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0329 Sino-Iranica : vol.1
Sino-Iranica : vol.1 / Page 329 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000248
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IRANIAN MINERALS, METALS, AND PRECIOUS STONES

  1. PI a hu-lo, *Xu-lak, perhaps also *fu-lak, *fu-rak, a product of Persia,' which is unexplained. In my opinion, this word may correspond to a Middle Persian *furak = New Persian bûrak, büra, Armenian porag (" borax ") . Although I am not positive about this identification, I hope that the following notes on borax will be welcome. It is well known that Persia and Tibet are the two great centres supplying the world-market with borax. The ancient Chinese were familiar with this fact, for in the article on Po-se (Persia) the T`ai yin hwan yü ki2 states that "the soil has salty lakes, which serve the people as a substi-

tute for salt" (ittl   iiiiitAfttit*). Our own word "borax" (the x is
due to Spanish, now written borraj) comes from Persian, having been introduced into the Romanic languages about the ninth century by the Arabs. Russian buret was directly transmitted from Persia. Likewise our "tincal, tincar" (a crude borax found in lake-deposits of Persia and Tibet) is derived from Persian tinkdr, tankdl,3 or tangor, Sanskritized (ankana, (anka, (anga, (agara; 4 Malayan tingkal; Kirgiz dänäkär, Osmanli tängar.5 Another Persian word that belongs to this category, .ora ("nitre, saltpetre"), has been adopted by the Tibetans in the same form . o-ra, although they possess also designations of their own, ze-ts`wa, ba-ts`wa (" cow's salt "), and ts`a-la. The Persian word is Sanskritized into sordka, used in India for nitre, saltpetre, or potassium nitrate.'

  1. The relation of Chinese nao-ga ("sal ammoniac, chloride of sodium ")7 to Persian nu.ddir or nau.ddir is rather perspicuous; nevertheless it has been asserted also that the Persian word is derived from

1 Sui Su, Ch. 83, p. 7 b. i Ch. 185, p. 19.

S It is not a Tibetan name, as supposed by ROEDIGER and POTT (Z. f. K. Morg., Vol. IV, p. 268).

4 These various attempts at spelling show plainly that the term has the status of a loan-word, and that the Sanskrit term has nothing to do with the name of the people who may have supplied the product, the T â.yyavoc in the Himalaya of Ptolemy (YULE, Hobson-Jobson, p. 923). How should borax be found in the Himalaya!

5 KLAPROTH, Mémoires relatifs à l'Asie, Vol. III, P. 347. ô See, further, T'oung Pao, 1914, pp. 88-89.

7 D. HANBURY, Science Papers, pp. 217, 276.

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