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
316 SINO-IRANICA
with this dye. Abu Hanifa has a long discourse on it.' Ibn Hassan knew the root of wars, and confounded it with saffron.' Ibn al-Baitâ,r offers a lengthy notice of it.3 Two species are distinguished,— one from Ethiopia, black, and of inferior quality; and another from India, of a brilliant red, yielding a dye of a pure yellow. A variety called barida dyes red. It is cultivated in Yemen. Also the association with Curcuma and Crocus is indicated. Isak Ibn Amran remarks, "It is said that wars represents roots of Curcuma, which come from China and Yemen"; and Ibn Massa el-Basri says, "It is a substance of a brilliant red which resembles pounded saffron." This explains why the Chinese included it in the term yü-kin. LECLERC also has identified the wars of the Arabs with Memecylon tinctorium, and adds, "L'ouars n'est pas le produit exclusif de l'Arabie. On le rencontre abondamment dans l'Inde, notamment aux environs de Pondichéry qui en a envoyé en Europe, aux dernières expositions. Il s'appelle kana dans le pays." s The Yamato honz5 speaks of yü-kin as a dye-stuff coming from Siam; this seems to be also Memecylon.
The fact that the Chinese included the product of Memecylon in the term yü-kin appears to indicate that this cheap coloring-matter was substituted in trade for the precious saffron.
While the Chinese writers on botany and pharmacology have overlooked yü-kin as the name of a tree, they have clearly recognized that the term principally serves for the designation of the saffron, the product of the Crocus sativus. This fact is well borne out by the descriptions and names of the plant, as well as by other evidence.
The account given of Central India in the Annals of the Liang Dynasty' expressly states that yü-kin is produced solely in Kashmir (Ki-pin), that its flower is perfectly yellow and fine, resembling the flower fu-yun (Hibiscus mutabilis). Kashmir was always the classical land famed for the cultivation of saffron, which was (and is) thence exported to India, Tibet, Mongolia, and China. In Kashmir, Uddiyana,
1 ACHUNDOW, Abu Mansur, p. 272.
2 LECLERC, Traité des simples, Vol. III, p. 167. E Ibid., p. 409.
4 Arabic wars has also been identified with Flemingia congesta (WATT, Dictionary, Vol. III, p. 400) and Mallotus philippinensis (ibid., Vol. V, p. 114). The whole subject is much confused, particularly by FLÜCKIGER and HANBURY (Pharmacographia, p. 573; cf. also G. JACOB, Beduinenleben, p. 15, and Arab. Geographen, p. 166), but this is not the place to discuss it. The Chinese description of the yü-kin tree does not correspond to any of these plants.
6 Lian Su, Ch. 54, p. 7 b. This work was compiled by Yao Se-lien in the first half of the seventh century from documents of the Liang dynasty, which ruled from A.D. 502 to 556.
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