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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

484   SING-IRANICA

also in Ho-6ou 4 ffl in Se-6`wan, but that the native product does not come up to the article imported on foreign ships.' Ta Min defines the difference between the two by saying that the drug of the Southern Barbarians is red in color, while that of Kwan-tun is green. Li Si-ben annotates that the Hu name for the plant is M (i IN p `o-ku-ci (*bwaku-~i, baku6i), popularly but erroneously written Vii• ig p`o-ku-a (*pa-ku-ci), that it is the "Allium odorum of the Hu," because the seeds of the two plants are similar in appearance, but that in fact it is not identical with the Allium growing in the land of the Hu. These are all the historical documents available. STUART2 concludes that the drug comes from Persia; but there is neither a Persian word bakuci, nor is it known that the plant (Psoralea corylifolia) exists in Persia. The evidence presented by the Chinese sources is not favorable, either, to this conclusion, for those data point to the countries south of China, associated in commerce with Kwan-tun. The isolated occurrence of the plant in a single locality of Se-è`wan is easily explained from the fact that a large number of immigrants from Kwan-tun have settled there. In fact, the word *bakuèi yielded by the Chinese transcription is of Indian origin: it answers to Sanskrit veikuci, which indeed designates the same plant, Psoralea corylifolia.3 In Bengali and Hindustani it is hakûc4 and bâvaci, Uriya bakuci, Panjab baba, Bombay bawaci, Marathi bavacya or bavaci, etc. According to WATT, it is a common herbaceous weed found in the plains from the Himalaya through India to Ceylon. According to AINSLIE, this is a dark brown-colored seed, about the size of a large pin-head, and somewhat oval-shaped; it has an aromatic, yet unctuous taste, and a certain degree of bitterness. The species in question is an annual plant, seldom rising higher than three feet; and is common in southern India. It has at each joint one leaf about two inches long, and one and a half broad; the flowers are of a pale flesh color, being produced on long, slender, axillary peduncles. In Annam it is known as hot-bo-kot-ci and p`a-ko-a.5 It is therefore perfectly obvious

1 According to the Gazetteer of sen-si Province (gen-si run 1i, Ch. 43, p. 31),

the plant occurs in the district ;i-ts'üan   fit in the prefecture Hill-nan.

s Chinese Materia Medica, p. 359; likewise F. P. SMITH (Contributions, p. 179) and PERROT and HURRIER (Matière médicale et pharmacopée sino-annamites,

p. 150).

3 W. AINSLIE, Materia Indica, Vol. II, p. 141.

This name is also given by W. ROXBURGH (Flora Indica, p. 588). See, further, WATT, Dictionary of the Economic Products of India, Vol. VI, p. 354.

b PERROT and HURRIER, Mat. méd. et pharmacopée sino-annamites, p. 150. According to these authors, the plant is found in the south and west of China as well as in Siam. Wu K'i-tsün says that physicians now utilize it to a large extent in lieu of cinnamon (ei wu min Si t'u k'ao, Ch. 25, p. 65).