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
THE CARROT
52. The carrot' (Daucus carota), hu lo-po (Japanese ninjin) i X e ("Iranian turnip"), a native of northern Europe, was first introduced into China at the time of the Yüan dynasty (A.D. 1260-1367). This is the opinion of Li Si-ben, who states that the vegetable first appeared at the time of the Yüan from the land of the Hu; and it is likewise maintained in the Kwan k`ün fan p`u2 that the carrot first came from the
countries beyond the frontier i . I know of no text that would give
a more detailed account of its introduction er allude to the country of its origin. Nevertheless it is very likely that this was some Iranian region. Li Si-ben states that in his time it was abundantly cultivated in the northern part of the country and in San-tun, likewise in middle China.3
The history of the carrot given by WATT4 after G. Birdwood suffers from many defects. A fundamental error underlies the statement, "In fact, the evidence of cultivation would lead to the inference that the carrot spread from Central Asia to Europe, and if so it might be possible to trace the European names from the Indian and Persian." On the contrary, the carrot is a very ancient, indigenous European cultivation, which is by no means due to the Orient. Carrots have been found in the pile-dwellings of Robenhausen.5 It is not to the point, either, that, as stated by Watt and Birdwood, "indeed the carrot seems to have been grown and eaten in India, while in Europe it was scarcely known as more than a wild plant." The Anglo-Saxons cultivated the carrot in their original habitat of Schleswig-Holstein at a time when, in my opinion, the carrot was not yet cultivated in India; and they con-
1 From French carote, now carotte, Italian carota, Latin carota; Greek rcapwrbv (in Diphilus). This word has supplanted Anglo-Saxon moru, from *morhu (Old High German moraha, morha; Russian morkov', Slovenian mrkva). Regarding the origin of the word to-po, cf. T`oung Pao, 1916, pp. 83-86.
2 Ch. 4, p. 24.
8 A designation for the carrot not yet indicated is fu fk lo-po, derived from the
three fu d, the three decades of the summer, extending from about the middle
of July to the middle of August: during the first fu the seeds of the carrot are planted, in the second fu the carrots are pale red, in the third they are yellow (.`an hwa hien , Ch. 16, p. 14 b, ed. 1877).
4 Commercial Products of India, p. 489, or Dictionary, Vol. III, p. 45.
5 J. HOOPS, Waldbäume and Kulturpflanzen, p. 297; G. BUSCHAN, Vorgeschichtliche Botanik, p. 148.
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