IIIF Color HighRes
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Sino-Iranica : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
462 SING-IRANICA
Theophrastusi mentions in the country Aria a "thorn" on which is found a gum resembling myrrh in appearance and odor, and this drops when the sun shines on it. STRABO2 affirms that Gedrosia produced aromatics, particularly nard and myrrh, in such quantity that Alexander's army used them, on the march, for tent-coverings and beds, and thus breathed an air full of odors and more salubrious. Modern botanists, however, have failed to find these plants in Gedrosia or any other region of Iran;3 and the Iranian myrrh of the ancients, in all probability, represents a different species of Balsamodendron (perhaps B. pubescens or B. mukul) . According to W. GEIGER,4 Balsamodendron mukul is called in Baluci bad, böô, or boz, a word which simply means "odor, aroma." It is a descendant of Avestan baoiôi, which we find in Pahlavi as bad, bai, Sogdian fraßöâan, ßo6a, New Persian bai, bo (Ossetic bud, "incense").5
It is noteworthy also that the ancient Chinese accounts of Sasanian Persia do not make mention of myrrh. The botanical evidence being taken into due consideration, it appears more than doubtful that the statement of the Nan 'ou ki, Yu yan tsa tsu, K`ai pao pen ts`ao, and Cen lei pen ts'ao, that the myrrh-tree grows in Po-se, can be referred to the Iranian Po-se. True it is, the tree does not occur, either, in the Malayan area; but, since the product was evidently traded to China by way of Malaysia, the opinion might gain ground among the Chinese that the home of the article was the Malayan Po-se.
The Japanese style the myrrh mirura, which is merely a modern transcription of "myrrha."5
58. Ts`in mu hian * (" dark-wood aromatic ") is attributed
to Sasanian Persia.? What this substance was, is not explained; and merely from the fact that the name in question, as well as mu hian
*If (" tree aromatic") and mi hian *, usually refer to costus
root or putchuck (also pachak), we may infer that the Persian aromatic was of a similar character. Thus it is assumed by HIRTH;8 but the matter remains somewhat hypothetical. The Chinese term, indeed, has
1 Hist. plant., IV. iv, 13.
2 XV. II, 3.
C. JORET, Plantes dans l'antiquité, Vol. I, p. 48.
4 Etymologie des Baluéi, p. 46.
6 In regard to the use of incense on the part of the Manichans, see CHAVANNES and PELLIOT, Traité manichéen, pp. 302-303, 31I.
6 J. MATSUMURA, Shokubutsu mei-i, No. 458.
7 Wei su, Ch. 102, p. 5 b; Sui su, Ch. 83, p. 7 b.
$ Chau Ju-kua, p. 221. Putchuck is not the root of Aucklandia costus, but of Saussurea lappa (see WATT, Commercial Products of India, p. 98o).
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