ساینو-ایرانیکا اثرجاوید برتولت لوفر

THE WALNUT 261

tar. 1 This apparently is a loan-word received from the Tibetan, for in
Sariqoll and other Pamir dialects we find the Iranian word ghoz. 2
Tarka is a genuine Tibetan word relating to the indigenous walnut,
wild and cultivated, of Tibetan regions. In view of this state of affairs,
it is certainly possible that the Chinese, in the beginning of the fourth
century or somewhat earlier, received walnuts and their seeds also
from Tibetan tribes, which resulted in the name K'ian t*ao. The
Lepcha of Sikkim are acquainted with the walnut, for which they have
an indigenous term, kdl-pdt, and one of their villages is even called
"Walnut-Tree Foundation" (Kol-ban). 3

G. WATT 4 informs us that the walnut-tree occurs wild and cultivated
in the temperate Himalaya and Western Tibet, from Kashmir and
Nubra eastwards. W. ROXBURGH B says about Juglans regia, "A native
of the mountainous countries immediately to the north and north-east
of Hindustan, on the plains of Bengal it grows pretty well, but is not
fruitful there." Another species of the same genus, /. plerococca Roxb.,
is indigenous in the vast forests which cover the hills to the north and
east of the province of Silhet, the bark being employed for tanning, while
J. regia is enlisted among the oil-yielding products. 6 J. D. HOOKER*
is authority for the information that the walnut occurs wild in Sikkim,
and is cultivated in Bhutan, where also Captain TURNER S found it
growing in abundance. KiRKPATRiCK 9 met it in Nepal. In Burma it
grows in the Ava Hills. In the Shan states east of Ava grows another
species of Juglans, with smaller, almost globose, quite smooth nuts,
but nothing is known about the tree itself. 10

The Tibetans certainly cultivate the walnut and appreciate it

1 R. B. SHAW, On the Ghalchah Languages (Journal As. Soc. Bengal, 1876,
p. 267), writes the word tor. A. HUJLER (The Languages Spoken in the Western
Pamir, p. 36, Copenhagen, 1912) writes tar, explaining the letter a as a "dark deep a,
as in the French pas."

2 W. TOMASCHEK (Pamirdialekte, p. 790) has expressed the opinion that WaxJ
tor, as he writes, is hardly related to Tibetan star-ga; this is not correct.

3 G. MAINWARING, Dictionary of the Lepcha Language, p. 30.

4 Dictionary of the Economic Products of India, Vol. IV, p. 550.

5 Flora Indica, p. 670.

6 N. G. MUKERJI, Handbook of Indian Agriculture, p. 233.

7 Himalayan Journals, p. 235; also RISLEY, Gazetteer of Sikkim, p. 92 (compare
DARWIN, Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, Vol. I, p. 445).

8 Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama, p. 273. Also EDEN
and PEMBERTON (Political Missions to Bootan, p. 198, Calcutta, 1895) mention
the walnut in Bhutan.

9 Account of Nepaul, p. 81.

30 S. KURZ, Forest Flora of British Burma, Vol. II, p. 490 (Calcutta, 1877).



262 SlNO-lRANICA

much. The tree is found everywhere in eastern Tibet where horti-
culture is possible, and among the Tibetan tribes settled on the soil
of Se-S'wan Province. W. W. RocKHiLL 1 even mentions that in the
Ba-t'an region barley and walnuts are used in lieu of subsidiary coinage.
Lieut.-Col. WADDELL* makes two references to cultivated walnut-trees
in Central Tibet. The Chinese authors mention "Tibetan walnuts"
as products of the Lhasa district. 8

While the Cah-K'ien tradition is devoid of historical value, and
must be discarded as an historical fact, yet it is interesting from a
psychological point of view; for it shows at least that, at the time when
this fiction sprang into existence, the Chinese were under the impression
that the walnut was not an indigenous tree, but imported from abroad.
An autochthonous plant could not have been made the object of such a
legend. A direct reference to the introduction of the cultivated walnut
with an exact date is not extant in Chinese records, but the fact of such
an introduction cannot reasonably be called into doubt. It is supported
not only by the terms hu Vao and k'ian fao (" peach of the Hu," "peach
of the K'iah"), but also by the circumstantial evidence that in times
of antiquity, and even under the Han, no mention is made of the
walnut. True it is, it is mentioned in the Kin kwei yao lio of the second
century; but, as stated, this may be an interpolation. 4 Of all the data
relating to this fruit, there is only one that may have a faint chance to
be referred to the Han period, but even this possibility is very slight.
In the Si kin tsa ki S f H ffi 5 it is said that in the gardens of the
Saii-lin Park _L $fc #B of the Han emperors there were walnuts which
had come from the Western Regions or Central Asia. The Si kin tsa ki t
however, is the work of Wu Kun ^1 ^, who lived in the sixth century
A.D., 8 and cannot be regarded as a pure source for tracing the culture
of the Han. It is not difficult to see how this tradition arose. When the
San-lin Park was established, the high dignitaries of the empire were
called upon to contribute famed fruits and extraordinary trees of distant
lands. We know that after the conquest of Nan-yue in in B.C. the
Emperor Wu ordered southern products, like oranges, areca-nuts,

1 Diary of a Journey through Mongolia and Tibet, p. 347.

s Lhasa and its Mysteries, pp. 307, 315. See also N. V. KtiNER, Description of
Tibet (in Russian), Vol. I, pt. 2, p. 137.

1 ROCKHILL, Journal Royal As. Soc., 1891, p. 273.

4 Above, p. 205. Can Ki says or is made to say, "Walnuts must not be eaten in
large quantity, for they rouse mucus and cause man to drink" (Ch. c, p. 27).

6 Ch. I, p. 6 (ed. of Han Wei ts'un $u).

8 WYLIE, Notes on Chinese Literature, p. 189; and CHAVANNES, TOUHI Pa*,

1906, p. 102.



THE WALNUT 263

lun nan, li-ti, etc., to be brought to the capital C'an-nan, and to be
planted in the Fu-li Palace $c H ST, founded in commemoration of the
conquest of Nan-yue, whereupon many gardeners lost their lives when
the crops of the li-ti proved a failure. 1 Several of his palaces were named
for the fruits cultivated around them: thus there were a Grape-Palace
and a Pear-Palace. Hence the thought that in this exposition of foreign
fruits the walnut should not be wanting, easily impressed itself on the
mind of a subsequent writer. Wu Kun may also have had knowledge
of the Can-K'ien tradition of the Po wu ti, and thus believed himself
consistent in ascribing walnuts to the Han palaces. Despite his ana-
chronism, it is interesting to note Wu Kun's opinion that the walnut
came from Central Asia or Turkistan.

