PERSIAN TEXTILES BROCADES 489
twenty smaller ones, so that they could be accommodated on twenty
camels, and were presented once in three years by the Arabs to the
Kirgiz. The two nations had a treaty of mutual alliance, shared also
by the Tibetans, and guaranteeing protection of their trade against the
brigandage of the Uigur. 1 The term hu kin $% 18 ("brocades of the Hu,"
that is, Iranians) is used in the Kwan yii ki 3f H- IS 2 with reference to
Khotan. 3 The Iranian word for these textiles, though not recognized
heretofore, is also recorded by the Chinese. This is 31 tie, anciently
*dziep, dziep, diep, dib, 4 being the equivalent of a Middle-Persian form
*dib or *dep, 5 corresponding to the New-Persian word dlbd ("silk bro-
cade," a colored stuff in which warp and woof are both made of silk),
dlbah ("gold tissue ") , Arabicised dibdd% ("vest of brocade, cloth of gold") .
The fabric as well as the name come from Sasanian Persia, and were
known to the Arabs at Mohammed's time. 6 The Chinese term occurs
as a textile product of Persia in the Sui $u (Ch. 83, p. 7 b ). At a much
earlier date it is cited in the Han Annals (Hou Han $u, Ch. 116, p. 8)
as a product of the country of the Ai-lao in Yun-nan. This is not
surprising in view of the fact that at that period Yun-nan, by way of
India, was in communication with Ta Ts'in: in A.D. 120 Yun Yu Tiao
^t d3 M, King of the country T'an W, presented to the Chinese em-
peror musicians and jugglers, who stated that "they had come from
the Mediterranean $1 B, which is the same as Ta Ts'in, and that
south-west from the Kingdom of T'an there is communication with
Ta Ts'in." The commentator of the Han Annals refers to the Wai kwo
cwan fa & IS- 7 as saying that the women of Cu-po ft lU (Java) make
white tie and ornamented cloth ffi rfft. The character & po ("silk"),
preceding the term tie in the Han Annals, represents a separate item, and
1 Tan su, Ch. 217 B, p. 18; Tai p'in hwan yu ki, Ch. 199, p. 14. Cf. DEVRIA,
in Centenaire de 1'Ecole des Langues Orientales, p. 308.
2 Ch. 24, p. 7 b. Regarding the various editions of this work, see p. 251.
3 Likewise in the Sung Annals with reference to a tribute sent from Khotan
in 961 (CHAVANNES and PELLIOT, Traite" maniche'en, p. 274). Regarding Persian
brocades mentioned by mediaeval writers, see FRANCISQUE-MICHEL, Recherches sur
le commerce, la fabrication et 1'usage des e"tofles de soie d'or et d'argent, Vol. I,
PP- 315-317, Vol. II, pp. 57-58 (Paris, 1852, 1854).
4 According to the Yi ts'ie kin yin i (Ch. 19, p. 9 b), the pronunciation of the
character tie was anciently identical with that of f| (see No. 70), and has the fan
ts*ie $ $3; that is, Map, *diab, d'ab. The Tan $u Si yin (Ch. 23, p. i b) indicates
the same fan ts*ie by means of -fj '^. The phonetic element Jf^ serves for the
transcription of Sanskrit dmpa (PELLIOT, Bull, de VEcolefran$aise, Vol. IV, p. 357).
5 A Pahlavi form depak is indicated by WEST (Pahlavi Texts, Vol. I, p. 286) ;
hence Armenian dipak.
6 C. H. BECKER, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. I, p. 967.
7 Cf. Journal asiatique, 1918, II, p. 24.
490 SlNO-lRANICA
is not part of the transcription, any more than the word $$& kin, which
precedes it in the Sui Annals; but the combination of both po and kin
with tie indicates and confirms very well that the latter was a brocaded
silk. HiRTH 1 joins po with tie into a compound in order to save the
term for his pets the Turks. "The name po-tie is certainly borrowed
from one of the Turki languages. The nearest equivalent seems to be
the Jagatai Turki word for cotton, pakhta" There are two fundamental
errors involved here. First, the Cantonese dialect, on which Hirth
habitually falls back in attempting to restore the ancient phonetic
condition of Chinese, does not in fact represent the ancient Chinese
language, but is merely a modern dialect in a far-advanced stage of
phonetic decadence. The sounds of ancient Chinese can be restored
solely on the indications of the Chinese phonetic dictionarie^and on the
data of comparative Indo-Chinese philology. Even in Cantonese,
po-tie is pronounced pak-tip, and it is a prerequisite that the foreign
prototype of this word terminates in a final labial. The ancient pho-
netics of & H is not pak-ta, but *bak-dzip or *dip, and this bears no
relation to pakhta. Further, it is impossible to correlate a foreign
word that appears in China in the Han period with that of a com-
paratively recent Turkish dialect, especially as the Chinese data rela-
tive to the term do not lead anywhere to the Turks; and, for the rest,
the word pakhta is not Turkish, but Persian, in origin. 2 Whether the
term tie has anything to do with cotton, as already stated by CHA-
VANNES, 3 is uncertain; but, in view of the description of the plant as
given in the Nan Si* or Lian $u? it may be granted that the term po-tie
was subsequently transferred to cotton.
The ancient pronunciation of po-tie being *bak-dib, it would not be
impossible that the element bak represents a reminiscence of Middle
Persian pambak ("cotton"), New Persian panpa (Ossetic bambag,
Armenian bambak). This assumption being granted, the Chinese term
po-tie ( = Middle Persian *bak-6ib = pambak dip) would mean "cotton
brocade" or "cotton stuff." Again, po-tie was a product of Iranian
regions: kin siu po tie 4k SI S & is named as a product of K'aii (Sog-
diana) in the Sasanian era; 5 and, as has been shown, po-tie from Parthia
1 Chao Ju-kua, p. 218.
2 STEINGASS, Persian-English Dictionary, p. 237.
8 Documents sur les Tou-kiue occidentaux, p. 352.
4 Ch. 79, p. 6 b.
6 Ch. 54, p. 13 b. Cf. CHAVANNES, ibid., p. 102; see also F. W. K. MULLER,
Uigurica, II, pp. 70, 105.
Sui $u, Ch. 83, p. 4. Hence *bak-dlb may also have been a Sogdian word.
PERSIAN TEXTILES BROCADES 491
is specially named. Po-tie, further, appears in India; 1 and as early as
A.D. 430 Indian po-tie was sent to China from Ho-lo-tan ^ H W- on Java. 2
According to a passage of the Kin T'an $u? the difference between ku-
pei (Sanskrit karpasa) 4 and po-tie was this, that the former was a coarse,
1 Nan Si, Ch. 78, p. 7 a.
2 Sun Su, Ch. 97, p. 2 b.
3 Ch. 197, p. I b, indicated by PELLIOT (Bull, de VEcole fran$aise, Vol. Ill,
p. 269).
4 It is evident that the transcription ku-pei is not based directly on Sanskrit
karpasa; but I do not believe with WAITERS (Essays on the Chinese Language,
p. 440) and HIRTH (Chau Ju-kua, p. 218) that Malayan kdpas is at the root of the
Chinese form, which, aside from the lack of the final s, shows a peculiar vocalism that
cannot be explained from Malayan. Of living languages, it is Bahnar kopaih ("cot-
ton") which presents the nearest approach to Chinese ku-pei or ku-pai. It is there-
fore my opinion that the Chinese received the word from a language of Indo-China.
The history of cotton in China is much in need of a revision. The following case
is apt to show what misunderstandings have occurred in treating this subject.
Ku-cun (*ku-dzun, *ku-dun) "jjj $ is the designation of a cotton-like plant grown
in the province of Kwei-c"ou ^ j'H ; the yarn is dyed and made into pan pu f: ^ftj .
This is contained 'in the Nan Yue ci flj jtt S by Sen Hwai-yuan ^6 HC }L of the
fifth century (Pen ts'ao kan mu, Ch. 36, p. 24). SCHOTT (Altaische Studien, III,
Abh. Berl. Akad., 1867, pp. 137, 138; he merely refers to the source as "a descrip-
tion of southern China," without citing its title and date), although recognizing that
the question is of a local term, proposed, if it were permitted to read kutun instead
of kutun, to regard the word as an indubitable reproduction of Arabic qu}un, which
resulted in the colon, cotton, kattun, etc., of Europe. MAYERS then gave a similar
opinion; and HIRTH (Chau Ju-kua, p. 219), clinging to a Fu-Sou pronunciation
ku-tun (also WAITERS, Essays, p. 440, transcribes ku-tun), accepted the alleged
derivation from the Arabic. This, of course, is erroneous, as in the fifth century
there was no Arabic influence on China, nor did the Arabs themselves then know
cotton. It would also be difficult to realize how a plant of Kwei-c"ou could have
been baptized with an Arabic name at that or any later time. Moreover, ku-cun
is not a general term for "cotton" in Chinese; the above work remains the only
one in which it has thus far been indicated. Ku-cun, as Li Si-Sen points out, is a
tree-cotton yfC %$& (Bombax malabaricunt) , which originated among the Southern
Barbarians (Nan Fan ]^ ^), and which at the end of the Sung period was trans-
planted into Kian-nan. It is very likely that, as stated by STUART (Chinese Materia
Medica, p. 197), the cotton-tree was known in China from very ancient times, and
that its product was used in the manufacture of cloth before the introduction of the
cotton-plant (Gossypium herbaceum). In fact, the same work Nan yue U reports,
"None of the Man tribes in the kingdom Nan-Sao rear silkworms, but they merely
obtain the seeds of the so-lo (*sa-la) | |H tree, the interior of which is white and
contains a floss that can be wrought like silk and spun into cloth; it bears the name
so-lo lun twan g f| H &" The Fan yucijj S& ^ of Cu Mu $J ^ of the Sung
period alludes to the same tree, which is said to be from thirty to fifty feet in height.
The Ko ku yao lun (Ch. 8, p. 4 b; ed. of Si yin huan ts'un su) speaks of cotton stuffs
!ffi jH i& ( JS ; tou-lo = Sanskrit tula) which come from the Southern Barbarians,
Tibet (Si-fan), and Yun-nan, being woven from the cotton in the seeds of the so-lo
tree, resembling velvet, five to six feet wide, good for making bedding and also clothes.
