former is the saffron (Crocus sativus); the latter, a Curcuma. As will be seen, however, there are at least three yü-kin.
Of the genus Curcuma, there are several species in China and Indo-China,—C. leucorrhiza (yü-kin), C. longer (kiwi hwan I or I,
1 The Arabs first brought saffron to Spain; and from Arabic zafarân are derived Spanish azafran, Portuguese açafrdo or azafrao, Indo-Portuguese safrdo, Italian zafferano, French safran, Rumanian sofrän. The same Arabic root (`adur, "yellow ") has supplied also those Romance words that correspond to our safflow, safflower (Carthamus tinctorius), like Spanish azafranillo, alazor, Portuguese açafroa, Italian asforo, French safran; Old Armenian zavhran, New Armenian zafran; Russian safran; Uigur sakparan.
2 Mat. méd. et pharmacopée sino-annamites, p. 94.
3 Chinese Materia Medica, p. 132.
4 Ch. 4, p. 14 b.
5 Ch. 4, p. 35 b.
6 It should be borne in mind that this name is merely a modern colloquialism, but hun hwa, when occurring in ancient texts, is not "saffron," but "safflower" (Carthamus tinctorius); see below, p. 324.
7 Pen ts`ao kan mu, Ch. 14, p. 18.
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