It is not probable that the walnut was generally known in China
earlier than the fourth century A.D., under the Eastern Tsin 3fC S
dynasty (265-41 9).* In the Tsin kun ko min S *& Bl ^fe, a description
of the palaces of the Tsin emperors, written during that dynasty, 3 it is
stated that there were eighty-four walnut-trees in the Hwa-lin Park



1 The palace Fu-li was named for the li-li $& $ (see Sanfu hwan t'u H $jf JS
, Ch. 3, p. 9 b, ed. of Han Wei ts'un $u).

8 BRETSCHNEIDER (Bot. Sin., pt. i, p. 39) asserts that Juglans regia figures
among the plants mentioned passingly in the Nan fan ts'ao mu twan by Ki Han
ff ^, a minister of state under the Emperor Hui l of the Tsin dynasty
(A.D. 290-306) . He does not give any particulars. There are only two allusions to the
walnut, that I am able to trace in this work: in the description of the coco-nut,
the taste of this fruit is likened to that of the walnut; and the flavor of the "stone
chestnut" (5i-li ^J JH, Alcurites triloba) is compared with that of the same fruit.
We know at present that the book in question contains interpolations of later date
(see L. AUROUSSEAU, Bull, de l'Ecolefran$aise, Vol. XIV, 1914, p. 10); but to these
the incidental mention of the walnut does not necessarily belong, as Ki Han lived
under the Tsin. It is likewise of interest that the walnut is not dealt with as a special
item in the Ts'i min yao $u, a work on husbandry and economic botany, written by
Kia Se-niu jf ,> $$ of the Hou Wei dynasty (A.D. 386-534) ; see the enumeration
of plants described in this book in BRETSCHNEIDER (op. cit., p. 78). In this case, the
omission does not mean that the tree was unknown to the author, but it means only
that it had then not attained any large economic importance. It had reached the
palace-gardens, but not the people. In fact, Kia Se-niu, at least in one passage
(Ch. 10, p. 48 b, ed. 1896), incidentally mentions the walnut in a quotation from the
Kiao lou ki $ #1 ffi by Liu Hin-k'i 24 $ $J, where it is said, "The white yuan
tree j ^fctsj [ evidently = |^fc] is ten feet high, its fruits being sweeter and finer
than walnuts j $6." As the Kiao lou ki is a work relating to the products of
Annam, it is curious, of course, that it should allude to the cultivated walnut, which
is almost absent in southern China and Annam; thus it is possible that this clause
may be an interpolation, but possibly it is not. The fact that the same work like-
wise contains the tradition connecting the walnut with Can K'ien has been pointed
out above. The tree pai yuan is mentioned again in the Pen ts*ao kan mu 3r i (Ch. 8,
p. 23), where elaborate rules for the medicinal employment of the fruit are given.

8 BRETSCHNEIDER, Bot. Sin., pt. i, p. 202, No. 945.



264 SlNO-lRANICA

^ ^ H. 1 Another allusion to the walnut relative to the period Hien-ho
(A.D. 326-335) has been noted above (p. 259). There is, further, a refer-
ence to the fruit in the history of Su 13 , when, after the death of Li Hiufi
^ it in A.D. 334, Han Pao $$ 15 from Fu-fun ^ ft in Sen-si
was appointed Grand Tutor (t'ai fu Jt fil) of his son Li K'i ^ ffiJ, and
asked the latter to grant him seeds for the planting of walnut-trees,
which, on account of his advanced age, he was anxious to have in his
garden. 2

During the third or fourth century, the Chinese knew also that
walnuts grew in the Hellenistic Orient. "In Ta Ts'in there are jujubes,
jasmine, and walnuts," it is stated in the Wu Si wai kwo ci ^ B^ 9\>
@ ; ("Memoirs of Foreign Countries at the time of the Wu"). 3

The Kwan ci 9c i by Kwo Yi-kun tf Jl 3^ 4 contains the following
account: "The walnuts of C'en-ts'an Ef Jt 5 have a thin shell and a
large kernel; those of Yin-p'in ^ Z P 6 are large, but their shells are brittle,
and, when quickly pinched, will break." 7

Coming to the T'ang period, we encounter a description of the
walnut in the Yu yan tsa tsu It Bl H $&., written about A.D. 86o, 8 from
which the fact may be gleaned that the fruit was then much cultivated

1 Tai p'in yu Ian, I.e.

2 This story is contained in the Kwan wu kin ki Hf 3 ff IS (according to
BRETSCHNEIDER, a work of the Sung literature). As the text is embodied in the
T'ai p'in yu Ian, it must have been extant prior to A.D. 983, the date of Li Fan's
cyclopaedia.

3 Presumably identical with the Wu si wai kwo cwan noted by PELLIOT (Bull, de
VEcole fran^aise, Vol. IV, p. 270) as containing information secured by the mission
of K'ari T'ai in the first part of the third century A.D. Cf. also Journal asiatique,
1918, II, p. 24. The Min Si ascribes walnuts to Ormuz (BRETSCHNEIDER, Notices
of the Mediaeval Geography, p. 294).

4 This work is anterior to the year A.D. 527, as it is cited in the Svri kin lu of
Li Tao-yuan, who died in that year. Kwo Yi-kun is supposed to have lived under
the Tsin (A.D. 265-419). Cf. PELLIOT, Bull, de VEcole fran$ aise, Vol. IV, p. 412.

6 Now the district of Pao-ki in the prefecture of Fun-sian, Sen-si Province.

6 At the time of the Han period, Yin-p'in was the name for the present prefec-
ture of Lufi-nan f| ^ in the province of Se-2'wan. There was also a locality of the
same name in the prefecture of Kiai in the province of Kan-su, inhabited by the Ti,
a Tibetan tribe (CHAVANNES, T'oung Pao, 1905, p. 525).

7 Tai p'in yu Ian, 1. c.; Ko ci kin yuan, Ch. 76, p. 5; Ci wu min Si t'u k'ao, I. c.
This text is cited also by Su Sun in his T'u kin pen ts'ao. The earliest quotation
that I can trace of it occurs in the Pei hu lu, written by Twan Kun-lu about A.D.
875 (Ch. 3, p. 4 b, ed. of Lu Sin-yuan), where, however, only the last clause in regard
to the walnuts of Yin-p'in is given (see below, p. 268).

8 PELLIOT, T'oung Pao, 1912, p. 375. The text is in the T'u Su tsi I'en and
Ci wu min Si t'u k'ao (I. c.). I cannot trace it in the edition of the Yu yan tsa tsu in
the Tsin tai pi Su or Pai hai.



THE WALNUT 265

in the northern part of China (ft ~H & S ), a statement repeated
in the K*ai-pao pen ts'ao. The Yu yah tsa tsu, which is well informed
on the cultivated plants of Western and Central Asia, does not contain
the tradition relating to Can K'ien, but, on the other hand, does not
speak of the tree as a novel introduction, nor does it explain its name.
It begins by saying that "the kernel of the walnut is styled 'toad'
ha-mo ffilll." 1

Mon Sen j ffc, who in the second half of the seventh century wrote
the Si liao pen ts*ao? warns people from excessive indulgence in walnuts
as being injurious to health. 3 The T*ai p'ih hwan yu ki ;fc ^ 5 ? IS,
by Yo Si IB J& (published during the period T'ai-p'in, A.D. 976-981),
mentions the walnut as being cultivated in the prefecture of Fun-sian
JBL & in Sen-si Province, and in Kian 6ou $ $\ in San-si Province. 4

According to the Pen ts'ao kah mu, the term hu t'ao first appears in
the Pen ts'ao of the K'ai-pao period (968-976) of the Sung dynasty,
written by Ma Ci $1 j; that is to say, the plant or its fruit was then
officially sanctioned and received into the pharmacopoeia for the first
time. We have seen that it was certainly known prior to that date.
K'ou Tsun-si ?S ^ I?, in his Pen ts*ao yen i ^ ^ ffr SI of m6, 5 has a
notice on the medicinal application of the fruit.