The Tien hi writes the word ^ H (G. SOULI, Bull, de VEcole jranq aise, Vol. VIII,
? 343)- So-let is the indigenous name of the tree; sa-la is still the Lo-lo designation
492 SlNO-lRANICA
and the latter a fine textile. In the Glossary of the T'ang Annals the
word tie is explained as "fine hair" &ffl ^ and "hair cloth" ^ ^; these
terms indeed refer to cotton stuffs, but simultaneously hint at the fact
that the real nature of cotton was not yet generally known to the Chinese
of the T'ang period. In the Kwan yu ki, po-tie is named as a product of
Turf an; the threads, it is said, are derived from wild silkworms, and
resemble fine hemp.
Russian altabds ("gold or silver brocade," "Persian brocade":
DAI/), Polish altembas, and French altobas, in my opinion, are nothing
but reproductions of Arabic-Persian al-dlbadZ, discussed above. The
explanation from Italian alto-basso is a jocular popular etymology; and
the derivation from Turkish altun ("gold") and b'az ("textile") 1 is
likewise a failure. The fact that textiles of this description were subse-
quently manufactured in Europe has nothing to do, nor does it conflict,
with the derivation of the name which Inostrantsev wrongly seeks in
Europe. 2 In the seventeenth century the Russians received altabds
from the Greeks; and Ibn Rosteh, who wrote about A.D. 903, speaks
then of Greek dibad%? According to Makkari, dibadZ were manufac-
tured by the Arabs in Almeria, Spain, 4 the centre of the Arabic silk
industry. 5
70. U?i fa-ten, Map ( = Sj) 8 -dafi ( = 3), tap-tan, woollen rugs.
The name of this textile occurs in the Wei lio of the third century A.D.
as a product of the anterior Orient (Ta Ts'in) , 7 and in the Han Annals
for cotton (ViAL, Dictionnaire francais lo-lo, p. 97). Likewise it is sa-la in P'u-p'a,
so-lo in C6-ko (Bull, de VEcole frangaise, Vol. IX, p. 554). In the same manner I
believe that *ku-dzun was the name of the same or a similar tree in the language of
the aborigines of Kwei-ou. Compare Lepcha ka-cuk ki kun ("cotton-tree"), Siii-p'o
ga-dun ("cotton- tree"), given by J. F. NEEDHAM (Outline Grammar of the Singpho
Language, p. 90, Shillong, 1889), and Meo coa ("cotton"), indicated by M. L.
PIERLOT (Vocabulaire m6o, Actes du XIV* Congres int. des Orientalistes Alger
1905, pt. I, p. 150).
1 Proposed by SAVEL'EV in Erman's Archiv, Vol. VII, 1848, p. 228.
1 K. INOSTRANTSEV, Iz istorii starinnyx tkanei (Zapiski Oriental Section Russian
Archaeol. Soc., Vol. XIII, 1901, pp. 081-084).
1 G. JACOB, Handelsartikel, p. 7; Waren beim arabisch-nordischen Verkehr,
p. 1 6.
4 G. MIGEON, Manuel d'art musulman, Vol. II, p. 420.
5 DEFREMERY, Journal asiatique, 1854, p. 168; FRANCISQUE-MICHEL, Recherches
sur le commerce, la fabrication et Tusage des toffes de soie, d'or et d'argent, Vol. I,
pp. 232, 284-290 (Paris, 1852).
6 The fan ts'ie is $ Jjjj; that is, *du-kiap = d'iap (Yi ts'ie kinyin *,Ch. 19, p. 9 b),
or * $9 *du-hap=dap (Hou Han $u, Ch. 118, p. 5 b).
7 F. HIRTH, China and the Roman Orient, pp. 71, 112, 113, 255. T'a-ten of five
and nine colors are specified.
PERSIAN TEXTILES RUGS 493
as a product of India. 1 In the Sui Annals it appears as a product of
Persia. 2 CHAVANNES has justly rejected the fantastic explanation given
in the dictionary Si min, which merely rests on an attempt at punning.
The term, in fact, represents a transcription that corresponds to a
Middle-Persian word connected with the root Vtab ("to spin")*
cf. Persian taftan ("to twist, to spin"), tabad ("he spins"), tdfta or tqfte
("garment woven of linen, kind of silken cloth, taffeta"). Greek Tcnrrjs
and TCLTrrjTlov (frequent in the Papyri; TairLdvQol, "rug-weavers") are
derived from Iranian. 3 There is a later Attic form dams. The Middle-
Persian form on which the Chinese transcription is based was perhaps
*taptaii, tapetaii, -an being the termination of the plural. The Persian
word resulted in our taffeta (med. Latin taffata, Italian taffeta, Spanish
tafetan).
71. To the same type as the preceding one belongs another Chinese
transcription, ffi ffl fo(t*o)-pi, ftj 8? tso-p*i, or $5 '& tso-pi, dance-
rugs sent to China in A.D. 718 and 719 from Maimargh and Bukhara
respectively. 4 These forms correspond to an ancient *ta-bik (2 or i$)
or *ta-bi5 (&), and apparently go back to two Middle-Persian forms
*tabi% and *tabe5 or *tabiS (or possibly with medial p). &
72. More particularly we hear in the relations of China with
Persia about a class of textiles styled yue no pu fif 'ft?. 6 As far as I
know, this term occurs for the first time in the Annals of the Sui Dy-
nasty (A.D. 590-617), in the notice on Po-se (Persia). 7 This indicates
that the object in question, and the term denoting it, hailed from Sasa-
nian Persia.
1 E. CHAVANNES, Les Pays d'occident d'apres le Heou Han Chou (T'oung Pao,
1907, p. 193). Likewise Jin the Nan $i (Ch. 78, p. 5 b) and in Cao Zu-kwa (trans-
lation of HIRTH and ROCKHILL, p. in).
2 Sui $11, Ch. 83, p. 7 b.
3 P. HORN, Grundriss iran. Phil., Vol. I, pt. 2, p. 137. NOLDEKE'S notion
(Persische Studien, II, p. 40) that Persian tanbasa ("rug, carpet") should be derived
from the Greek word, in my opinion, is erroneous.
4 CHAVANNES, T'oung Pao, 1904, p. 34.
5 These two parallels possibly are apt to shed light on the Old High-German
duplicates tepplh and teppid. The latter has been traced directly to Italian tappeto
(Latin tapete, tapetum), but the origin of the spirant x i n tepplh has not yet been
explained, and can hardly be derived from the final /. Would derivation from an
Iranian source, direct or indirect, be possible?
6 According to HIRTH (Chau Ju-kua, p. 220), "a light cotton gauze or muslin,
of two kinds, pure white, and spangled with gold"; but this is a doubtful explana-
tion.
7 Sui su, Ch. 83, p. 7 b. This first citation of the term has escaped all previous
writers on the subject, Hirth, Chavannes, and Pelliot. From the Sui su the text
passed into the T'ai p'in hwan yil ki (Ch. 185, p. 18 b).
494 SlNO-lRANICA
In the T'ang Annals we read that in the beginning of the period
K'ai-yiian (A.D. 713-741) the country of K'afi (Sogdiana), an Iranian
region, sent as tribute to the Chinese Court coats-of-mail, cups of rock-
crystal, bottles of agate, ostrich-eggs, textiles styled yue no, dwarfs,
and dancing-girls of Hu-suan $3 JS (Xwarism). 1 In the Ts'efu yuan kwei
the date of this event is more accurately fixed in the year 7i8. 2 The
Man $u, written by Fan Co of the T'ang period, about A.D. 86o, 3 men-
tions yue no as a product of the Small P'o-lo-men /h 31 ii P5 (Brah-
mana) country, which was conterminous with P'iao JH (Burma) and
Mi-c"'en (*Mid2en) 9f 15. 4 This case offers a parallel to the presence
of tie in the Ai-lao country in Yiin-nan.
The Annals of the Sung mention yue no as exported by the Arabs
into China. 5 The Lin wai tai ta, G written by Cou K'u-fei in 1178, men-
tions white yile-no stuffs in the countries of the Arabs, in Bagdad, and
yile-no stuffs in the country Mi IS.
HiRTH 7 was the first to reveal the term yue no in Cao Zu-kwa, who
attributes white stuffs of this name to Bagdad. His transcription yiit-
nok, made on the basis of Cantonese, has no value for the phonetic
restoration of the name, and his hypothetical identification with cut-
tanee must be rejected; but as to his collocation of the second element
with Marco Polo's nac, he was on the right trail. He was embarrassed,
however, by the first element yue, " which can in no way be explained
from Chinese and yet forms part of the foreign term." Hence in his
complete translation of the work 8 he admits that the term cannot as
yet be identified. His further statement, that in the passage of the
T*ah $u, quoted above, the question is possibly of a country yile-no
(Bukhara), rests on a misunderstanding of the text, which speaks only
of a textile or textiles. The previous failures in explaining the term
simply result from the fact that no serious attempt was made to restore
1 Cf. CHAVANNES, Documents sur les Tou-kiue occidentaux, pp. 136, 378,
with the rectification of PELLIOT (Bull, de VEcole frangaise, Vol. IV, 1904, p.^483).
Regarding the dances of Hu-suan, see Kin Si hwiyuan kiao k'an ki ^ ^ 'ft 7G $
^ ffi (p- 3). Critical Annotations on the Kin Si hwi yuan by Li San-kiao ^ J^ ^
of the Sung (in Ki fu ts'un Su, t'ao 10).
2 CHAVANNES, T'oung Pao, 1904, p. 35.
3 See above, p. 468.
4 Man Su, p. 44 b (ed. of Yun-nan pei ten li). Regarding Mi-S'en, see PELLIOT,
Bull, de VEcole frang aise, Vol. IV, p. 171.
5 Sun Si, Ch. 490; and BRETSCHNEIDER, Knowledge possessed by the Chinese
of the Arabs, p. 12. Bretschneider admitted that this product was unknown to him.
