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
ASAFCETIDA
2 2. The riddles of asafoetida begin with the very name : there is no adequate explanation of our word asa or asses. The new Oxford English Dictionary ventures to derive it from Persian eizd or aza. This word, however, means nothing but "mastic," a product entirely different from what we understand by asafoetida (p. 252). In no Oriental language is there a word of the type asa or aza with reference to this product, so it could not have been handed on to Europe by an Oriental nation. KAEMPFER, who in 1687 studied the plant in Laristan, and was fairly familiar with Persian, said that he was ignorant of the origin of the European name.' LITTRÉ, the renowned author of the Dictionnaire français, admits that the origin of asa is unknown, and wisely abstains from any theory.2 The supposition has been advanced that asa was developed from the laser or laserpitium of Pliny (xix, 5), the latter having thus been mutilated by the druggists of the middle ages. This etymology, first given by GARCIA DA ORTA,3 has been indorsed by E. BoRszczow,4 a Polish botanist, to whom we owe an excellent investigation of the asa-furnishing plants. Although this explanation remains as yet unsatisfactory, as the alleged development from laser to asa is merely inferred, but cannot actually be proved from medival documents,' it is better, at any rate, than the derivation from the Persian.
Asafoetida is a vegetable product consisting of resin, gum, and essential oil in varying proportions, the resin generally amounting to more than one-half, derived from different umbelliferous plants, as Ferula narthex, alliacea, fcetida, persica, and scorodosma (or Scorodosma
1 Amoenitates exoticae, p. 539.
2 The suggestion has also been made that asa may be derived from Greek asi (?) (" disgust") or from Persian anguza ("asafoetida"); thus at least it is said by F. STUHLMANN (Beitrage zur Kulturgeschichte Ostafrikas, p. 609). Neither is convincing. The former moves on the same high level as Li i-lien's explanation of a-wei ("The barbarians call out a, expressing by this exclamation their horror at the abominable odor of this resin").
3 C. MARKHAM, Colloquies, p. 41. JOHN PARKINSON (Theatrum botanicum, p. 1569, London, 1640) says, "There is none of the ancient Authours either Greeke, Latine, or Arabian, that bath made any mention of Asa, either dulcis or fcetida, but was first depraved by the Druggists and Apothecaries in forraigne parts, that in stead of Laser said Asa, from whence ever since the name of Asa bath continued."
Mémoires de l'Acad. de St. Pétersbourg, Vol. III, No. 8, 1860, p. 4. 6 DUCANGE does not even list the word "asafoetida."
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