It is possible also to trace in general the route which the walnut has
taken in its migration into China. It entered from Turkistan into
Kan-su Province, as stated by Su Sun (see above, p. 258), and gradually
spread first into Sen-si, and thence into the eastern provinces, but always
remained restricted to the northern part of the country. Su Sun ex-
pressly says that walnuts do not occur in the south, but only in the
north, being plentiful in Sen-si and Lo-yan (Ho-nan Province), while
those grown in K'ai-fun (Pien Scuff #1) were not of good quality. In the
south only a wild-growing variety was known, which is discussed
below. Wan Si-mou zE ifr S, a native of Kian-su, who died in 1591,
states in his Kwo su ^ 6fi, a treatise on garden-fruits, that "the walnut
is a northern fruit (pei kwo ft 5v), and thrives in mountains; that it
is but rarely planted in the south, yet can be cultivated there." 6 Almost

1 This definition is ascribed to the Ts'ao mu tse ^L ;fC -J" in the Ko U kin yuan
(Ch. 76, p. 5); that work was written by Ye Tse-k'i :| -J* isf in 1378 (WYLIE,
Notes on Chinese Literature, p. 168).

2 BRETSCHNEIDER, Bot. Sin., pt. i, p. 45.

3 Tan Sun pai k*un leu t'ie, Ch. 99, p. 12.

4 Tai p'in hwan yu ki, Ch. 30, p. 4; Ch. 47, p. 4 (ed. of Kin-lin !w ku, 1882).

5 Ch. 1 8, p. 6 b (ed. of Lu Sin-yuan).

6 Also J. DE LOUREIRO (Flora cochinchinensis, p. 702) states that the habitat of
Juglans regia is only in the northern provinces of China.



266 SlNO-lRANICA

all the district and prefectural gazetteers of Sen-si Province enumerate
the walnut in the lists of products. The " Gazetteer of San-tun" 1
mentions walnuts for the prefectures of Ts'i-nan, Yen-cou, and Ts'in-
Cou, the last-named being the best. The Gazetteer of the District of
Tun-no JK PP in the prefecture of Tai-nan in San-tun reports an
abundance of walnuts in the river- valleys. An allusion to oil-production
from walnuts is found in the " Gazetteer of Lu-nan," where it is said,
"Of all the fruits growing in abundance, there is none comparable to
the walnut. What is left on the markets is sufficient to supply the needs
for lamp-oil." 3 Also under the heading "oil," walnut-oil is mentioned
as a product of this district. 4

Juglans regia, in its cultivated state, has been traced by our botanists
in San-tun, Kian-su, Hu-pei, Yun-nan, and Se-S'wan. 6 Wilson nowhere
saw trees that could be declared spontaneous, and considers it highly
improbable that Juglans regia is indigenous to China. His opinion is
certainly upheld by the results of historical research.

A wild species (Juglans mandshurica or cathayensis Dode) occurs
in Manchuria and the Amur region, Ci-li, Hu-pei, Se-S'wan, and Yun-
nan. 6 This species is a characteristic tree of the Amur and Usuri val-
leys. 7 It is known to the Golde under the name kocoa or ko^oa, to the
Managir as korlo, to the Gilyak as tiv-alys. The Golde word is of
ancient date, for we meet it in the ancient language of the Juri, Juen,
or NiuSi in the form xusu* and in Manchu as xosixa. The great antiquity
of this word is pointed out by the allied Mongol word xusiga. The
whole series originally applies to the wild and indigenous species,

1 San tun fun li, Ch. 9, p. 15.

f Ch. 2, p. 32 (1829).

8 Quotation from Lu-nan li &jt ^) ]g, in the San cou tsun U $) ^ $| ,-g
(General Gazetteer of San-Sou), 1744, Ch. 8, p. 3.

4 Ibid., Ch. 8, p. 9. Oil was formerly obtained from walnuts in France both
for use at table and for varnishing and burning in lamps, also as a medicine sup-
posed to possess vermifuge properties (AINSLIE, Materia Indica, Vol. I, p. 464).

8 See particularly C. S. SARGENT, Plantae Wilsonianae, Vol. Ill, pp. 184-185
(1916). J. ANDERSON (Report on the Expedition to Western Yunan, p. 93, Calcutta,
1871) mentions walnuts as product of Yun-nan. According to the Tien hai yu hen
li (Ch. 10, p. i b; above, p. 228), the best walnuts with thin shells grow on the Yan-pi
or Yan-p'ei River fi '/| fll of Yun-nan.

8 FORBES and HEMSLEY, Journal of the Linnean Society, Botany, Vol. XXVI,
p. 493; SARGENT, op. cit., pp. 185 et seq. J. DE LOUREIRO (Flora cochinchinensis,
p. 702), writing in 1788, has a species Juglans camirium (Annamese deau lai) "habitat
agrestis cultaque in Cochinchina;" and a Juglans catappa (Annamese cay mo cua)
''habitat in sylvis Cochinchinae montanis."

7 GRUM-GRZIMAILO, Description of the Amur Province (in Russian), p. 313.

1 W. GRUBE, Schrift und Sprache der Juc'en, p. 93.



THE WALNUT 267

Juglans mandshurica. Manchu xdsixa designates the tree, while its
fruit is called xdwalama or xdwalame usixa (-ixa being a frequent ter-
mination in the names of plants and fruits). The cultivated walnut is
styled mase. 1 One of the earliest explorers of the Amur territory, the
Cossack chieftain Poyarkov, who reached the Amur in 1644, reported
that walnuts and hazel-nuts were cultivated by the Daur or Dahur on
the Dseya and Amur. 2

The same species is known to the aboriginal tribes of Yun-nan.
The Pa-yi and San style its fruit tw ai; z the Nyi Lo-lo, se-mi-ma-, the Ahi
Lo-lo, sa-mi. The Cun-kia of Kwei-ou call it dsao; the Ya-'io Miao,
li or &'; the Hwa Miao, klaeo\ while other Miao tribes have the Chinese
loan-word he-dao. 4

The wild walnut has not remained unknown to the Chinese, and it
is curious that it is designated San hu t'ao UJ 1$ tftj, the term Ian ("moun-
tain") referring to wild-growing plants. The "wild Iranian peach"
is a sort of linguistic anomaly. It is demonstrated by this term that
the wild indigenous species was discovered and named by the Chinese
only in times posterior to the introduction of the cultivated variety; and
that the latter, being introduced from abroad, was not derived from the
wild-growing species. The case is identical with that of the wild alfalfas
and vines. C'en Hao-tse, who wrote a treatise on flowers in i688, 5
determines the difference between the cultivated and wild varieties
thus: the former has a thin shell, abundant meat, and is easy to break; 6
the latter has a thick and hard shell, which must be cracked with a
hammer, and occurs in Yen and Ts'i (Ci-li and San-tun). This observa-

1 K'ien-lun's Polyglot Dictionary, Ch. 28, p. 55.

8 L. v. SCHRENCK, Reisen und Forschungen im Amur-Lande, Vol. Ill, p. 160.

3 F. W. K. MULLER, Toung Pao, Vol. Ill, 1892, p. 26.

4 S. R. CLARKE, Tribes in South- West China, p. 312.
6 Hwa kin, Ch. 3, p. 49 b.

8 According to the Ci wu min Si t'u k'ao (Ch. 31, p. 3 b), the walnuts with thin
shells grow only in the prefecture of Yun-p'in ^jt *p in Ci-li, being styled lu Zan
ho t'ao fH H| %% $|y In C'an-li, which belongs to this prefecture, these nuts have
been observed by F. N. MEYER (Agricultural Explorations in the Orchards of China,
p. 51), who states, "Some trees produce small hard-shelled nuts of poor flavor, while
others bear fine large nuts, with a really fine flavor, and having shells so thin that
they can be cracked with the fingers like peanuts. Between these extremes one finds
many gradations in hardness of shell, size, and flavor." "In England the walnut
presents considerable differences, in the shape of the fruit, in the thickness of the
husk, and in the thinness of the shell; this latter quality has given rise to a variety
called the thin-shelled, which is valuable, but suffers from the attacks of titmice"
(DARWIN, Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, Vol. I, p. 445).
A variety of walnut with thin shells grows on the Greek Island Pares (T. v. HELD-
REICH, Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands, p. 59).