6 Ch. 3, pp. 2-3.
7 Lander des Islam, p. 42 (Leiden, 1894).
8 Chau Ju-kua, p. 220.
PERSIAN TEXTILES YUE No 495
it to its ancient phonetic condition. 1 Moreover, it was not recognized
that yue no represents a combination of two Iranian words, and that
each of these elements denotes a particular Iranian textile.
(1) The ancient articulation of what is now sounded yue @ was
*vat, va5, wia5, or, with liquid final, *var or *val. 2 Thus it may well
be inferred that the Chinese transcription answers to a Middle-Persian
form of a type *var or *val. There is a Persian word barnu or barnun
("brocade"), vdld, which means "a kind of silken stuff," 3 and balds,
"a kind of fine, soft, thin armosin silk, an old piece of cloth, a kind of
coarse woollen stuff." 4
(2) H? no corresponds to an ancient *nak, 5 and is easily identified
with Persian nax (nakk), "a carpet beautiful on both sides, having a
long pile; a small carpet with a short pile; a raw thread of yarn of any
sort," 6 but also "brocade." The early mention of the Chinese term,
especially in the Sui Annals, renders it quite certain that the word nak
or naoc was even an element of the Middle-Persian language. Hither-
to it had been revealed only in mediaeval authors, the Yuan Fao pi &*,
*DE GOE JE'S identification of yue-no pu with djanndbi (in HIRTH, Lander des Islam,
p. 61) is a complete failure: pu ("cloth") does not form part of the transcription,
which can only be read va8-nak, var-nak, or val-nak. TSUBOI KUMAZO (Actes XII*
Congres international des Orientalistes Rome 1899, Vol. II, p. 112) has already
opposed this unfortunate suggestion.
2 For examples, see CHAVANNES, Me"moires historiques de Se-ma Ts'ien,
Vol. IV, p. 559; and particularly cf. PELLIOT, Journal asiatique, 1914, II, p. 392.
3 STEINGASS, Persian-English Dictionary, p. 1453. HORN (Grundriss iran.
Phil., Vol. I, pt. 2, p. 29) translates the word "a fine stuff, " and regards it as a loan-
word from Greek pjj\ov ("veil"), first proposed, I believe, by NOLDEKE (Persische
Studien, II, p. 39). This etymology is not convincing to me. On the contrary,
vala is a genuine Persian word, meaning "eminent, exalted, high, respectable, sub-
lime, noble"; and it is quite plausible that this attribute was transferred to a fine
textile. It was, further, the Persians who taught the Greeks lessons in textile art,
but not the reverse. F. JUSTI (Iranisches Namenbuch, p. 516) attributes to vdld
also the meaning "banner of silk."
4 STEINGASS, op. cit., p. 150. The Iranian character of this word is indicated
by Waxl palds, Sariqoll palus ("coarse woollen cloth") of the Pamir languages.
Perhaps also Persian bat ("stuff of fine wool"), Waxl bot, Sariqoll bel (cf. W. TOMA-
SCHEK, Pamirdialekte, Sitzber. Wiener Akad., 1880, p. 807) may be enlisted as possible
prototypes of Chinese *vat, val; but I do not believe with Tomaschek that this
series bears any relation to Sanskrit pafta and ld(a or Armenian lotik ("mantle").
The latter, in my opinion, is a loan-word from Greek Xw5i ("cover, rug"), that
appears in the Periplus ( 24) and in the Greek Papyri of the first century A.D.
(T. REIL, Beitrage zur Kenntnis des Gewerbes im hellenistischen ^Egypten, p. 118).
5 See, for instance, T'oung Pao, 1914, p. 77, and 1915, p. 8, where the character
in question serves for transcribing Tibetan nag. It further corresponds to nak
in Annamese, Korean, and Japanese, as well as in the transcriptions of Sanskrit
words.
8 STEINGASS, Persian-English Dictionary, p. 1391.
496 SlNO-lRANICA
Yuan U, Ibn Batata, Rubruk, Marco Polo, Pegoletti, etc. 1 W. BANG
has shown in a very interesting essay 2 that also the Codex Cumanicus
contains the term nac (Cumanian), parallel with Persian nagh and Latin
nachus, in the sense of "gold brocades/ 'and that the introitus natorum
et nascitorum of the books of tax-rates of Genoa about 1420 refers to
these textiles, and has nothing to do with the endowment of the new-
born, as had been translated. Bang points out also "ndchi, a kinde
of slight silke wouen stuffe" in Florio, "Queen Anna's New World of
Words" (London, 1611). In mediaeval literature the term nac, nak,
naque, or nachiz occurs as early as the eleventh century, and figures in
an inventory of the Cathedral of Canterbury of the year 1315.
73. 1HM hu-na, *yu-na, a textile product of Persia 3 (or M fift). 4 An
ancient Iranian equivalent is not known to me, but must be supposed
to have been *yuna or *guna. This word may be related to Sighnan
(Pamir language) ghdun ("coarse sack"), Kashmir gun, Sanskrit gomf
Anglo-Indian gunny, gunny-bag, trading-name of the coarse sacking
and sacks made from the fibre of the jute. 6
74. tffi fan, *dan, *tan, a textile product of Persia, likewise men-
tioned in the Sui Annals. This is doubtless the Middle-Persian des-
ignation of a textile connected with the root Vtan ("to spin"), of
which several Middle-Persian forms are preserved. 7 Compare Avestan
tanva, Middle Persian tanand, Persian tamdan, tanando ("spider"),
and, further, Persian tan-basa, tan-bisa ("small carpet, rug"); tanld
("a web"); tamdan ("to twist, weave, spin").
75. Js &&$[) sa-ha-la or 55 P' IJ S so-ha-la, of green color, is men-
1 See E. BRETSCHNEIDER, Notices of the Mediaeval Geography, p. 288, or Me-
diaeval Researches, Vol. II, p. 124; YULE, Cathay, new ed. by CORDIER, Vol. Ill,
pp. 155-156, 169; YULE, Marco Polo, Vol. I, pp. 63, 65, 285; W. HEYD, Histoire
du commerce du levant au moyen age, p. 698; and, above all, F.-MiCHEL, Recherches
sur le commerce etc., des toffes de soie, Vol. I, pp. 261-264. A. HOUTUM-SCHINDLER
(Journal As. Soc. Bengal, Vol. VI, 1910, p. 265) states that nax occurs in a letter of
RaSid-eddin.
2 Ueber den angeblichen "Introitus natorum et nascitorum" in den Genueser
Steuerbuchern, in Bull, de la Classe des Lettres de I'Academie royale de Belgique,
No. i, 1912, pp. 27-32.
3 Sui $u, Ch. 83, p. 7 b.
4 T'ai p'in hwan yil ki, Ch. 185, p. 18 b.
5 W. TOMASCHEK, Pamirdialekte (Sitzber. Wiener Akad., 1880, p. 808).
6 YULE, Hobson-Jobson, p. 403.
; SALEMANN, Grundriss iran. Phil., Vol. I, pt. I, p. 303.
8 This transcription is given in the fran wu ci g $0 J by Wen Cen-hen 3^
R ^ of the Ming (Ch. 8, p. I b; ed. of Yue ya fan ts'un su). He describes the
material as resembling sheep-wool, as thick as felt, coming from the Western
Regions, and very expensive.
PERSIAN TEXTILES WOOLLEN STUPES 497
tioned in the Ming history as having been sent as a present in 1392 from
Samarkand/ The Ming Geography, as stated by BRETSCHNEiDER, 1
mentions this stuff as a manufacture of Bengal and So-li, saying that
it is woven from wool and is downy. There is a red and a green kind.
Bretschneider's view, that by sa-ha-la the Persian Sal is intended, must
be rejected. 2 In the Yin yai sen Ian of 1416, sa-ha-la is enumerated
among the goods shipped from Malacca, being identified by GROENE-
VELDT with Malayan saklat or sahalat? Sa-ha-la is further mentioned
for Ormuz and Aden. 4
In the Ko ku yao lun $* "& H fft, written by Ts'ao Cao W i@ in
1387, revised and enlarged in 1459 by Wan Tso 3: fe, 5 we meet this
word in the transcription ffl ( = $5) $S 3fil sa-hai-laf which is said to
come from Tibet B HI in pieces three feet ( in width, woven from wool,
strong and thick like felt, and highly esteemed by Tibetans. Under the
heading p'u-lo ^ it ( = Tibetan p'rug) 7 it is said in the same work that
this Tibetan woollen stuff resembles sa-hai-la.
Persian sakirlat, sagirldt, has been placed on a par with Chinese
sa-ha-la by T. WATTERS S and A. HouTUM-ScniNDLER; 9 it is not this
Persian word, however, that is at the root of Chinese sa-ha-la t but
saqalat or saqalldt, also saqalat y saqalldt ("scarlet cloth"). Dr. E. D.
Ross 10 has been so fortunate as to discover in a Chinese-Persian vocabu-
lary of 1 549 the equation : Chinese sa-ha-la = Persian saqalat. This settles
the problem definitely. There is, further, Persian saqldtun or saqlafin,
said to mean "a city in Rum where scarlet cloth is made, scarlet cloth
or dress made from it." The latter name is mentioned as early as
A.D. 1040 and 1150 by Baihaki and Edrlsi respectively. 11 According to
Edrisi, it was a silk product of Almeria in Spain, which is doubtless
meant by the city of Rum. Yaqut tells of its manufacture in Tabriz,
1 Mediaeval Researches, Vol. II, p. 258.
2 Regarding the Chinese transcription of this Persian word, see ROCKHILL, T'oung
Poo, 1915, p. 459.
3 Notes on the Malay Archipelago, p. 253.
4 ROCKHILL, T'oung Pao, 1915, pp. 444, 606, 608. It does not follow from the
text, however, that sa-ha-la was a kind of thin veiling or gauze, as the following
term (or terms) || j^J? is apparently a matter in itself.
