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
358 SING-IRANICA
pots and drinking vessels therewith, by which means they insensibly accustom themselves to that strong scent, which we in Europe are hardly able to endure."
The Chinese understand by the term a-wei products of two different plants. Neither Bretschneider nor Stuart has noted this. Li Si-ben' states that "there are two kinds of a-wei,— one an herb, the other a tree. The former is produced in Turkistan (Si ya), and can be sun-dried or boiled: this is the kind discussed by Su Kun. The latter is produced among the Southern Barbarians (Nan Fan), and it is the sap of the tree which is taken: this is the kind described by Li San, Su Sun, and e'en C`en." Su Kun of the Tang period reports that "a-wei grows among the Western Barbarians (Si Fan) and in K`unlun.2 Sprouts, leaves, root, and stems strongly resemble the pai
(Angelica anomala). The root is pounded, and the sap extracted from it is dried in the sun and pressed into cakes. This is the first quality. Cut-up pieces of the root, properly dried, take the second rank. Its prominent characteristic is a rank odor, but it can also stop foul smells; indeed, it is a strange product. The Brahmans say that hiin-kii (Sanskrit hiisgu, see below) is the same as a-wei, and that the coagulated juice of the root is like glue; also that the root is sliced, dried in the sun, and malodorous. In the western countries (India) its consumption is forbidden.' Habitual enjoyment of it is said to do
away with foul breath. The barbarians A) prize it as the Chinese
do pepper." This, indeed, relates to the plant or plants yielding asa, and Li Si-ben comments that its habitat is in Hwo 6ou (Qara,-Khoja) and Sa-lu-hai-ya (Shahrokia) .4 Curiously enough, such a typical Iranian plant is passed over with silence in the ancient historical texts relative to Sasanian Persia. The only mention of it in the pre-Tang Annals occurs in the Sui §u5 with reference to the country Ts'ao north of the Ts`un-lin (identical with the Ki-pin of the Han), while the T'ai p`in hwan yii ki8 ascribes a-wei to Ki-pin.
The Yu yaii tsa tsu7 contains the following account of the product:
1 Pen tstao kan mu, Ch. 34, p. 21.
2 K`un-lun is given as place of production in the Kwan ci, written prior to A.D. 527, but there it is described as the product of a tree (see below).
It was prohibited to the monks of the Mahayana (cf. S. Ltvi, Journal asiatique, 1915, I, p. 87).
4 BRETSCHNEIDER, Mediæval Researches, Vol. II, pp. 253, 254, also 193.
6 Ch. 83, p. 8 (also in the Pei Si).
6 Ch. 182, p. 12 b.
7 Ch. 18, p. 8 b.
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