268 SlNO-lRANICA

tion is quite to the point; the shell of the walnut gradually became more
refined under the influence of cultivation.

The earliest texts alluding to the wild walnut are not older than
the T'ang period. The Pei hu lu At fi $fc, written by Twan Kun-lu
l ^ J& about A.D. 87 5, 1 contains the following text concerning a wild
walnut growing in the mountains of southern China:

"The wild walnut has a thick shell and a flat bottom & Z P. In
appearance it resembles the areca-nut. As to size, it is as large as a
bundle of betel-leaves. 2 As to taste, it comes near the walnuts of
Yin-p'in 3 and Lo-yu, but is different from these, inasmuch as it has a
fragrance like apricot extract. This fragrance, however, does not last
long, but will soon vanish. The Kwan li says that the walnuts of Yin-
p'in have brittle shells, and that, when quickly pinched, the back of
the kernel will break. Liu Si-lun $P ifr 1^, in his Sie lo yu yuan II SI
>H ?S, remarks, with reference to the term hu t'ao, that the Hu take to
flight like rams, 4 and that walnuts therefore are prophets of auspicious
omens. Cen K'ien SB 3: 5 says that the wild walnut has no glumelle;
it can be made into a seal by grinding off the nut for this purpose.
Judging from these data, it may be stated that this is not the walnut
occurring in the mountains of the south." 6

The Lin piao lui $(%.$&=&, by Liu Sun S'J 1ft of the T'ang period, 7
who lived under the reign of the Emperor Cao Tsun (A.D. 889-904),
contains the following information on a wild walnut:

"The slanting or glandular walnut (p'ien ho t*ao fi! t^ $6) is pro-
duced in the country Can-pi fi ^. 8 Its kernel cannot be eaten. The

1 Cf . PELLIOT, Bull, de VEcole fran$aise, Vol. IX, p. 223.

2 Fu-liu, usually written $C {, is first mentioned in the Wu lu ti li li ^ gjfc i&
3 iS by Can Pu jJH ^J of the third or beginning of the fourth century (see Ts'i
min yao su, Ch. 10, p. 32). It refers to Piper betle (BRETSCHNEIDER, Chinese Recorder,
Vol. Ill, 1871, p. 264; C. IMBAULT-HUART, Le be"tel, Toung Pao, Vol. V, 1894,
P- 313). The Chinese name is a transcription corresponding to Old Annamese
bldu; Mi^son, Uy-16, and Hung plu; Khmer m-luw, Stien m-lu, Bahnar bo-lou, Kha
b-lu ("betel").

8 See above, p. 264.

4 A jocular interpretation by punning t'ao $Ij upon t'ao $& (both in the same
tone).

6 Author of the lost Hu pen ts'ao SB ^ ^ (BRETSCHNEIDER, Bot. Sin., pt. I,
p. 45). He appears to have been the first who drew attention to the wild walnut.
His work is repeatedly quoted in the Pei hu lu.

6 Pei hu lu, Ch. 3, p. 4 b (ed. of Lu Sin-yuan).

7 Ch. B, p. 5 (ed. of Wu yin lien).

8 The two characters are wrongly inverted in the text of the work. In the text
of the Pei hu lu that follows, the name of this country is given in the form Can-pei
^ $ From the mention of the Malayan Po-se in the same text, it follows that



THE WALNUT 269

Hu $J people gather these nuts in abundance, and send them to the
Chinese officials, designating them as curiosities 3^M. As to their
shape, they are thin and pointed; the head is slanting like a sparrow's
beak. If broken and eaten, the kernel has a bitter taste resembling that
of the pine-seeds of Sin-ra if it & -f. 1 Being hot by nature, they are
employed as medicine, and do not differ from the kernels of northern
China."

The Pei hu lu 2 likewise mentions the same variety of glandular wal-
nut (p*ien ho-t'ao) as growing in the country Can-pei fi $>, shaped
like the crescent of the moon, gathered and eaten by the Po-se, 3 having
a very fine fragrance, stronger than the peach-kernels of China, but of
the same effect in the healing of disease.

The species here described may be identical with Juglans catha-
yensis y called the Chinese butternut, usually a bush, but in moist
woods forming a tree from twelve to fifteen metres tall; but I do not
know that this plant occurs in any Malayan region. With reference to
Can-pi, however, it may be identical with the fruit of Canarium com-
mune (family Burseraceae) , called in Malayan kanari, in Javanese kenari.
J. CRAWFURD/ who was not yet able to identify this tree, offers the
following remarks: "Of all the productions of the Archipelago the one
which yields the finest edible oil is the kanari. This is a large handsome
tree, which yields a nut of an oblong shape nearly of the size of a walnut.
The kernel is as delicate as that of a filbert, and abounds in oil. This

Can-pi is a Malayan territory probably to be located on Sumatra. For this reason
I am inclined to think that Can-pi f JJI is identical with Can-pei J| BjL ; that is,
Jambi, the capital of eastern Sumatra (HiRTH and ROCKHILL, Chau Ju-kua, pp. 65,
66; see further GROENEVELDT, Notes on the Malay Archipelago, pp. 188, 196; and
GERINI, Researches on Ptolemy's Geography, p. 565; Lin wai tai ta, Ch. 2, p. 12).
From a phonetic point of view, however, the transcription 3 4fl, made in the
T'ang period, represents the ancient sounds *can-pit, and would presuppose an
original of the form *2ambit, fiambir, or jambir, whereas ^L is without a final con-
sonant. The country Can-pei is first mentioned under the year A.D. 852 (^ 4* sixth
year), when Wu-sie-ho ^ ffi J! and six men from there came to the Chinese Court
with a tribute of local products (T'ai p'in hwan yu ki, Ch. 177, p. 15 b). A second
embassy is on record in 871 (PELLIOT, Bull, de VEcole fran$ aise, Vol. IV, p. 347).

1 Pinus koraiensis Sieb. et Zucc. (J. MATSUMURA, Shokubutsu mei-i, pp. 266-267,
ed. 1915), in Japanese losen-matsu ("Korean pine"); see also STUART, Chinese
Materia Medica, p. 333. Sin-ra (Japanese Sin-ra, Siraki) is the name of the ancient
kingdom of Silla, in the northern part of Korea.