5 Ch. 8, p. 4 b (ed. of Si yin Man ts'un Su).
6 This mode of writing is also given in the &an wu Zi, cited above.
7 T'oung Pao, 1914, p. 91.
8 Essays on the Chinese Language, p. 342.
9 Journal As. Soc. Bengal, Vol. VI, 1910, p. 265.
10 Journal As. Soc. Bengal, Vol. IV, 1908, p. 403.
11 YULE, Hobson-Jobson, p. 861.
49 8 SlNO-lRANICA
so that the Chinese reference to Samarkand becomes intelligible. The
Chinese reports of sa-ha-la in India, Ormuz, and Aden, however, evi-
dently refer to European broadcloth, as does also Tibetan sag-lad. 1
The Ain-i Akbari speaks of sukldt (saqaldt) of Ram (Turkey),
Farangi (Europe), and Purtagal! (Portugal); and the Persian word is
now applied to certain woollen stuffs, and particularly to European
broadcloth.
The Persian words sakirldt and saqaldt are not interrelated, as is
shown by two sets of European terms which are traced to the two
Persian types: sakirldt is regarded as the ancestor of " scarlet" (med.
Latin scarlatum, scarlata; Old French escarlate, New French ecarlate,
Middle English scarlat, etc.); saqldtun or siqldtun is made responsible
for Old French siglaton, Provencal sisclaton (twelfth century), English
obs. ciclatoun (as early as 1225), Middle High German cicldt or sigldt.
Whether the alleged derivations from the Persian are correct is a de-
batable point, which cannot be discussed here; the derivation of siglaton
from Greek /cu/cXds (cyclas), due to Du Cange, is still less plausible. 2
Dr. Ross (I.e.) holds that "the origin of the word scarlet seems to be
wrapped in mystery, and there seems to be little in favor of the argu-
ment that the word can be traced to Arabic or Persian sources. "
76. Toward the close of the reign of Kao Tsun iS ^, better known
as Wen C'efi 3$C $ (A.D. 452-465) of the Hou Wei dynasty (386-532),
the king of Su-le (Kashgar) sent an emissary to present a garment
(kdsdya) of f akyamuni Buddha, over twenty feet in length. On ex-
amination, Kao Tsun satisfied himself that it was a Buddha robe. It
proved a miracle, for, in order to get at the real facts, the Emperor
had the cloth put to a test and exposed to a violent fire for a full day, but
it was not consumed by the flames. All spectators were startled and
spell-bound. 3 This test has repeatedly been made everywhere with
asbestine cloth, of which many examples are given in my article
"Asbestos and Salamander." 4 The Chinese themselves have recog-
nized without difficulty that this Buddha relic of Kashgar was made
of an asbestine material. In the Lu Fan kun $i k*i, 5 a modern work,
1 See Loan- Words in Tibetan, No. 119.
2 Cf. also P.-MiCHEL, Recherches sur le commerce etc., des e"toffes de soie,
Vol. I, pp. 233-235. The Greek word in question does not refer to a stuff, but to a
robe (KVK\&S, "round, circular," scil., eo-flifc, "a woman's garment with a border all
round it"). Cycladatus in Suetonius (Caligula, LII) denotes a tunic with a rich border.
3 Wei $u, Ch. 102, p. 4 b.
4 T'oung Pao, 1915, pp. 299-373.
6 Ed. of Ts'in lao fan ts'un $u, p. 40 (see above, p. 346). On p. 41 b there is a
notice of fire-proof cloth, consisting of quotations from earlier works, which are
all contained in my article.
PERSIAN TEXTILES ASBESTOS 499
which contains a -great number of valuable annotations on subject-
matters mentioned in the Annals, the kdsdya of Kashgar is identified
with the fire-proof cloth of the Western Regions and Fu-nan (Camboja) ;
that is, asbestos.
During the K'ai-yuan and T'ien-pao periods (A.D. 713-755), Persia
sent ten embassies to China, offering among other things "embroideries
of fire-hair" (hwo mao siu ^C ^ IK). 1 CnAVANNES 2 translates this term
"des broderies en laine couleur de feu." In my opinion, asbestos is
here in question. Thus the term was already conceived by ABEL-
REMUSAT. 3 I have shown that asbestos was well known to the Persians
and Arabs, and that the mineral came from BadaxSan. 4 An additional
1 T'an Iw, Ch. 221 B, p. 7. In the T'an hui yao (Ch. 100, p. 4) this event is
fixed in the year 750.
2 Documents sur les Tou-kiue, p. 173.
3 Nouveaux melanges asiatiques, Vol. I, p. 253. The term hwo pu fc ffi ("fire-
cloth") for asbestos appears in the Sun $u (Ch. 97, p. 10). The Chinese notions of
textiles made from an "ice silkworm," possibly connected with Persia (cf. H. MAS-
PERO, Bull, de I'Ecole frang aise, Vol. XV, No. 4, 1915, p. 46), in my opinion, must
be dissociated from asbestos; the Chinese sources (chiefly Wei lio, Ch. 10, p. 2 b)
say nothing to the effect that this textile was of the nature of asbestos. Maspero's
argumentation (ibid., pp. 43-45) in regard to the alleged asbestos from tree-bark,
which according to him should be a real asbestine stuff, appears to me erroneous.
He thinks that I have been misled by an inexact translation of S. W. WILLIAMS.
First, this translation is not by Williams, but, as expressly stated by me (/. c. t
p. 372), the question is of a French article of d'Hervey-St.-Denys, translated into
English by Williams. If an error there is (the case is trivial enough), it is not due to
Williams or myself, but solely to the French translator, who merits Maspero's criticism.
Second, Maspero is entirely mistaken in arguing that this translation should have
influenced my interpretation of the text on p. 338. This is out of the question, as all
this was written without knowledge of the article of St.-Denys and Williams, which
became accessible to me only after the completion and printing of the manuscript,
and was therefore relegated to the Addenda inserted in the proofs. Maspero's in-
terpretation leads to no tangible result, in fact, to nothing, as is plainly manifest
from his conclusion that one sort of asbestos should have been a textile, the other a
kind of felt. There is indeed no asbestos felt. How Maspero can deny that Malayan
bark-cloth underlies the Chinese traditions under notice, which refer to Malayan
regions, is not intelligible to me. Nothing can be plainer than the text of the
Liang Annals: "On Volcano Island there are trees which grow in the fire. The
people in the vicinity of the island peel off the bark, and spin and weave it into cloth
hardly a few feet in length. This they work into kerchiefs, which do not differ in
appearance from textiles made of palm and hemp fibres," etc. (pp. 346, 347). What
else is this but bark-cloth? And how could we assume a Malayan asbestine cloth
if asbestos has never been found and wrought anywhere in the Archipelago? I
trust that M. Maspero, for whose scholarship I have profound respect, will pardon
me for not accepting his opinion in this case, and for adhering to my own inter-
pretation. I may add here a curious notice from J. A. DE MANDELSLO'S Voyages
into the East Indies (p. 133, London, 1669): "In the Moluccaes there is a certain
wood, which, laid in the fire, burns, sparkles, and flames, yet consumes not, and
yet a man may rub it to powder betwixt his fingers."
4 T'oung Pao, 1915, pp. 327-328.
500 SlNO-lRANICA
text to this effect may be noted here. Ibn al-Faqlh, who wrote in
A.D. 902, has this account: "In Kirman there is wood that is not burnt
by fire, but comes out undamaged. 1 A Christian 2 wanted to commit
frauds with such wood by asserting that it was derived from the cross of
the Messiah. Christian folks were thus almost led into temptation. A
theologian, noting this man, brought them a piece of wood from Kir-
man, which was still more impervious to fire than his cross-wood."
According to P. ScHWARz, 3 to whom we owe the translation of this
passage, the question here is of fossilized forests. Most assuredly, how-
ever, asbestos is understood. The above text of the Wei $u is thus by
far the earliest allusion to asbestos from an Iranian region.
The following notes may serve as additional information to my
former contribution. Cou Mi M $? (1230-1320), in his Ci ya fan tsa
c'ao Jfe 3i ^ H &, mentions asbestine stuffs twice. 4 In one passage
he relates that in his house there was a piece of fire-proof cloth (hwo
hwan pu) over a foot long, which his maternal grandfather had once
obtained in Ts'uan Cou ^ /HI (Fu-kien Province). 8 Visitors to his house
were entertained by the experiment of placing it on the fire of a brazier.
Subsequently Cao Mon-i Jfi j HI borrowed it from him, but never
returned it. In the other text he quotes a certain Ho Ts'in-fu 9 ?ra 5fe
to the effect that fire-proof cloth is said to represent the fibres of the
mineral coal of northern China, burnt and woven, but not the hair of
the fire-rodent (salamander). This is accompanied by the comment
that coal cannot be wrought into fibres, but that now pu-hwei-mu
^F K ^C (a kind of asbestos) is found in Pao-tin (Ci-li). 6 A brief notice
of asbestos is inserted in the Ko ku yao lun, 7 where merely the old fables
are reiterated. Information on the asbestos of Ci-li Province will be
1 Qazwlnl adds to this passage, "even if left in fire for several days."
2 Qazwlnl speaks in general of charlatans.
3 Iran im Mittelalter, p. 214.
4 Ch. A, p. 20 b; and Ch. B, p. 25 b (ed. of Yue ya fail ts'un Su).
5 This locality renders it almost certain that this specimen belonged to those
imported by the Arabs into China during the middle ages (p. 331 of my article).
The asbestos of Mosul is already mentioned in the Lin wai tai ta (Ch. 3, p. 4).
6 The term pu-hwei-mu ("wood burning without ashes, incombustible wood")
appears as early as the Sung period in the Cen lei pen ts'ao (Ch. 5, p. 35): it comes
from San- tan (south-east portion of San-si and part of Ho-nan), and is now found
in the Tse-lu mountains g| $$ jlj . It is a kind of stone, of green and white color,
looking like rotten wood, and cannot be consumed by fire. Some call it the root of
soapstone.
7 Ch. 8, p. 4 (ed. of Si yin Man ts'ufi $u). In Ch. 7, p. 17, there is a notice on
pu-hwei-mu stone, stated to be a product of Tse-2ou and Lu-iian in San-si, and em-
ployed for lamps.
