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0171 Sino-Iranica : vol.1
Sino-Iranica : vol.1 / Page 171 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000248
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MANNA   345

the following note regarding manna (kan lu) in Ma-k`o-se-li :1 "Every year during the eighth and ninth months it rains manna, when the people make a pool to collect it. At sunrise it will condense like water-drops, and then it is dried. Its flavor is like that of crystallized sugar. They also store it in jars, mixing it with hot water, and this beverage serves as a remedy for malaria. There is an old saying that this is the country of the Amritaraj a-tathâgata

Li Si-den, after quoting the texts of C`en Ts`an-k`i, the Pei i, etc.,3 arrives at the conclusion that these data refer to the same honey-bearing plant, but that it is unknown what plant is to be understood by the term yan ts`e.

The Turki name for this plant is yantaq, and the sweet resin accumulating on it is styled yantaq §äk äri ("yantaq sugar ") .4

The modern Persian name for the manna is tar-angubin (Arabic terenjobin; hence Spanish tereniabin) ; and the plant which exudates the sweet substance, as stated, is styled xar-i-.utur (" camel-thorn ") . The manna suddenly appears toward the close of the summer during the night, and must be gathered during the early hours of the morning. It is eaten in its natural state, or is utilized for syrup (.ire) in Central Asia or in the sugar-factories of Meshed and Yezd in Persia.' The Persian word became known to the Chinese from Samarkand in the tran-

scription ta-lan-ku-pin   AIS   .6 The product is described under

the title kan lu   ("sweet dew ") as being derived from a small
plant, one to two feet high, growing densely, the leaves being fine like those of an I ndigof era (lan) . The autumn dew hardens on the surface of the stems, and this product has a taste like sugar. It is gathered and boiled into sweetmeats. Under the same name, kan-lu, the Kwan yü ki 7 describes a small plant of Samarkand, on the leaves of which accumulates in the autumn a dew as sweet in taste as honey, the leaves resem-

1 Unidentified. It can hardly be identified with Mosul, as intimated by ROCKHILL.

2 ROCKHILL, T'oung Pao, 1915, p. 622. This Buddhist term has crept in here owing to the fact that kan lu ("sweet dew") serves as rendering of Sanskrit amrita (" the nectar of the gods") and as designation for manna.

Also the Yu yan tsa tsu, but this passage refers to India and to a different plant, and is therefore treated below in its proper setting.

A. v. LE COQ, Sprichwörter and Lieder aus Turfan, p. 99. If the supposition of B. MUNKACSI (Keleti szemle, Vol. XI, 1910, p. 353) be correct, that Hungarian gyanta (gyanta, janta, gyenta, " resin") and gyantdr ("varnish ") may be Turkish loan-words, the above Turk! name would refer to the resinous character of the plant.

5 VAMBÉRY, Skizzen aus Mittelasien, p. 189.

6 Ta Min i run ci, Ch. 89, p. 23.

Ch. 24, p. 26, of the edition printed in 1744; this passage is not contained in the original edition of 1600 (cf. above, p. 251, regarding the various editions).