2 Ch. 3, p. 5 (ed. of Lu Sin-yuan).

3 $l ^T certainly is here not Persia, for the Pei hu lu deals with the products
of Kwafi-tun, Annam, and the countries south of China (PELLIOT, Bull, de VEcole
fran$aise, Vol. IX, p. 223). See below, p. 468. The Pei hu lu has presumably served
as the source for the text of the Lin piao lu i, quoted above.

4 History of the Indian Archipelago, Vol. I, p. 383.



270 SlNO-lRANICA

is one of the most useful trees of the countries where it grows. The
nuts are either smoked and dried for use, or the oil is expressed from
them in their recent state. The oil is used for all culinary purposes,
and is more palatable and finer than that of the coconut. The kernels,
mixed up with a little sago meal, are made into cakes and eaten as
bread. The kanari is a native of the same country with the sago tree,
and is not found to the westward. In Celebes and Java it has been
introduced in modern times through the medium of traffic."

The Yu yan tsa tsu 1 speaks of a man hu t'ao II S9 $6 as "growing
in the kingdom of Nan-ao ^ IB in Yun-nan; it is as large as a flat
conch, and has two shells of equal size; its taste is like that of the
cultivated walnut. It is styled also 'creeper in the land of the Man*
(Man tun t'en-tse 8 ^Jl-?)." It will be remembered that Twan
C'en-si, the author of this work, describes also the cultivated walnut

(P. 264).

The T'ai p*ih yii Ian contains another text attributed to the Lin
piao lu i relating to a wild walnut, which, however, is not extant in the
edition of this work published in the collection Wu yin tien in 1775.
This text is as follows: "The large walnut has a thick and firm shell.
It is larger than that of the areca-nut. 2 It has much meat, but little
glumelle. It does not resemble the nuts found in northern China. It
must be broken with an axe or hammer. The shell, when evenly
smoothed over the bottom, is occasionally made into a seal, for the
crooked structure of the shell (ko M) resembles the seal characters." 3

In the Lin wai tai ta ^ ^ ft ^, 4 written by Cou K'ii-fei JH * #
in 1178, mention is made, among the plants of southern China and
Tonking, of a "stone walnut (Si hu t'ao ^ $8 $fc), which is like stone,
has hardly any meat, and tastes like the walnut of the north." Again,
a wild species is involved here. I have not found the term Si hu t'ao in
any other author.

The various names employed by the T'ang writers for the wild

1 Ch. 19, p. 9 b (ed. of Tsin tai pi $u) ; or Ch. 19, p. 9 a (ed. of Pai hai).

* This sentence, as well as the first, agrees with the definition given by the Pei
hu lu with reference to a wild walnut (above, p. 268).

1 T'ai p'in yii Ian, Ch. 971, p. 8 b. The same text is cited by the Pen ts'ao kan
mu and the Ko li kin yuan (Ch. 76, p. 5 b), which offer the reading San hu t'ao \lj
SB $fc ("wild walnut") instead of "large walnut." The Kwan k'iinfan p'u (Ch. 58,
p. 26) also has arranged this text under the general heading "wild walnut." The
Pen ts'ao kan mu opens it with the sentence, "In the southern regions there is a wild
walnut." The restriction to South China follows also from the text as given in the
T'ai p'in yii Ian.

4 Ch. 8, p. 10 b (ed. of Ci pu tsu lai ts'un $u).



THE WALNUT 371

varieties (p'ien hu fao, fan hu Vao, man hu t'ao, to hu t*ao) y combined
with the fact that two authors describe both the varieties p'ien and
fan, raise the question whether this nomenclature does not refer to
different plants, and whether, aside from the wild walnut, other nuts
may not also be included in this group. In this respect it is of interest
to note that the hickory, recently discovered in Ce-kian by F. N.
MEYER, and determined by SARGENT 1 under the name Carya cathayensis,
is said by Meyer to be called shan-gho-to in the colloquial language;
and this evidently is identical with our fan hu t'ao. This certainly does
not mean that this term refers exclusively to the hickory, but only
that locally the hickory falls also within the category of fan hu t'ao.
The distribution of the hickory over China is not yet known, and the
descriptions we have of fan hu t'ao do not refer to Ce-kian.

In the P'an fan U 18: Ul ;, a description of the P'an mountains, 1
the term fan ho t'ao is given as a synonyme for the bark of Catalpa
bungei (ts*iu p'i Iffc IJt), which is gathered on this mountain for
medicinal purposes, presumably because the structure of this bark
bears some superficial resemblance to that of a walnut. Wild walnuts,
further, are mentioned as growing on Mount Si fu 2un ^5 ^ Uj ,
forming part of the Ma-ku Mountains & J6 Ul situated in Fu-cou
Si J /H in the prefecture of Kien-6'aii ^ B ffi, Kian-si Province. 3

While the cultivated walnut was known in China during the fourth
century under the Tsin dynasty, the wild species indigenous to south-
ern China was brought to the attention of scholars only several cen-
turies later, toward the close of the T'ang period. This case furnishes
an excellent object-lesson, in that it reveals the fallacies to which
botanists and others are only too frequently subject in drawing con-
clusions from mere botanical evidence as to cultivated plants. The
favorite argumentation is, that if, in a certain region, a wild and a
corresponding cultivated species co-exist, the cultivated species is simply
supposed to have been derived from the wild congener. This is a de-
ceptive conclusion. The walnut (as well as the vine) of China offers a

1 Plantae Wilsonianae, Vol. Ill, p. 187.

* Ch. 15, p. 2 b, of the edition published in 1755 by order of K'ien-lun. The
P'an an is situated three or four days' journey east of Peking, in the province of
Ci-li, the summit being crowned by an interesting Buddhist temple, and there being
an imperial travelling-station at its foot. It was visited by me in September, 1901.
F. N. MEYER (Agricultural Explorations in the Orchards of China, p. 52) says that
in the Pangshan district east of Peking one may still find a few specimens of the real
wild walnut growing in ravines among large bowlders in the mountains.

8 Ma-ku San U (Ch. 3, p. 6 b), written by members of the family Hwafi jf, and
published in 1866 by the Tun t'ien u wu }pj| ; ^ |g. These mountains contain
thirty-six caves dedicated to the Taoist goddess Ma-ku.



272 SlNO-lRANICA

specific case apt to teach just the opposite: a wild walnut (probably in
several species) is indigenous to China, nevertheless the species culti-
vated in this area did not spring from domestic material, but from
seeds imported from Iranian and Tibetan regions of Central Asia.
The botanical dogma has been hurled against many deductions of
Hehn: botanists proclaimed that vine, fig, laurel, and myrtle have been
indigenous to Greece ana Italy in a wild state since time immemorial ;
likewise pomegranate, cypress, and plantain on the Aegean Islands
and in Greece; hence it was inferred that also the cultivations of these
plants must have been indigenous, and could not have been introduced
from the Orient, as insisted on by Hehn. This is nothing but a sophism:
the botanists still owe us the proof that the cultivated species were
really derived from indigenous stock. A species may indeed be indige-
nous to a certain locality; and yet, as brought about by historical
inter-relations of the peoples, the same or a similar species in the
cultivated state may have been introduced from an outside quarter.
It is only by painstaking historical research that the history of culti-
vated plants can be exactly determined. ENGLER (above, p. 258) doubts
the occurrence of the wild walnut in China, because a cultivated species
was introduced there from Tibet ! It is plain now where such logic will
lead us. Wilson deserves a place of honor among botanists, for, after
close study of the subject in China, he recognized that "it is highly
improbable that Juglans regia is indigenous to China."