PERSIAN TEXTILES ASBESTOS 501
found in the Kifu t'un ci, 1 on asbestos of Se-c'wan in the Se c'wan fun ci. 2
In the eighteenth century the Chinese noticed asbestos among the
Portuguese of Macao, but the article was rarely to be found i^i the
market. 3 Hanzo Murakami discusses asbestos (^ $8, " stone cotton")
as occurring in the proximity of Kin-cou 4zt $H in Sen-kin, Manchuria. 4
In regard to the salamander, FRANCiSQUE-MiCHEL 5 refers to "Tradi-
tions teYatologiques de Berger de Xivrey" (Paris, Imprimerie royale,
1836, pp. 457, 458, 460, 463) and to an article of Duchalais entitled
"L'Apollon sauroctone" (Revue archeologique, Vol. VI, 1850, pp. 87-90) ;
further to Mahudel in Mimoires de litterature tires des registres de
V Academic royale des inscriptions et belles-lettres, Vol. IV, pp. 634-647.
Quoting several examples of salamander stuff from mediaeval romances,
Francisque-Michel remarks, "Ces tofles en poil de salamandre, qui
vraisemblablement e*taient passers des fables des marchands dans celles
des poetes, venaient de loin, comme ceux qui avaient par la beau jeu
pour mentir. On en faisait aussi des manteaux; du moins celui de
dame Jafite, du Roman de Gui le Gallois, en 6tait."
No one interested in this subject should fail to read chapter LII of
book III of Rabelais' Le Gargantua et Le Pantagruel, entitled "Comment
doibt estre prepare et mis en ceuvre le celebre Pantagruelion."
77. The word "drugget," spelled also droggitt, drogatt, druggit (Old French
droguet, Spanish droguete, Italian droghetto) is thus defined in the new Oxford English
Dictionary: "Ulterior origin unknown. Littre" suggests derivation from drogue
drug as 'a stuff of little value'; some English writers have assumed a derivation
from Drogheda in Ireland, but this is mere wanton conjecture, without any histor-
ical basis. Formerly kind of stuff, all of wool, or mixed of wool and silk or wool and
linen, used for wearing apparel. Now, a coarse woollen stuff for floor-coverings,
table-cloths, etc." The Century Dictionary says, "There is nothing to show a con-
nection with drug."
Our lexicographers have overlooked the fact that the same word occurs also
in Slavic. F. MiKLOSicn 6 has indicated a Serbian doroc ("pallii genus") and Magyar
darocz ("a kind of coarse cloth"), but neglected to refer to the well-known Russian
word dorogi or dorogi, which apparently represents the source of the West-European
term. The latter has been dealt with by K. INOSTRANTSEV 7 in a very interesting
1 Ch. 74, pp. 10 b, 13.
2 Ch. 74, p. 25.
3 Ao-men ci lio, Ch. B, p. 41.
4 Journal Geol. Soc. Tokyo, Vol. XXIII, No. 276, 1916, pp. 333-336. The
same journal, Vol. XXV, No. 294, March, 1918, contains an article on asbestos in
Japan and Korea by K. OKADA.
5 Recherches sur le commerce, la fabrication et 1'usage des e"toffes de soie, d'or
et d'argent, Vol. II, pp. 90, 462 (Paris, 1854).
6 Fremdworter in den slavischen Sprachen, Denk. Wiener Akad., Vol. XV,
1867, p. 84.
7 Iz istorii starinnix tkanei, Zapiski of the Russian Arch. Soc., Vol. XIII, 1902,
p. 084.
502 SlNO-lRANICA
study on the history of some ancient textiles. According to this author, the dorogi
of the Russians were striped silken fabrics, which came from Gilan, Kaan, Kizylba,
Tur, and Yas in Persia. DAL' says in his Russian Dictionary that this silk was some-
times interwoven with gold and silver. In 1844 VELTMAN proposed the identity of
Russian dorogi with the Anglo-French term. BEREZIN derived it from Persian
darddza ("kaftan"), which is rejected, and justly so, by Inostrantsev. On his part,
he connects the word with Persian ddrdi ("a red silken stuff"), 1 and invokes a
passage in VESELOVSKI'S "Monuments of Diplomatic and Commercial Relations of
Moscovite Rus with Persia," in which the Persian word ddrdi is translated by
Russian dorogi. This work is unfortunately not accessible to me, so I cannot judge
the merits of the translation; but the mere fact of rendering dorogi by ddrdi would
not yet prove the actual derivation of the former from the latter. For philological
reasons this theory seems to me improbable : it is difficult to realize that the Russians
should have made dorogi out of a Persian ddrdi. All European languages have con-
sistently preserved the medial g, and this cannot be explained from ddrdi.
Another prototype therefore, it seems to me, comes into question; and this probably
is Uigur torgu, Jagatai torka, Koibal torga, Mongol torga(n), all with the meaning
"silk." 2 It remains to search for the Turkish dialect which actually transmitted
the word to Slavic.
1 Mentioned, for instance, in the list of silks in the Ain-i Akbari (BLOCHMANN'S
translation, Vol. I, p. 94).
2 Cf. T'oung Pao, 1916, p. 489.
IRANIAN MINERALS, METALS, AND PRECIOUS STONES
78. Pf &r hu-lOj *%u-lak, perhaps also *fu-lak, *fu-rak, a product of
Persia, 1 which is unexplained. In my opinion, this word may cor-
respond to a Middle Persian *furak = New Persian burak, bura, Arme-
nian porag ("borax")- Although I am not positive about this identifica-
tion, I hope that the following notes on borax will be welcome. It is
well known that Persia and Tibet are the two great centres supplying
the world-market with borax. The ancient Chinese were familiar with
this fact, for in the article on Po-se (Persia) the T'ai p'in hwan yu ki 2
states that "the soil has salty lakes, which serve the people as a substi-
tute for salt" (*& 1f $8 M A K 5S B). Our own word "borax" (the x is
due to Spanish, now written borraj) comes from Persian, having been
introduced into the Romanic languages about the ninth century by
the Arabs. Russian burd was directly transmitted from Persia. Like-
wise our "tincal, tincar" (a crude borax found in lake-deposits of
Persia and Tibet) is derived from Persian tinkar, tankdlf or tangdr,
Sanskritized tankana, tanka, tanga, tagara;* Malayan tingkal; Kirgiz
danakar, Osmanli tangar. 5 Another Persian word that belongs to this
category, $ora ("nitre, saltpetre"), has been adopted by the Tibetans
in the same form $o-ra, although they possess also designations of their
own, ze-ts*wa, ba-ts'wa ("cow's salt"), and ts'a-la. The Persian word is
Sanskritized into soraka, used in India for nitre, saltpetre, or potassium
nitrate. 6
79. The relation of Chinese nao-$a ("sal ammoniac, chloride of
sodium") 7 to Persian nuSadir or nauSadir is rather perspicuous; never-
theless it has been asserted also that the Persian word is derived from
1 Sui su, Ch. 83, p. 7 b.
2 Ch. 185, p. 19.
3 It is not a Tibetan name, as supposed by ROEDIGER and POTT (Z./. K. Morg.,
Vol. IV, p. 268).
4 These various attempts at spelling show plainly that the term has the status
of a loan-word, and that the Sanskrit term has nothing to do with the name of the
people who may have supplied the product, the Tayyavoi in the Himalaya of
Ptolemy (YULE, Hobson-Jobson, p. 923). How should borax be found in the
Himalaya !
5 KLAPROTH, Me*moires relatifs a TAsie, Vol. Ill, p. 347.
6 See, further, T'oung Pao, 1914, pp. 88-89.
7 D. HANBURY, Science Papers, pp. 217, 276.
503
504 SlNO-lRANICA
the Chinese. F. DE MELY* argues that nao-$a is written ideographically,
and that the text of the Pen ts'ao kan mu adds, "II vient de la province
de Chen-si; on le tire d'une montagne d'ott il sort continuellement des
vapeurs rouges et dangereuses et tres difficile aborder par rapport a
ces mmes vapeurs. II en vient aussi de la Tartarie, on le tire des
plaines ou il y a beaucoup de troupeaux, de la meme facon que le
salpetre de houssage; les Tartares et gens d'au deU de la Chine salent
les viandes avec ce sel." Hence F. de Mely infers that the Persians, on
their part, borrowed from the Chinese their nao-$a, to which they added
the ending dzer, as in the case of the bezoar styled in Persian badzeher. 2
The case, however, is entirely different. The term nao-$a is written
phonetically, not ideographically, as shown by the ancient transcription
Hi & in the Sui Annals (see below) and the variant $8 ffi (properly
nun-faj but indicated with the pronunciation nao-$a) ; 3 also the syno-
nymes ti yen 3ft IS ("salt of the barbarians") and Pei-t'in la 4fc J&fiP
("ore of Pei-t'in," in Turkistan), which appear as early as the Sung
period in the T'u kin pen ts'ao of Su Sun, allude to the foreign origin of
the product. The term is thus plainly characterized as a foreign loan
in the Pen ts'ao kan mu. This, further, is brought out by the history of
the subject. The word is not found in any ancient Chinese records.
The Chinese learned about nao-$a in Sogdiana and Kuca for the first
time during the sixth century A.D. The Pen ts'ao of the T'ang period is
the earliest pharmacopoeia that mentions it. Su Kun IS 3^, the reviser
of this work, and the author of the Cen lei pen ts*ao, know of but one
place of provenience, the country of the Western Zun 15 -?5c (F. de
Mely's "Tartary "). It is only Su Sun M of the Sung period, who
in his T*u kin pen ts'ao remarks, "At present it occurs also in Si-Han
and in the country Hia [Kan-su] as well as in Ho-tufi [San-si], Sen-si,
and in the districts of the adjoining regions" ^ffiiSJll32$.$f^
RBiE*ifflSI&3fr#. [note the additions of 5* "at present" and
3F "also"]. And he hastens to add, "However (#&), the pieces coming
from the Western Zun are clear and bright, the largest having the size
of a fist and being from three to five ounces in weight, the smallest
1 L'Alchimie chez les Chinois (Journal asiatique, 1895, II, p. 338) and Lapidaire
chinois, p. LI.
