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
IRANO-SINICA—MAMIRAN, RHUBARB
the drug mamirani tchini for eye-diseases, being yellowish like Curcuma. Bernier mentions mamiran as one of the products brought by the caravans from Tibet. Also according to a modern Mohammedan source, mamiran and rhubarb are exported from Tibet.'
Mami as is a reputed drug for eye-diseases, applied to bitter roots of kindred properties but of different origin. By some it is regarded as tie rhizome of Coptis teeta (tita being the name of the drug in the Mishmi country) ; by others, from Thalictrum foliosum, a tall plant common throughout the temperate Himalaya and in the Kasia Hills.2 In another passage, however, YULE3 suggests that this root might be the ginseng of the Chinese, which is highly improbable.
It is most likely that by mamira is understood in general the root of Coptis teeta. This is a ranunculaceous plant, and the root has sometimes the appearance of a bird's claw. It is shipped in large quantities
from China (Chinese hwan-lien ) 'via Singapore to India. The
Chinese regard it as a panacea for a great many ills; among others, for clearing inflamed eyes.
9.. Abu Mansur discriminates between two kinds of rhubarb,— the Chinese (riwand-i sing) and that of Khorasan, adding that the former is most employed.' Accordingly a species of rhubarb (probably Rheum ribes) must have been indigenous to Persia. Ya,qût says that the finest kind grew in the soil of Nisapûr.5 According to E. BoISSIER,s Rheum ribes occurs near Van and in Agerowdagh in Armenia, on Mount Pir Omar Gudrun in Kurdistan, in the Daéna Mountain of eastern Persia, near Persepolis, in the province Aderbeijan in northern Persia, and in the mountains of Baluchistan. There is a general Iranian name for "rhubarb": Middle Persian réwds, New Persian réwâs, réwand, riwand (hence Armenian erevant), Kurd riwâs, ribds; Balu6i rava. ; Afghan rawâ..7 The Persian name has penetrated in the same form into Arabic
1 CH. SCHEFER, Histoire de l'Asie centrale par Mir Abdoul Kerim Boukhary, p. 239. Cf. also R. DOZY, Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes, Vol. II, p. 565.
2 YULE, Hobson-Jobson, p. 548.
3 Cathay, Vol. I, p. 292.
4 ACHUNDOW, Abu Mansur, p. ("Chinese") in Persian, .fini in Ara
BARBIER DE MEYNARD, Dict.
8 Flora Orientalis, Vol. IV, p. Central Asia.
The Afghan word in particular refers to Rheum spiciforme, which grows wild and abundantly in many parts of Afghanistan. When green, the leaf-stalks are called raw,* and when blanched by heaping up stones and gravel around them, tukri; when fresh, they are eaten either raw or cooked (WATT, Dictionary, Vol.VI, p. 487). The species under notice occurs also in Kan-su, China: FORBES and
547
74. Chinese rhubarb is also called simply fini
a bic.
géogr. de la Perse, p. 579.
1004. Rheum ribes does not occur in China or
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