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0297 Sino-Iranica : vol.1
Sino-Iranica : vol.1 / Page 297 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000248
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THE MALAYAN PO-SE—HISTORICAL NOTES   471

gards the south, it is produced in Po-se and other countries. That of the west is yellow and white in color, that of the south is purple' or red." It follows from this text that the southern Po-se produced a kind of incense of their own; and it may very well be, that, as stated in the Kwan U, a species of pine was the source of this product.

The Kwan contains another interesting reference to Po-se. It states that the tree P7 ko, *ka (Quercus cuspidata), grows in the mountains and valleys of Kwan-tun and Kwan-si, and that Po-se people use its timber for building boats.' These again are Malayan Po-se. The Kwan was possibly written under the Tsin dynasty (A.D. 265-42o),2 and the Iranian Po-se was then unknown to China. Its name first reached the Chinese in A.D. 461, when an embassy from Persia arrived at the Court of the Wei.3 It should be borne in mind also that Persia's communications with China always took place overland by way of Central Asia; while the Malayan Po-se had a double route for reaching China, either by land to Yün-nan or by sea to Canton. It would not be impossible that the word *ka for this species of oak, and also its synonyme * fa mu-nu, *muk-nu, are of Malayan-Po-se origin.

The Kiu yii ei it   , published by Wan Ts'un   in A.D. 1080,
mentions that the inhabitants of Po-se wear a sort of cotton kerchief,

and make their sarong (tu-man   ) of yellow silk.4

In A.D. 1103, three countries, Burma, Po-se, and K'un-lun, presented white elephants and perfumes to the King of Ta-li in Yün-nan. Again, this is not Persia, as translated by C. SAINSON.5 Persia never had any relations with Yün-nan, and how the transportation of elephants from Persia to Yün-nan could have been accomplished is difficult to realize. We note that the commercial relations of these Po-se with Yün-nan, firmly established toward the end of the ninth century under the Tang, were continued in the twelfth century under the Sung.

In the History of the Sung Dynasty occurs an incidental mention of Po-se.' In A.D. 992 an embassy arrived in China from Java, and it is said that the envoys were dressed in a way similar to those of Po-se, who

1 This passage is transmitted by Li San of the eighth century in his Hai yao pen ts'ao (Pen ts'ao hail mu, Ch. 35 B, p. 14), who, as will be seen, mentions several plants and products of the Malayan Po-se.

2 PELLIOT, Bull. de l'Ecole française, Vol. IV, p. 412.

Cf. DEVtRIA in Centenaire de l'Ecole des Langues Orientales, p. 306.

4 E. H. PARKER, who made this text known (China Review, Vol. XIX, 189o, p. 191), remarked, "It seems probable that not Persia, but one of the Borneo or Malacca states, such as P`o-li or P`o-lo, is meant."

b Histoire du Nan-tchao, p. x I (translation of the Nan tao ye Si, written by Yarn Sen in 155o).

6 Sun Si, Ch. 489.