2 All this is rather lack of criticism or poor philology. The Persian word in
question is pdzahr, literally meaning "antidote" (see below, p. 525). Neither this
word nor nusadir has an ending like dzer, and there is no analogy between the two.
8 According to the Pie pen cu JjJ'J Hfc fe, cited in the Cen lei pen ts'ao (Ch. 5,
p. 10, ed. of 1587), the transcription nun-la should represent the pronunciation of
the Hu people; that is, Iranians. Apparently it was an Iranian dialectic variation
with a nasalized vowel u. It is indicated as a synonyme of nao-sa in the Si yao er
ya of the T'ang period (see Beginnings of Porcelain, p. 115).
IRANIAN MINERALS SAL AMMONIAC 505
reaching the size of a finger and being used for medical purposes." 1
It is accordingly the old experience that the Chinese, as soon as they
became acquainted with a foreign product, searched for it on their own
soil, and either discovered it there, or found a convenient substitute.
In this case, Su Sun plainly indicates that the domestic substitute was
of inferior quality; and there can be no doubt that this was not sal
ammoniac, which is in fact not found in China, but, as has been demon-
strated by D. HANBURY, 2 chloride of sodium. As early as the eighteenth
century it was stated by M. COLLAS S that no product labelled nao-$a
in Peking had any resemblance to our sal ammoniac.
H. E. SxAPLETON, 4 author of a very interesting study on the employ-
ment of sal ammoniac in ancient chemistry, has hazarded an etymo-
logical speculation as to the term nao-$a. Persian nutddur appears to
him to be the Chinese word nau-$a, suffixed by the Persian word dam
("medicine"), 5 and the Sanskrit navasdra would also seem to be simply
the Chinese name in a slightly altered form. H. E. Stapleton is a
chemist, not a philologist; it therefore suffices to say that these specu-
lations, as well as his opinion "that the syllables nau-$a appear to be
capable of complete analysis into Chinese roots," 6 are impossible.
The Hindustani name can by no means come into question as the
prototype of the Chinese term, as proposed by F. P. SMITH 7 and T.
WATTERS; S for the Chinese transcription was framed as early as the
sixth century A.D., when Hindustani was not yet in existence. The
Hindustani is simply a Persian loan-word of recent date, as is
likewise Neo-Sanskrit naiqadala; while Sanskrit navasdra, navasddara,
or narasdra, the vacillating spelling of which betrays the character
of a loan-word, is traceable to a more ancient Iranian form (see
below) .
In the Sui $u* we meet the term in the form tfi ffi nao-$a, stated to
1 See also Pen ts'ao yen i, Ch. 6, p. 4 b (ed. of Lu Sin-yuan).
2 Science Papers, pp. 217, 276.
3 Me"moires concernant les Chinois, Vol. XI, 1786, p. 330.
4 Sal Ammoniac: a Study in Primitive Chemistry (Memoirs As. Soc. Bengal,
Vol. I, 1905, pp. 40-41).
5 He starts from the popular etymology nus daru ("life-giving medicine"),
which, of course, is not to be taken seriously.
6 Even if this were the case, it would not tend to prove that the word is of
Chinese origin. As is now known to every one, there is nothing easier to the Chinese
than to transcribe a foreign word and to choose such characters as will convey a
certain meaning.
7 Contributions toward the Materia Medica of China, p. 190.
8 Essays on the Chinese Language, p. 350.
9 Ch. 83, pp. 4 b and 5 b.
506 SlNO-lRANICA
be a product of K'ari (Sogdiana) and Kuca. 1 The fact that this tran-
scription is identical with fiS we recognize from the parallel passage in
the Pel Si, 2 where it is thus written. The text of the Sui Annals with
reference to Iranian regions offers several such unusual modes of
writing, where the Pei Si has the simple types subsequently adopted as
the standard. The variation of the Sui Annals, at all events, demon-
strates that the question is of reproducing a foreign word; and, since
it hails from Sogdiana, there can be no doubt that it was a word of the
Sogdian language of the type *navsa or *naf sa (cf . Sanskrit navasara,
Armenian navt*, Greek va(j>6a); Persian naSddir, nuSddir, nauSadir,
nauSddur, noSddur, being a later development. It resulted also
in Russian nuSatyr. In my opinion, the Sogdian word is related
to Persia neft ("naphta"), which may belong to Avestan napta
("moist"). 3
Tribute-gifts of nao-Sa are not infrequently mentioned in the Chinese
Annals. In A.D. 932, Wan Zen-mei 3: iH H, Khan of the Uigur, pre-
sented to the Court among other objects ta-p'en Sa (" borax") 4 and sal
ammoniac (kan So). 6 In A.D. 938 Li Sen-wen $ H 3C, king of Khotan,
offered nao-Sa and ta-p'en Sa ("borax") to the Court; and in A.D. 959
jade and nao-Sa were sent by the Uigur. 6 The latter event is recorded
also in the Kin Wu Tai Si, 7 where the word is written ffl #J% pho-
netically kan-Sa, but apparently intended only as a graphic variant
for nao-Sa* The same work ascribes sal ammoniac (written in the same
manner) to the T'u-fan (Tibetans) and the Tafi-hian (a Tibetan tribe
in the Kukunor region). 9 In the T'ang period the substance was well
1 According to Masudi (BARBIER DE MEYNARD, Les Prairies d'or, Vol. I, p. 347),
sal-ammoniac mines were situated in Soghd, and were passed by the Moham-
medan merchants travelling from Khorasan into China. KuSa still yields sal am-
moniac (A. N. KUROPATKIN, Kashgaria, pp. 27, 35, 76). This fact is also noted in
the Hui k'ian ci (Ch. 2), written about 1772 by two Majichu officials, Fusamb6
and Surde, who locate the mine 45 li west of Kuca in the Sartatsi Mountains, and
mention a red and white variety of sal ammoniac. Cf. also M. REINAUD, Relation
des voyages faits par les Arabes et les Persans dans 1'Inde et a la Chine, Vol. I,
p. CLXIII.
2 Ch. 97, p. 12.
3 Cf. P. HORN, Neupersische Etymologic, No. 1035; H. HUBSCHMANN, Persische
Studien, p. 101, and Armen. Gram., p. 100.
4 As I have shown on a former occasion (T'oung Pao, 1914, p. 88), Chinese
p'en (*bun) is a transcription of Tibetan bul.
5 Ts'efu yuan kwei, Ch. 972, p. 19.
6 Wu Tai hui yao, Chs. 28, p. 10 b; and Ch. 29, p. 13 b (ed. of Wu yin lien).
7 Ch. 138, p. 3.
8 The character kan is not listed in K'an-hi's Dictionary.
9 Ch. 138, pp. i b, 3 a.
IRANIAN MINERALS SAL AMMONIAC 507
known. The Si yao er ya l gives a number of synonymes of Chinese
origin, as kin tsei & B$, c*i $a3$~$ ("red gravel")? P h Kin & M
$& ("essence of the white sea").
Sal ammoniac is found in Dimindan in the province of Kirman.
Yaqut (1179-1229) gives alter Ibn al-Faqih (tenth century) a descrip-
tion of how nuSadir is obtained there, which in the translation of C.
B ARBIER DE MEYNARD 2 HinS as f olloWS I
"Cette substance se trouve principalement dans une montagne
nommee Donbawend, dont la hauteur est eValuee a 3 farsakhs. Cette
montagne est a 7 farsakhs de la ville de Guwasir. On y voit une caverne
profonde d'oti. s'chappent des mugissements semblables a ceux des
vagues et une fume'e epaisse. Lorsque cette vapeur, qui est le principe
du sel ammoniac, s'est attache'e aux parois de 1'orifice, et qu'une certaine
quantite s'est solidifiee, les habitants de la ville et des environs viennent
la recueillir, une fois par mois ou tous les deux mois. Le sulthan y envoie
des agents qui, la re"colte faite, en prel event le cinquieme pour le trsor;
les habitants se partagent le reste par la voie du sort. Ce sel est celui
qu'on expedie dans tous les pays."
Ibn Haukal describes the mines of Setrus'teh thus: 3 "The mines
of sal ammoniac are in the mountains, where there is a certain cavern,
from which a vapor issues, appearing by day like smoke, and by night
like fire. Over the spot whence the vapor issues, they have erected a
house, the doors and windows of which are kept so closely shut and
plastered over with clay that none of the vapor can escape. On the
upper part of this house the copperas rests. When the doors are to be
opened, a swiftly-running man is chosen, who, having his body covered
over with clay, opens the door; takes as much as he can of the copperas,
and runs off; if he should delay, he would be burnt. This vapor comes
forth in different places, from time to time; when it ceases to issue from
one place, they dig in another until it appears, and then they erect that
kind of house over it; if they did not erect this house, the vapor would
burn, or evaporate away."
Taxes are still paid in this district with sal ammoniac. Abu Mansur
sets forth its medicinal properties. 4
1 See Beginnings of Porcelain (this volume, p. 115).
2 Dictionnaire g6ographique de la Perse, p. 235 (Paris, 1861). Jbn al-Faqlh's
text is translated by P. SCHWARZ (Iran im Mittelalter, p. 252). According to Ibn
Haukal (W. OUSELEY, Oriental Geography of Ebn Haukal, p. 233), sal-ammoniac
mines were located in Maweralnahr (Transoxania).