With reference to the walnut, conditions are the same in China as
in the Mediterranean region: there also Juglans regia grows spontane-
ously; still better, cultivated varieties reached the Greeks from Persia;
the Greeks handed these on to the Romans; the Romans transplanted
them to Gallia and Germania. Juglans regia occupies an extensive
natural area throughout the temperate zone, stretching from the
Mediterranean through Iran and the Himalaya as far as southern China
and the Chinese maritime provinces. Despite this natural distribution,
the fact remains that Iran has been the home and the centre of the
best-cultivated varieties, and has transmitted these to Greece, to India,
to Central Asia, and to China.

Dr. T. TANAKA has been good enough to furnish the following infor-
mation, extracted from Japanese literature, in regard to the walnut.

"Translation of the notice on ko-to (kurumi), 'walnut,' from a
Japanese herbal Yamato honzo ^C ?P ^ ^, by Kaibara Ekken jt M
^ ff (Ch. 10, p. 23), published in 1709.

"Kurumi $8 #6 (koto). There are three sorts of walnut. The first
is called oni-gurumi & SB $fc ('devil walnut'). It is round in shape,



THE WALNUT 273

and has a thick, hard skin (shell), difficult to break; it has very little
meat. In the Homo (Pen ts'ao, usually referring to the Pen ts'ao kan
mu) it is called til tft $ (yama-gurumi, Ian hu t'ao). It is customary
to open the shell by first baking it a little while in a bed of charcoal,
and suddenly plunging it in water to cool off; then it is taken out of the
fire, the shell is struck at the joint so that it is crushed, and the meat can
be easily removed. The second variety is called hime-gurumi tf& ?
J* ^ ('demoiselle walnut'), and has a thin shell which is somewhat
flat in form; it is very easily broken when struck with an iron hammer
at the joint. It has plenty of meat, is rich in oil, and has a better taste
than the one mentioned before. The names 'devil' and 'demoiselle*
are derived from the appearance of the nuts, the one being rough and
ugly, while the other is beautiful.

"The third variety, which is believed to have come from Korea,
has a thin shell, easily cracked, with very little meat, but of the best
quality. Mon Sen JnL BSfc (author of the Si liao pen ts'ao Jt Jj ^ ^,
second half of the seventh century) says, 'The walnut, when eaten,
increases the appetite, stimulates the blood-circulation, and makes one
appear glossy and elegant. It may be considered as a good medicine of
high merit.' For further details refer to the prescriptions of the Pen
ts'ao.

"Translation of the notice on walnut from the Honzo komoku keimd
(Ch. 25, pp. 26-27) by Ono Ranzan; revised edition by Igu& BOsi
of 1847 (first edition 1804).

"koto, kurimi (walnut, Juglans regia L., var. sinensis Cas., ex MATSU-
MURA, Shokubutsu Mei-i, ed. 1915, Vol. I, p. 189).

"Japanese names: to-kurimi ('Chinese walnut'); cosen-kurimi
(' Korean walnut ') .

"Chinese synonymes: kaku-kwa (Jibutsu imei); tins 5 kyoho (ibid.);
inpei cinkwa (ibid.); kokaku (Jibutsu konsu); kens' a (ibid.); to$u$i
(Kunmo jikwai).

"Names for kernels: kama (Roy a taisui-hen).

"Other names for Ian hu t'ao: sankakuto (Hokuto-roku); banzai-Zi
(Jonan Ho si); su (Kummo jikwai).

"The real walnut originated in Korea, and is not commonly planted
in Japan.

"The leaves are larger than those of onigurumi (giant walnut,
Juglans sieboldiana Maxim., ex Matsumura, I.e.). The shells are also
larger, measuring more than i sun (1.193 inches) in length, and having
more striations on the surface. The kernels are also larger, and have
more folds.

"The variety commonly planted in our country is onigurumi, the



J74 SlNO-lRANICA

abbreviated name of which is kurumi; local names are ogurumi (Prov-
ince of Kaga), okkoromi (eastern provinces), and so on. This giant wal-
nut grows to a large tree. Its leaves are much like those of the lacquer-
tree (Rhus vernificera DC.) and a little larger; they have finely serrated
margins. Its new leaves come out in the spring. It flowers in the
autumn.

"The flower-clusters resemble chestnut-catkins, but are much
larger, ranging in length from six to seven sun; they are yellowish white
and pendulous. A single flower is very small, like that of a chestnut.
The fruit is peach-shaped and green, but turns black when ripe. The
shells are very hard and thick, and can be opened by being put on the
fire for a little while; then insert a knife in the slit or fissure between the
shells, which thus break. The kernels are good for human food, and
are also used for feeding little birds.

"One species called hime-gurumi (' demoiselle walnut/ Juglans
cordiformis Maxim., ex Matsumura, I.e.), or me-gurumi ('female wal-
nut/ from the province of Kaga), has thin shells with fewer furrows, and
the kernels can easily be taken out. Under the heading $ukai (ti-kie,
explanatory information in the Pen ts*ao), this kind of walnut is de-
scribed as 'a walnut produced in Cinso (C'en-ts'an, a place in Fun-
sian fu, Sen-si, China) with thin shells and many surfaces,' so we call
it Zinso-gurumi ('en-ts*an hu-t'ao). 1 This variety is considered the
best of all yama-gurumi (San hu t'ao, wild walnuts), because no other
variety has such saddle-shaped kernels entirely removable from the
shells.

"A species called karasu-gurumi ('crow walnut') is a product of the
province of E&go; it has a shell that opens by itself when ripe, and
looks like a crow's bill when opened, whence it is called 'crow walnut.*

"Another variety from Oio-mura village of the Aidzu district is
called gonroku-gurumi ('Gonroku's walnut'); it has a very small shell
capable of being used as ojime ('string-fastener of a pouch'). This
name is taken from the personal name of a man called Anazawa Gon-
roku, in whose garden this variety originated. It is said that the same
kind has been found in the province of Kai.

"A variety found at Nosiro, province of UQ (Uzen and Ugo),
is much larger in size, and has thinner shells, easily crushed by hand,
so that the kernels may be taken out without using any tools. The
name of this variety is therefore teuci-gurumi ('hand-crushed walnut ')."

The most interesting point in these Japanese notes is presented by
1 Compare above, p. 264.



