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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

in a somewhat different redaction, in the first section of a 龍女傳 Lung-nü chuan, « Lives of the
Dragon daughters », wrongly ascribed to 薛瑩 Hsüeh Ying « of the T'ang » [in fact, he lived in the
Chin, † 281; cf. San kuo chih, 53 (Wu 8), 6 a] in the Lung-wei pi-shu ed., 4th series, 3rd pên),
shows that the « dragon-brain perfume » was still a rarity towards the end of the 7th cent. Apart
from the terms mentioned above, camphor is also sometimes spoken of as mei p'ien, « plum
flake », or 冰片 ping p'ien, « ice flake ». Ping p'ien too is of course purely Chinese; GERINI's
attempt (Researches, 438) to connect it with most divergent terms in various languages cannot
be considered. « Camphor oil », called 腦油 nao yu « [dragon-]brain oil » in Chao Ju-kua
(HR, 194), was also mentioned in the second half of the 8th cent. by 李珣 Li Hsün as lung-nao
yu, « dragon-brain oil », and is there said to come from Vijaya (= Śrivijaya) in Sumatra.
The Mussulman notices on camphor are of great interest, and would deserve a detailed study,
but the various designations are almost hopelessly corrupt; one may provisionally find them in
the Index of Fe, 695-696, but attention must be drawn to the fact that some of them appear there
under two or three different entries, due to various misreadings, sometimes without any of the forms
given being correct. For instance, بكوس bākūs and بالكوس bālkūs are misreadings of بالوس bālūs;
bhimsīnī is Skr. bhīmasena (known as a sort of camphor); farfūn and firkūn are identical; Ibn
Baṭṭūṭah's حردالة hardālah, which puzzled FERRAND, is certainly to be read جادانة jādānah; karsab,
kawkab, kūksab (or kākasb), and perhaps qarquwī are identical; ribāḥī and riyāḥī are identical,
both being perhaps corruptions of zabājī.
Polo speaks also of camphor produced in Fu-chien between Fu-chou and Ch'üan-chou. But
this has nothing to do with Baros camphor. Chinese camphor, obtained in Fu-chien and Kuang-
tung, is the produce of a laurel, Camphora officinarum (or Laurus camphora, or Cinnamomum
camphora; cf. STUART, Materia Medica, 87-88; T'u-shu chi-ch'êng, ts'ao-mu tien, 259). Its name
is 樟腦 chang nao, « camphor of the chang [tree] », a word the origin of which is debated; it was
also formerly written 章 chang. Other names are 韶腦 shao nao, «Shao-chou camphor»
(from Shao-chou in Kuang-tung) and, in the north, 潮腦 ch'ao nao, « Ch'ao-chou camphor »
(from Ch'ao-chou, also in Kuang-tung). No ancient notice of the product is cited in the Pên-ts'ao
kang-mu (34, 62-63). But Avicenna († 1037) already knew of Chinese camphor (cf. HEYD, II,
592); it is mentioned in the Āīn-i Akbarī (1595; cf. Fe, 545, čīnī), and this same name čīnī has
remained in use for it in India (cf. Hobson-Jobson², 151).

229. FAR

far F, Z

This must be the French form used by Polo, since it is in F and Z (« Fur » is a mistake in the Milan
copy). It is, according to Polo, the name of a mountain of the Black Sea, on the
western side. YULE and BENEDETTO have restored it as « Faro », but I prefer to retain Polo's Far
= Phare, Pharos. YULE has made no comment. BENEDETTO (B¹, 411) thought of the promon-