3 W. OUSELEY, op. cit., p. 264.
4 ACHUNDOW, Abu Mansur, p. 144. ABEL-REMUSAT (Melanges asiatiques,
Vol. I, p. 209, 1825), translating from the Japanese edition of the cyclopaedia San
ts'ai Vu hui, gave the following interesting account: "Le sel nomine" (en chinois)
508 SlNO-lRANICA
The Tibetans appear to have received sal ammoniac from India, as
shown at least by their term rgya ts'wa ("Indian salt"), literally trans-
lated into Mongol Anatkak dabusu. Mongol Andtkak is a reproduction
of Chinese *In-duk-kwok (" country of India"). The informants of
M. CoLLAS 1 stated that the nao-$a of the Peking shops came from Tibet
or adjacent places. Lockhart received in Peking the information that
it is brought from certain volcanic springs in Se-6'wan and in Tibet.*
80. * te fll vni-fo-sen, *m'it(m'ir) -da-sari, and 8 ft mu-to-
seh, *mut(mur)-ta-san, litharge, dross of lead, is an exact reproduction
of Persian mirdasang or murdasang of the same meaning. 3 Both tran-
scriptions are found in the Pen ts*ao of the T'ang dynasty, written
about the middle of the seventh century. 4 Therefore we are entitled to
extend the Persian word into the period of Middle Persian. Su Kuh,
the reviser of the T'an pen ts'ao, states expressly that both mi-t'o and
mu-to are words from the language of the Hu or Iranians ($J !f -&),
and that the substance comes from or is produced in Persia, being in
shape like the teeth of the yellow dragon, but stronger and heavier;
there is also some of white color with veins as in Yun-nan marble. Su
Sun of the Sung period says that then ("at present") it was also found
nao-cha (en persan nouchader) et aussi sel de Tartarie, sel volatil, se tire de deux
montagnes volcaniques de la Tartarie centrale; 1'une est le volcan de Tourfan, qui
a donne" a cette ville (ou pour mieux dire a une ville qui est situe"e a trois lieues de
Tourfan, du cdte" de Test) le nom de Ho-tcheou, ville de feu; 1'autre est la montagne
Blanche, dans le pays de Bisch-balikh; ces deux montagnes jettent continuellement
des flammes et de la fume"e. II y a des cavity's dans lesquelles se ramasse un liquide
verdatre. Expose" a 1'air, ce liquide se change en un sel, qui est le nao-cha. Les
gens du pays le recueillent pour s'en servir dans la preparation des cuirs. Quant a
la montagne de Tourfan, on en voit continuellement sortir une colonne de fum^e;
cette fume"e est remplace'e le soir par une flamme semblable a celle d'un flambeau.
Les oiseaux et les autres animaux, qui en sont e"clair6s, paraissent de couleur rouge.
On appelle cette montagne le Mont-de-Feu. Pour aller chercher le nao-cha, on met
des sabots, car des semelles de cuir seraient trop vite brule"es. Les gens du pays
recueillent aussi les eaux-meres qu'ils font bouillir dans des chaudieres, et ils en
retirent le sel ammoniac, sous la forme de pains semblables a ceux du sel commun.
Le nao-cha le plus blanc est repute" le meilleur; la nature de ce sel est tres-p6n6trante.
On le tient suspendu dans une poele au-dessus du feu pour le rendre bien sec; on y
ajoute du gingembre pour le conserver. Expose" au froid ou a rhumidite", il tombe en
deliquescence, et se perd." Wan Yen-te, who in A.D. 981 was sent by the Chinese
emperor to the ruler of Kao-c" f an, was the first to give an account of the sal-ammoniac
mountain of Turkistan (BRETSCHNEIDER, Mediaeval Researches, Vol. II, p. 190).
See also F. DE MELY, Lapidaire chinois, p. 140; W. SCHOTT, Zur Uigurenfrage, II,
p. 45 (Abh. Berl. Akad., 1875) and Ueber ein chinesisches Mengwerk (ibid., 1880,
p. 6) ; GEERTS, Produits, p. 322.
1 Me"moires concernant les Chinois, Vol. XI, p. 331.
2 D. HANBURY, Science Papers, p. 277.
3 Cf. HUBSCHMANN, Armen. Gram., p. 270.
4 Cen lei pen ts'ao, Ch. 4, p. 31; and Pen ts'ao kan mu, Ch. 8, p. 8 b.
IRANIAN MINERALS LITHARGE, GOLD 509
in the silver and copper foundries of Kwan-tun and Fu-kien. It is
further mentioned briefly in the Pen ts*ao yen i of IH6, 1 which maintains
that the kind with a color like gold is the best.
According to Yaqut, mines of antimony, known under the name
razi t litharge, lead, and vitriol, were in the environs of Donbawend or
Demawend in the province of Kirman. 2 In the Persian pharmacopoeia
of Abu Mansur, the medicinal properties of litharge are described under
the Arabicized name murddsanj, to which he adds the synonymous term
murtak? Pegoletti, in the fourteenth century, gives the word with a
popular etymology as morda sangue* The Dictionary of Four Lan-
guages 5 correlates Chinese mi-t'o-sen with Tibetan gser-zil (literally,
"gold brightness ")> 6 Manchu for can, and Mongol jildunur. 7
81. PALLADIUS S offers a term 3?t Hf & tse-mo kin with the meaning
"gold from Persia," no source for it being cited. In the Pen ts'ao kan
mu* the tse-mo kin of Po-se (Persia) is given as the first in a series of
five kinds of gold of foreign countries, 10 without further explanation.
The term occurs also in Buddhist literature: CHAVANNES U has found it
in the text of a Jataka, where he proposes as hypothetical translation,
"un amas d'or raffine* rouge." It therefore seems to be unknown what
the term signifies, although a special kind of gold or an alloy of gold is
apparently intended. The Swi kin cu & M ffi 12 says that the first
quality of gold, according to Chinese custom, is styled tse-mo kin
(written as above); according to the custom of the barbarians, how-
ever, yan-mai SI 31. From this it would appear that tse-mo is a Chinese
term, not a foreign one.
1 Ch. 5, p. 6 b (ed. of Lu Sin-yuan).
2 BARBIER DE MEYNARD, op. tit., p. 237.
3 ACHUNDOW, Abu Mansur, p. 139. This form goes back to Middle Persian
murtak or martak.
4 YULE, Cathay, new ed., Vol. Ill, p. 167.
5 Ch. 22, p. 71.
6 JAESCHKE, in his Tibetan Dictionary, was unable to explain this term.
7 KOVALEVSKI, in his Mongol Dictionary, explains this word wrongly by
"mica."
8 Chinese-Russian Dictionary, Vol. II, p. 203.
9 Ch. 8, p. i b.
10 The four others are, the dark gold of the eastern regions, the red gold of
Lin-yi, the gold of the Si-zun, and the gold of Can-6'en (Camboja). The five kinds
of foreign gold are mentioned as early as the tenth century in the Pao ts'an lun
s mm.
11 Fables et contes de 1'Inde, in Actes du XIV 6 Congres des Orientalistes,
Vol. I, 1905, p. 103.
12 Ch. 36, p. 18 b (ed. Wu-6'an, 1877). See p. 622.
510 SlNO-lRANICA
The Ko ku yao lun 1 has a notice of tse kin $ & ("purple gold")
as follows: "The ancients say that the pan-Han 3r M money 2 is tse
kin. The people of the present time make it by mixing copper with
gold, but our contemporaries have not yet seen genuine tse kin."
The same alloy is mentioned as a product of Ma-k'o-se-li in the
Tao i ci lio, written in 1349 by Wan Ta-yuan. 3 I am not sure, of
course, that this tse kin is identical with tse-mo kin.
In the same manner as the Chinese speak of foreign gold, they also
offer a series of foreign silver. There are four kinds; namely, silver of
Sin-ra (in Korea), silver of Po-se (Persia), silver of Lin-yi, and silver
of Yiin-nan. Both gold and silver are enumerated among the products
of Sasanian Persia. The Hai yao pen ts'ao cites the Nan ytie ci of the
fifth century to the effect that the country Po-se possesses a natural
silver-dust HI Iff , employed as a remedy, and that remedies are tested
by means of finger-rings. 4 Whether Persia is to be understood here
seems doubtful to me. Gold-dust is especially credited to the country
of the Arabs. 5
82. 5fi$& yen-lii ("the green of salt," various compositions with
copper-oxide) is mentioned as a product of Sasanian Persia 6 and of
Ku6a. 7 Su Kun of the T'ang (seventh century) points it out as a product
of Karasar (Yen-Si 35 iff) , found in the water on the lower surface of
stones. Li Sim, who wrote in the second half of the eighth century,
states that "it is produced in the country Po-se (Persia) adhering to
stones, and that the kind imported on ships is called U'-lil 35 l$Cthe
green of the stone ') ; its color is resistant for a long time without chang-
ing; the imitation made in China from copper and vinegar must not
be employed in the pharmacopoeia, nor does it retain its color long."
Li Si-cen employs the term "green salt of Po-se." 8 The substance was
employed as a remedy in eye-diseases.
This is Persian zingdr (Arabic zinjar), described in the stone-book
of Pseudo- Aristotle as a stone extracted from copper or brass by means
1 Ch. 6, p. 12 b.
2 See Beginnings of Porcelain, p. 83.
3 ROCKHILL, T'oung Pao, 1915, p. 622.
4 Cen lei pen ts'ao, Ch. 4, p. 23.
6 Ibid., Ch. 4, p. 21 b.
6 Sui $u, Ch. 83, p. 7 b.
7 ou Su, Ch. 50, p. 5; Sui Su, Ch. 83, p. 5 b.
8 Cf. also GEERTS, Produits, p. 634; F. DE MLY, Lapidaire chinois, pp. 134,
243. According to Geerts, the term is applied in Japan to acetate of copper, formerly
imported, but now prepared in the country.
IRANIAN MINERALS COPPER-OXIDES, SALT, ZINC 511
of vinegar, and employed as an ingredient in many remedies for eye-
diseases. 1
83. The Emperor Yafi (A.D. 605-616) of the Sui dynasty, after
his succession to the throne, despatched Tu Han-man tt fi 1 Sf to the
Western Countries. He reached the kingdom of Nan 3c (Bukhara),
obtained manicolored salt (wu se yen), and returned. 2 Istaxri relates
that in the district of Darabejird there are mountains of white, yellow,
green, black, and red salts; the salt in other regions originates from the
interior of the earth or from water which forms crystals; this, however,
is salt from mountains which are above the ground. Ibn Haukal adds
that this salt occurs in all possible colors. 3
The Pei hu In* distinguishes red, purple, black, blue, and yellow
salts. C*i yen ffi IS ("red salt ") like vermilion, and white salt like jade,
are attributed to Kao-c'aii (Turf an). 5 Black salt (hei yen) was a product
of the country Ts'ao (Jaguda) north of the Ts'un-lin. 6 It is likewise
attributed to southern India. 7 These colored salts may have been im-
pure salt or minerals of a different origin.