THE WALNUT 175

the tradition tracing the cultivated walnut of Japan to Korea. The
Koreans again have a tradition that walnuts reached them from China
about fifteen hundred years ago in the days of the Silla Kingdom. 1
The Korean names for the fruit are derived from the Chinese: ho do
being the equivalent of hu t'ao, kan do corresponding to k'ian t'ao,
and ha do to ho t'ao. The Geography of the Ming Dynasty states that
walnuts are a product of Korea. 1

1 Korea Review, Vol. II, 1902, p. 394.
1 Ta Mi* i run i, Ch. 89 p. 4 b.



THE POMEGRANATE

5. A. DE CANDOLLE 1 sums up the result of his painstaking investi-
gation of the diffusion of the pomegranate (Punica granatum, the sole
genus with two species only within the family Punicaceae) as follows:
"To conclude, botanical, historical, and philological data agree in show-
ing that the modern species is a native of Persia and some adjacent
countries. Its cultivation began in prehistoric time, and its early
extension, first toward the west and afterwards into China, has caused
its naturalization in cases which may give rise to errors as to its true
origin, for they are frequent, ancient, and enduring." In fact, the
pomegranate occurs spontaneously in Iran on stony ground, more
particularly in the mountains of Persian Kurdistan, Baluchistan, and
Afghanistan. I am in full accord with A. de Candolle's opinion, which,
as will be seen, is signally corroborated by the investigation that fol-
lows, and am not in the least disturbed by A. ENGLER'S view 2 that the
pomegranate occurs wild in Greece and on the islands of the
Grecian Archipelago, and that, accordingly, it is indigenous in anterior
Asia and part of the Balkan Peninsula, while its propagation in Italy
and Spain presumably followed its cultivation in historical times. First,
as stated also by G. BuscHAN, 3 these alleged wild trees of Greece are
not spontaneous, but have reverted from cultivation to a wild state. 4
Second, be this as it may, all ancient Greek accounts concerning the
pomegranate relate exclusively to the cultivated, in no case to the
wild species; and it is a gratuitous speculation of O. ScHRADER, 5 who
follows suit with Engler, that the Greek word pod was originally
applied to the indigenous wild species, and subsequently transferred
to the cultivated one. As will be shown hereafter, the Greek term is a
loan-word. The naturalization of the fruit in the Mediterranean basin
is, as A. DE CANDOLLE justly terms it, an extension of the original

1 Origin of Cultivated Plants, p. 240.

2 In Hehn's Kulturpflanzen, p. 246 (8th ed.).

3 Vorgeschichtliche Botanik, p. 159.

4 I am unable, however, to share Buschan's view that the wild specimens of Iran
and north-western India also belong to this class; that area is too extensive to
allow of so narrow an interpretation. In this case, Buschan is prejudiced in order
to establish his own hypothesis of an indigenous origin of the tree in Arabia (see
below).

6 In Hehn's Kulturpflanzen, p. 247.

276



THE POMEGRANATE 277

area; and Hehn is quite right in dating its cultivation on the part of
the Greeks to a time after the Homeric epoch, and deriving it from Asia
Minor.

G. BuscHAN 1 holds that Europe is out of the question as to the
indigenous occurrence of the pomegranate, and with regard to Punica
protopunica, discovered by Balfour on the Island of Socotra, proposes
Arabia felix as the home of the tree; but he fails to explain the diffusion
of the tree from this alleged centre. He opposes Loret's conclusions
with reference to Egypt, where he believes that the tree was naturalized
from the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty; but he overlooks the prin-
cipal point made by Loret, namely, that the Egyptian name is a Semitic
loan-word. 2 Buschan's theory conflicts with all historical facts, and
has not been accepted by any one.

The pomegranate-tree is supposed to be mentioned in the Avesta
under the name haddnaepata* the wood serving as fuel, and the juice
being employed in sacrificial libations; but this interpretation is solely
given by the present ParsI of India and Yezd, and is not certain. The
fruit, however, is mentioned in Pahlavi literature (above, p. 193).

There are numerous allusions to the pomegranate of Persia on
the part of Mohammedan authors and European travellers, and it
would be of little avail to cite all these testimonies on a subject which
is perfectly well known. Suffice it to refer to the Fdrs Ndmah* and to
give the following extract from A. OLEARIUS : 6

" Pomegranate-trees, almond-trees, and fig-trees grow there with-
out any ordering or cultivation, especially in the Province of Kilan,
where you have whole forests of them. The wild pomegranates, which
you find almost every where, especially at Karabag, are sharp or sowrith.

1 Vorgeschichtliche Botanik, p. 159.

2 This fact was simultaneously and independently found by an American
Egyptologist, CH. E. MOLDENKE (ttber die in altagyptischen Texten erwahnten
Baume, p. 115, doctor dissertation of Strassburg, Leipzig, 1887); so that LORET
(Flore pharaonique, p. 76) said, "Moldenke est arrive" presque en me"me temps que
moi, et par des moyens diffe"rents, ce qui donne une entiere certitude a notre d6-
couverte commune, a la determination du nom e'gyptien de la grenade." See also
C. JORET, Plantes dans I'antiquite", Vol. I, p. 117. Buschan's book appeared in 1895;
nevertheless he used Loret's work in the first edition of 1887, instead of the second
of 1892, which is thoroughly revised and enlarged.

3 For instance, Yasna, 62, 9; 68, I. Cf. also A. V. W. JACKSON, Persia Past
and Present, p. 369.

4 G. LE STRANGE, Description of the Province of Pars in Persia, p. 38 (London,
1912). See also D'HERBELOT, Biblioth6que orientale, Vol. Ill, p. 188; and F. SPIEGEL,
Eranische Altertumskunde, Vol. I, p. 252.

6 Voyages of the Ambassadors to the Great Duke of Muscovy, and the King
of Persia (1633-39), p. 232 (London, 1669).



278 SlNO-lRANICA

They take out of them the seed, which they call Nardan, wherewith
they drive a great trade, and the Persians make use of it in their
sawces, whereto it gives a colour, and a picquant tast, having been
steep'd in water, and strain'd through a cloath. Sometimes they boyl
the juyce of these Pomegranates, and keep it to give a colour to the
rice, which they serve up at their entertainments, and it gives it withall
a tast which is not unpleasant. . . . The best pomegranates grow in
Jescht, and at Caswin, but the biggest, in Karabag."

Mirza Haidar mentions a kind of pomegranate peculiar to Baluris-
tan (Kafiristan), sweet, pure, and full-flavored, its seeds being white
and very transparent. 1

"Grapes, melons, apples, and pomegranates, all fruits, indeed, are
good in Samarkand." 2 The pomegranates of Khojand were renowned
for their excellence. 3 The Emperor Jahangir mentions in his Memoirs
the sweet pomegranates of Yazd and the subacid ones of Farrah, and
says of the former that they are celebrated all over the world. 4 J.
CRAWFURD 8 remarks, "The only good pomegranates which, indeed,
I have ever met with are those brought into upper India by the cara-
vans from eastern Persia."

The Yu yan tsa tsu 6 states that the pomegranates of Egypt %J$ft1$.
(Wu-se-li, *Mwir-si-li, Mirsir) 7 in the country of the Arabs (Ta-si,
*Ta-d2ik) weigh up to five and six catties.

Also in regard to the pomegranate we meet the tradition that its
introduction into China is due to General Can K'ien. In the same
manner as in the case of the walnut, this notion looms up only in
post-Han authors. It is first recorded by Lu Ki Bl $8, who lived under
the Western Tsin dynasty (A.D. 265-313), in his work Yu ti yun $u
& f& llf. This text has been handed down in the Ts'i min yao $u
of Kia Se-niu of the sixth century. 8 There it is said that Can K'ien,
while an envoy of the Han in foreign countries for eighteen years,
obtained t*u-lin ^ W, this term being identical with nan-$i-liu jf 15
VS. This tradition is repeated in the Po wu i 9 of Can Hwa and in the

1 ELIAS and Ross, Tarikh-i-Rashidi, p. 386.
a A. S. BEVERIDGE, Memoirs of Babur, p. 77.

3 Ibid., p. 8. They are also extolled by Ye-lu C'u-ts'ai (BRETSCHNEIDER, Mediae-
val Researches, Vol. I, p. 19).

4 H. M. ELLIOT, History of India as told by Its Own Historians, Vol. VI, p. 348 .
8 History of the Indian Archipelago, Vol. I, p. 433.

