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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
556 SING-IRANICA
thelg as-sin ("Chinese snow"), and the rocket as sahm xateii ("Chinese arrow ") .1
Ibn al-Faqih extols the aft-industries of the Chinese, particularly pottery, lamps, and other such durable implements, which are admirable as to their art and permanent in their execution.2 Kaolin is known to the Persians as xeik-i cini (" Chinese earth"). In excellent quality it is found in Kermanshah, but the art of making porcelain there is now lost.3 The Persian term for porcelain is fagfiiri or fagfür-i cini.4 Fagf iir (Sogdian va-yvûr, "Son of Heaven"), as far as I know, is the only sinicism to be found in Iranian, being a literal rendering of
Chinese t ien-tse -T.
Persian cûbi cini ("China root "), Neo-Sanskrit cobacini or copacini (kub-cini in the bazars of India), is the root of Smilax pseudo-china, so-called Chinese sarsaparilla (t`u fu-lin ±.1), a famous remedy for the treatment of Morbus americanus, first introduced into Europe by the returning sailors of Columbus, and into India by the sailors of Vasco da Gama (Sanskrit phiraiigaroga, "disease of the Franks"). It is first mentioned, together with the Chinese remedy in Indian writings of the sixteenth century, notably the Bhavaprakâ.ça.5 Good information on this subject is given by GARCIA DA ORTA, who says, "As all these lands and China and Japan have this morbo napolitano, it pleased a merciful God to provide this root as a remedy with
which good doctors can cure it, although the majority fall into error. As it is cured with this medicine, the root was traced to the Chinese,
when there was a cure with it in the year 1:535."' Garcia gives a detailed description of the shrub which he says is called lam patam by the Chi-
nese.' This transcription corresponds to Chinese len fan-t`wan &NA
(literally, "cold rice ball"), a synonyme of t`u fu-lin; pronounced at
1 G. JACOB, Oriental Elements of Culture in the Occident (Smithsonian Report for 1902, p. 520). See also LECLERC, Traité des simples, Vol. I, pp. 71, 333; and QUATREMÉRE, Journal asiatique, 1850, I, p. 222.
2 E. WIEDEMANN, Zur Technik bei den Arabern, Sitzber. Phys.-Med. Soz. Erl., Vol. XXXVIII, 1906, p. 355.
3 SCHLIMMER, Terminologie, p. 334.
° See Beginnings of Porcelain, p. 126. 6 J. JOLLY, Indische Medicin, p. 106.
6 C. MARKHAM, Colloquies, p. 379. Cf. also FLÜCKIGER and HANBURY, Pharmacographia, p. 712. F. PYRARD (Vol. I, p. 182; ed. of Hakluyt Society), who travelled in India from I6oi to 161o, observes, "Venereal disease is not so common, albeit it is found, and is cured with China-wood, without sweating or anything else. This disease they call farangui baescour (Arabic bâsûr, `piles'), from its coming to them from Europe." A long description of the remedy is given by LINSCHOTEN (Vol. II, pp. 107-112, ed. of Hakluyt Society).
7 C. ACOSTA (Tractado de las drogas, p. 8o) writes this word lampatan.
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