IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Sino-Iranica : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
506 SING-IRANICA
be a product of Ktah (Sogdiana) and Ku6a.I The fact that this transcription is identical with 1 we recognize from the parallel passage in the Pei gi,2 where it is thus written. The text of the Sui Annals with reference to Iranian regions offers several such unusual modes of writing, where the Pei .i has the simple types subsequently adopted as the standard. The variation of the Sui Annals, at all events, demonstrates that the question is of reproducing a foreign word; and, since it hails from Sogdiana, there can be no doubt that it was a word of the Sogdian language of the type *navra or *nafsa (cf. Sanskrit navasâra,
Armenian navt`, Greek vctçOa); Persian nagddir, nugddir, nau.eidir, nau. ädur, nö. ädur, being a later development. It resulted also in Russian nu.atyr. In my opinion, the Sogdian word is related to Persia neft ("naphta"), naphta "), which may belong to Avestan napta
("moist ") .3
Tribute-gifts of nao-. a are not infrequently mentioned in the Chinese Annals. In A.D. 932, Wan Zen-mei ]E C X, Khan of the Uigur, presented to the Court among other objects to-p`eic . a ("borax")4 and sal ammoniac (kcal .a).5 In A.D. 938 Li gern-wend, king of Khotan, offered nao-. a and to-p`en .§a ("borax") to the Court; and in A.D. 959 jade and nao-. a were sent by the Uigur.6 The latter event is recorded also in the Kiu Wu Tai gi,7 where the word is written in M, phonetically kan-.a, but apparently intended only as a graphic variant for nao-. a.8 The same work ascribes sal ammoniac (written in the same manner) to the Tu-fan (Tibetans) and the Tan-hian (a Tibetan tribe in the Kukunar region) .9 In the Tang period the substance was well
1 According to Masfldi (BARBIER DE MEYNARD, Les Prairies d'or, Vol. I, P. 347), sal-ammoniac mines were situated in Soghd, and were passed by the Mohammedan merchants travelling from Khorasan into China. Kuèa still yields sal ammoniac (A. N. KUROPATKIN, Kashgaria, pp. 27, 35, 76). This fact is also noted in the Hui k'iati ci (Ch. 2), written about 1772 by two Manchu officials, Fusamb8 and Surde, who locate the mine 45 di west of Ku6a in the Sartatsi Mountains, and mention a red and white variety of sal ammoniac. Cf. also M. REINAUD, Relation des voyages faits par les Arabes et les Persans dans l'Inde et à la Chine, Vol. I, p. CLXIII.
2 Ch. 97, p. 12.
3 Cf. P. HORN, Neupersische Etymologie, No. 1035; H. HtlBScHxANN, Persische Studien, p. IoI, and Armen. Gram., p. roo.
4 As I have shown on a former occasion (T`oung Pao, 1914, p. 88), Chinese Vet (*bun) is a transcription of Tibetan bid.
b Tee fu yuan kwei, Ch. 972, p. 19.
6 Wu Tai hui yao, Chs. 28, p. Io b; and Ch. 29, p. 13 b (ed. of Wu yin tien).
7 Ch. 138, p. 3.
8 The character kan is not listed in K'ain-hi's Dictionary.
9 Ch. 138, pp. I b, 3 a.
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