8 $8 36 Ch. 10, p. 4 b (ed. of Tsin tai pi Su).

7 Old Persian Mudraya, Hebrew Mizraim, Syriac Mezroye.

8 Ch. 4, p. 14 b (new ed., 1896).

9 See above, p. 258.



THE POMEGRANATE 279

Tu i li 39 M ;, written by Li Yu ^ % (or Li Yuan %) of the Tang
dynasty. Another formal testimony certifying to the acceptance of
this creed at that period comes from Fun Yen 3Nf iSC of the Tang in
his Fun Si wen kien ki M & ffi & 12 ,* who states that Can K'ien
obtained in the Western Countries the seeds of Si-liu 35 f and alfalfa
(mu-su), and that at present these are to be found everywhere in
China. Under the Sung this tradition is repeated by Kao C'en iti ^c. 2
C'en Hao-tse, in his Hwa kin* published in 1688, states it as a cold-
blooded fact that the seeds of the pomegranate came from the country
Nan-si or An-si (Parthia), and that Can K'ien brought them back.
There is nothing to this effect in Can K'ien's biography, nor is the
pomegranate mentioned in the Annals of the Han. 4 The exact time of
its introduction cannot be ascertained, but the tree is on record no earlier
than the third and fourth centuries A.D. 5

Li Si-Sen ascribes the term nan-$i-liu to the Pie lu J5!l ^, but he
cites no text from this ancient work, so that the case is not clear. 6
The earliest author whom he quotes regarding the subject is Tao
Hun-kin (A.D. 452-536), who says, "The pomegranate, particularly as
regards its blossoms, is charming, hence the people plant the tree in
large numbers. It is also esteemed, because it comes from abroad.
There are two varieties, the sweet and the sour one, only the root of
the latter being used by physicians." According to the Ts*i min yao $u,
Ko Hun 1 8 of the fourth century, in his Pao p*u tse JB tt ?, speaks
of the occurrence of bitter liu "\5 1S on stony mountains. These, indeed,

1 Ch. 7, p. i b (ed. of Ki fu ts'un Su).

2 Si wu ki yuan !j % J6 ]jj( (ed. of Si yin Man ts'un $u), Ch. 10, p. 34 b.

3 Ch. 3, p. 37, edition of 1783; see above, p. 259.

4 The Can-K'ien legend is repeated without criticism by BRETSCHNEIDER
(Bot. Sin., pt. i, p. 25; pt. 3, No. 280), so that A. DE CANDOLLE (Origin of Cultivated
Plants, p. 238) was led to the erroneous statement that the pomegranate was intro-
duced into China from Samarkand by Can K'ien, a century and a half before the
Christian era. The same is asserted by F. P. SMITH (Contributions towards the
Materia Medica of China, p. 176), G. A. STUART (Chinese Materia Medica, p. 361),
and HIRTH (T*oung Pao, Vol. VI, 1895, p. 439).

6 It is mentioned in the Kin kwei yao lio (Ch. c, p. 27) of the second century A.D.,
"Pomegranates must not be eaten in large quantity, for they injure man's lungs."
As stated (p. 205), this may be an interpolation in the original text.

6 The Pie lu is not quoted to this effect in the Cen lei pen ts'ao (Ch. 22, p. 39),
but the Ci wu min Si t*u k'ao (Ch. 15, p. 102; and 32, p. 36 b) gives two different
extracts from this work relating to our fruit. In one, its real or alleged medical prop-
erties are expounded; in the other, different varieties are enumerated, while not a
word is said about foreign origin. I am convinced that in this form these two texts
were not contained in the Pie lu. The question is of no consequence, as the work
itself is lost, and cannot be dated exactly. All that can be said with certainty is that
it existed prior to the time of T'ao Hun-kin.



280 SlNO-lRANICA

are the particular places where the pomegranate thrives. Su Sun of
the Sung period states that the pomegranate was originally grown in
the Western Countries (S* yii ffi $S), and that it now occurs everywhere;
but neither he nor any other author makes a positive statement as to
the time and exact place of origin. The Yao sin lun, Pen ts'ao si i,
and Pen ts'ao yen i l give merely a botanical notice, but nothing of his-
torical interest.

The pomegranate (si-liu) is mentioned in the "Poem on the Capital
of Wu" ^ U 8R by Tso Se & J&, who lived in the third century under
the Wu dynasty (A.D. 222-280). P'an Yo iS -r, a poet of the fourth
century A.D., says, "Pomegranates are the most singular trees of the
empire and famous fruits of the Nine Provinces. 2 A thousand seed-
cases are enclosed by the same membrane, and what looks like a single
seed in fact is ten/'

The Tsin Lun nan k'i ku lu W 81 ^ jfi Jg & (" Annotations on
the Conditions of the period Lun-nan [A.D. 397-402] of the Tsin Dy-
nasty") contains the following note: 3 "The pomegranates (nan si
liu) of the district Lin-yuan IS Sc in Wu-liii B IS 4 are as large as cups;
they are not sour to the taste. Each branch bears six fruits."

Lu Hui l^ftB of the Tsin dynasty, in his Ye lun ki US 3* ffi, 5 states
that in the park of Si Hu ^ fit there were pomegranates with seeds as
large as cups, and they were not sour. Si Hu or Si Ki-lufi 3? ^ fl ruled
from A.D. 335 to 349, under the appellation T'ai Tsu ;Jc IB. of the Hou
Cao dynasty, as "regent celestial king" (ku-se t'ien wan), and shifted
the capital to Ye ISi$, the present district of Lin-fen B$ f, in the pre-
fecture of Can-te ^ IS in Ho-nan. 6

The pomegranate is mentioned in the Ku kin Zu "ifr ^ ft, 7 written
by Ts'ui Pao -S f5 during the middle of the fourth century, with
reference to the pumelo W (Citrus grandis), the fruit of which is com-
pared in shape with the pomegranate. The Ts'i min yao Su (I.e.) gives
rules for the planting of pomegranates.

1 Ch. 1 8, p. 7 (ed. of Lu Sin-yuan); the other texts see in Cert lei pen ts'ao, I. c.

2 JL ^H , the ancient division of China under the Emperor Yu.

8 T'ai p'iA yii Ian, Ch. 970, p. 4 b. Regarding the department of records styled
k'i ku tu, see The Diamond, p. 35. In the Yuan kien lei han (Ch. 402, p. 2) the
same text is credited to the Sun Su.

4 In Hu-nan Province.

5 Ed. of Wu yin tien, p. 12.

6 Regarding his history, see L. WIEGER, Textes historiques, pp. 1095-1100.
BRETSCHNEIDER'S (Bot. Sin., pt. I, p. 211) note, that, besides the Ye lun ki of Lu
Hui, there isjanother work of the same name by Si Hu, is erroneous; Si Hu is simply
the "hero" of the Ye lun ki.

1 Ch. c, p. i (ed. of Han Wei ts'un Su or Ki fu ts'un Su). Cf. also below, p. 283.