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478   SING-IRANICA

The question here is of gum-lac or stick-lac (Gummi Iacca; French laque en batons), also known as kino, produced by an insect, Coccus or Tachardia lacca, which lives on a large number of widely different trees,' called t9N or Ittse-kun or tse-ken. Under the latter name it is mentioned in the "Customs of Camboja" by Cou Ta-kwan;2 under the former, in the Pen ts`ao yen i.3 At an earlier date it occurs as 01 in the rat hui yao,4 where it is said in the notice of Piao (Burma), that there the temple-halls are coated with it. In all probability, this word represents a transcription: Li Si-ben assigns it to the Southern Bar-

barians.   `

The Po-se in the text of the Yu yan tsa tsu cannot be Persia, as is sufficiently evidenced by the joint arrival of the Po-se and Camboja envoys, and the opposition of Po-se to the Malayan Ktun-lun. Without any doubt we have reference here to the Malayan Po-se. The product itself is not one of Persia, where the lac-insect is unknown.' It should be added that the Yu yan tsa tsu treats of this Po-se product along with the plants of the Iranian Po-se discussed on the preceding pages; and there is nothing to indicate that Twan C`en-Si, its author, made a distinction between the two homophonous names.'

62. The Malayan Po-se, further, produced camphor (Dryobalanops aronzatica), as we likewise see from the Yu yan tsa tsu,7 where the tree

sealing wax. The other seemes to be an artificiall thing, and is of an exquisite crimson colour, but of what it is, or how made, I have not as yet found any thing that carries any probabilitie of truth." Gerarde's information goes back to Garcia, whose fundamental work then was the only source for the plants and drugs of India.

I WATT, Commercial Products of India, p. 1053; not necessarily Erythrina, as stated by STUART (Chinese Materia Medica, p. 489). Sir C. MARKHAM (Colloquies, p. 241) says picturesquely that the resinous exudation is produced by the puncture of the females of the lac-insect as their common nuptial and accouchement bed, the seraglio of their multi-polygamous bacchabunding lord, the male Coccus lacca; both the males and their colonies of females live only for the time they are ceaselessly reproducing themselves, and as if only to dower the world with one of its most useful resins, and most glorious dyes, the color "lake."

2 PELLIOT, Bull. de l'Ecole française, Vol. II, p. 166. S Ch. 14, p. 4 b (ed. of Lu Sin-yuan).

4 Ch. Ioo, p. 18 b. Also Su Kun and Li Sun of the Tang describe the product.

b The word lak (Arabic) or rdngldk (Persian) is derived from Indian, and denotes either the Indian product or the gum of Zizyphus lotus and other plants (AcHUNDOw, Abu Mansur, p. 265). In the seventeenth century the Dutch bought gum-lac in India for exportation to Persia (TAVERNIER, 1. c.). Cf. also LECLERC, Traité des simples, Vol. III, p. 241; and G. FERRAND, Textes relatifs à l'ExtrémeOrient, P. 34o.

6 In regard to stick-lac in Tibet, see H. LAUFER, Beitrage zur Kenntnis der tibetischen Medicin, pp. 63-64.

7 Ch. 18, p. 8 b.