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Jobson², 69 (« Baros ») and 151 (« camphor »); HEYD, Hist. du Commerce, II, 590-595; DAMES,
Barbosa, II, 207; DALGADO, Glossário Luso-Asiático, 203. But the difference in the use of the two
names is not clear. YULE's idea that on account of a (late) Malay form Pāsûrî they may, through
a metathesis, go back to a common original does not carry conviction (cf. JA, 1922, II, 95); both
names are ancient and have coexisted.

The older name is that of Barus (> modern Baros). At least from the first half of the 6th
cent. the Chinese have known foreign camphor under the name of 婆 律 香 p'o-lü hsiang, « P'o-lü
perfume », or 婆 律 膏 p'o-lü kao, « P'o-lü oil » (kao means « grease », « unguent », « oil »); in T'ang
times, « petroleum » was called both 石 油 shih-yu and 石 膏 shih-kao, « stone oil »), and P'o-lü
(*B'uâ-ljuĕt) is a regular transcription of Barus (cf. Liang shu, 54, 6 b; BEFEO, IV, 341; HIRTH
and ROCKHILL's opinion [HR, 194] that p'o-lü should be a « truncated transcription » of Skr. karpūra,
« camphor », is phonetically untenable and, moreover, runs counter to the very text they quote).
In ch. 7 of the Chinese Suvarṇaprabhāsa, there is a transcription of a Sanskrit name equivalent
to p'o-lü kao, which yields an uncertain original; the question will be discussed at the end of
the present note. In the second half of the 7th cent., I-ching (CHAVANNES, Religieux éminents,
36) speaks of the state of 婆 魯 師 P'o-lu-shih (*B'uâ-luo-si), *Barušī, and the Hsin T'ang shu
(222 C, 5 a [ed. Po-na]) mentions 郎 婆 露 斯 Lang-p'o-lu-ssŭ (*Lâng-b'uâ-luo-sie), *Lang-Barus
(or *Lang-Balus, through confusion with Langbālūs, the Nicobar?; it is a moot question; provi-
sionally, cf. FERRAND, in JA, 1919, I, 298; Mi, 157, 187; « lang » of « *Lang-Barus » can hardly be
Atchenese lam, « piece of land », as said by GERINI, Researches on Ptolemy's Geography, 430, and
MOENS in Tijdschr. v. Ind. Taal-Land en Volkenkunde, Vol. LXXXVII, 1937, 330). S. LÉVI has
identified Sanskrit forms Pāruṣya (or Pāruṣa) and Vāruṣaka (JA, 1921, I, 332; 1923, II, 38). About
860, the Yu-yang tsa-tsu (Chin-tai pi-shu ed., 18, 8 b) speaks of camphor, which, at its place of
production, was called 固 不 婆 律 ku-pu p'o-lü (cf. also HR, 194; LAUFER, Sino-Iranica; my
remarks in TP, 1912, 475; JA, 1919, II, 56); 固 ku (*kuo) is probably an erroneous reading instead
of 個 ko, and ko-pu p'o-lü (*kâ-puot b'uâ-ljuĕt) certainly renders Jav. kapur barus, Malay kāpur
bārus, the very name of the camphor of Sumatra (cf. FAVRE, Dict. malais-français, I, 247). Begin-
ning in the middle of the 10th cent., we find in Arabic texts a place Bālūs (Fe, 692) and a sort of
camphor called bālūs, which is only another form of Barus, but the name attaches itself in Mus-
sulman writings to a second-class sort of impure camphor (cf. Fe, 113, 289, 545). HAMILTON
(1727) speaks of the Baros camphor. The name of the state of Barus occurs in the Nāgarakṛtāgama,
dated 1365 (Fe, 652), and later in BARROS' list of states in Sumatra, also in a Malay document of
1615 (Fe, 671). The place has maintained some importance. If we can trust GERINI (Researches
on Ptolemy's Geography), Baros camphor is still known in Môn as « Prut », and in Burmese as
« Parût » (pronounced « Parûk »), both traceable to Baros.

The other name, فنصور Fanṣûr, appears first in Arabic texts, from the middle of the 9th cent.
(cf. FERRAND, Voyage du marchand arabe Sulaymān, 34; BARBIER DE MEYNARD, Maçoudi, I,
338; III, 49; in the latter passage, Mas'ûdî's text speaks of camphor of the «country of Manṣûrah »
but I agree with YULE, Hobson-Jobson², 152, against GERINI, Researches, 439, that the correct
reading must be « country of Fanṣûr », since the text of I, 338, is expressly referred to in III, 49;
the error seems to have a double origin, first graphic through confusion between f- and m- [see