84. lift ^ t'ou-$i is mentioned as a metallic product of Sasanian
Persia (enumerated with gold, silver, copper, pin, iron, and tin) in the
Sui $u. 8 It is further cited as a product of Nu kwo, the Women's Realm
south of the Ts'uii-liii; 9 of A-lo-yi-lo K it $* H in the north of Udcji-
yana, 10 and of the Arabs (Ta-si). 11 Huan Tsafi's Memoirs contain the
term three times, once as a product found in the soil of northern India
(together with gold, silver, copper, and iron) , and twice as a material
from which Buddhist statues were made. 12 According to the Kin Pu
1 J. RUSKA, Steinbuch des Aristoteles, p. 182; and Steinbuch des Qazwlnl,
p. 25.
2 Sui Su, Ch. 83, p. 4 b.
3 P. SCHWARZ, Iran, p. 95.
4 Ch. 2, p. ii (ed. of Lu Sin-yuan).
6 Sui su, Ch. 83, p. 3 b. In the T'ai p"in hwan yu ki (Ch. 180, p. n b) the same
products are assigned to Ku-i J|L flljj (Turf an).
6 Sui su, Ch. 83, p. 8.
7 ran su, Ch. 221 A, p. 10 b.
* Ch. 83, p. 7 b.
9 T'ai p*in hwan yu ki, Ch. 186, p. 9.
10 Ibid., p. 12 b.
11 Ibid., p. 15 b.
12 Cf. S. JULIEN, M6moires sur les contre"es occidentales, Vol. I, pp. 37, 189,
354. Julien is quite right in translating the term by laiton ("brass"). PALLADIUS
(Chinese-Russian Dictionary, Vol. II, p. 16) explains it as "brass with admixture of
lead, possessing attractive power." The definition of Giles ("rich ore brought
from Persia supposed to be an ore of gold and copper, or bronze") is inexact. T*ou-
512 SlNO-lRANICA
swi Si ki M J^ fff H, written in the sixth century, the needles used
by women on the festival of the seventh day of the seventh month 1
were made of gold, silver, or Vou-U. 2 Under the T'ang, t*ou-$i was an
officially adopted alloy, being employed, for instance, for the girdles of
the officials of the eighth and ninth grades. 3 It was sent as tribute
from Iranian regions; for instance, in A.D. 718, from Maimargh (north-
west of Samarkand). 4
The Ko ku yao lun states, " T*ou-$i is the essence of natural copper.
At present zinc-bloom is smelted to make counterfeit t* ou. According to
Ts'ui Fail -S B#, one catty of copper and one catty of zinc-bloom will
yield Vou-li. The genuine /' ou is produced in Persia. It looks like gold,
and, when fired, assumes a red color which will never turn black."
This is clearly a description of brass which is mainly composed of copper
and zinc. Li Si-Sen 5 identifies t*ou-$i with the modern term hwan fun
("yellow copper"); "that is, brass. According to T'an Ts'ui, 6 Vou-U is
found in the C'6-li 4 M t'u-se of Yim-nan.
The Chinese accounts of t*ou or t*ou-$i agree with what the Persians
and Arabs report about tutiya. It was in Persia that zinc was first mined,
and utilized for a new copper alloy, brass. Ibn al-Faqih, who wrote
about A.D. 902, has left a description of the zinc-mines situated in a
mountain Dunbawand in the province of Kirman. The ore was (and
still is) a government monopoly. 7 Jawbari, who wrote about 1225, has
described the process of smelting. 8 The earliest mention of the term
occurs in the Arabic stone-book of Pseudo-Aristotle (ninth century), 9
where the stone tutiya is explained as belonging to the stones found in
mines, with numerous varieties which are white, yellow, and green;
Si is only said to resemble gold, and the notion that brass resembles gold turns up in
all Oriental writers. See also BEAL, Records of the Western World, Vol. I, p, 51;
and CHAVANNES (T'oung Pao, 1904, p. 34), who likewise accepts the only admissible
interpretation, "brass."
1 Cf. W. GRUBE, Zur Pekinger Volkskunde, p. 76; J. PRZYLUSKI, T'oung Pao,
1914, p. 215.
2 P'ei wen yunfu, Ch. 100 A, p. 25.
8 Jade, p. 286; cf. also Ta T'an leu tien, Ch. 8, p. 22.
4 CHAVANNES, T'oung Pao, 1904, p. 34.
5 Pen ts'ao kan mu, Ch. 8, pp. 3 and 4. Cf. also GEERTS, Produits, p. 575.
6 Tien hai yu hen ci, Ch. 2, p. 3 b.
7 P. SCHWARZ, Iran im Mittelalter, p. 252.
8 G. FERRAND, Textes relatifs a I'Extr^me-Orient, p. 610 (cf. also pp. 225, 228;
and LECLERC, Traite" des simples, Vol. I, p. 322).
9 J. RUSKA, Steinbuch des Aristoteles, p. 175. J. BECKMANN (Beytrage zur
Geschichte der Erfmdungen, Vol. Ill, p. 388) states that the word first occurs in
Avicenna of the eleventh century.
IRANIAN MINERALS ZINC 513
the quarries are located on the shores of Hind and Sind. This is prob-
ably intended for vitriol or sulphate of copper. 1
In Chinese fou-&, the second element &" ("stone") does not form
part of the transcription; the term means simply "t*ou stone/' and t'ou
(*tu) reproduces the first syllable of Persian tutiya, which, on the basis
of the Sui Annals, we are obliged to assign also to the Middle-Persian
language. To derive the Chinese word from Turkish tuj t as proposed
by WATTERS, 2 and accepted without criticism by HiRTH, 3 is utterly im-
possible. The alleged Turkish word occurs only in Osmanli and other
modern dialects, where it is plainly a Persian loan-word, but not in
Uigur, as wrongly asserted by Hirth. This theory seems to imply that
the element U should form part of the transcription; this certainly is
out of the question, as 5 represents ancient *sek or *sak, *zak, and
could not reproduce a palatal. For the rest, the Chinese records point
to Iran, not to the Turks, who had no concern whatever with the
whole business. 4 Two variations of the Persian word have penetrated
into the languages of Europe. The Arabs carried their tiltiyd into
Spain, where it appears as atutia with the Arabic article; in Portuguese
we have tutia, in French tutie, in Italian tuzia, in English tutty. A final
palatal occurs in the series Osmanli tuj or tune, Neo-Greek rovvr^i,
Albanian tut, Serbian and Bulgarian tuc, Rumanian tuciu. Whether
Sanskrit tuttha, as has been assumed, is to be connected with the Per-
sian word, remains doubtful to me: the Sanskrit word refers only to
green or blue vitriol. 5 It is noteworthy that Persian birinj ("brass"), a
more recent variant of pirin (Kurd pirinjok, Armenian plinj)* has not
migrated into any foreign language, for I am far from being convinced
that our word "bronze" should be traceable to this type. 7
The Japanese pronunciation of $f 5 is cuseki. The Japanese used
1 A curious error occurs in FELDHAUS' Technik (col. 1367), where it is asserted,
"Qazwml says about 600 that zinc is known in China, and could also be made
flexible there." Qazwlnl wrote his cyclopaedia in 1134, and says nothing about
zinc in China (cf. RUSKA, Steinbuch des Qazwlnl, p. n); but he mentions a tutiya
mine in Spain (G. JACOB, Studien in arabischen Geographen, p. 13).
2 Essays on the Chinese Language, p. 359.
3 Chau Ju-kua, p. 81. T*ou-si does not mean "white copper" in the passage
under notice, but means "brass." "White copper" is a Chinese and quite different
alloy (see below, p. 555).
4 It is likewise odd to connect Italian tausia (properly taunia) and German
tauschieren with this word. This is just as well as to derive German tusche from
an alleged Chinese t'u-se (HiRTH, Chines. Studien, p. 226).
5 P. C. RAY, History of Hindu Chemistry, 2d ed., Vol. II, p. 25.
6 HUBSCHMANN, Persische Studien, p. 27.
7 O. SCHRADER, Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte, Vol. II, p. 73.
514 SlNO-lRANICA
to import the alloy from China, and their Honz5 (Pen ts'ao) give for-
mulas for its preparation. 1 The Koreans read the same word not or
not-si. The French missionaries explain it as " composition de differents
metaux qui sert a faire les cuilleres, etc. Airain, cuivre jaune (premiere
qualite). Cuivre rouge et plomb." 2
The history of zinc in the East is still somewhat obscure; at least,
it so appears from what the historians of the metal have written about
the subject. I quote from W. R. INGALLS: S "It is unknown to whom is
due the honor of the isolation of zinc as a metal, but it is probable that
the discovery was first made in the East. In the sixteenth century zinc
was brought to Europe from China and the East Indies under the name
of tutanego (whence the English term tutenegue), and it is likely that
knowledge of it was obtained from that source at an earlier date. . . .
The production of zinc on an industrial scale was first begun in England;
it is said that the method applied was Chinese, having been introduced
by Dr. Isaac Lawson, who went to China expressly to study it. In 1740
John Champion erected works at Bristol and actually began the manu-
facture of spelter, but the production was small, and the greater part
used continued to come from India and China." The fact that in the
eighteenth century the bulk of zinc which came to Europe was shipped
from India is also emphasized by J. BECKMANN, 4 who, writing in 1792,
regretted that it was then unknown where, how, and when this metal
was obtained in India, and in what year it had first been brought over
to Europe. According to the few notices of the subject, he continues, it
originates from China, from Bengal, from Malakka, and from Malabar,
whence also copper and brass are obtained. On the other hand, W.
AiNSLiE 5 states that by far the greater part of zinc which is met with
in India is brought from Cochin-China or China, where both the cala-
mine and blende are common. Again, S. JULIEN G informs us that zinc
is not mentioned in ancient books, and appears to have been known in
China only from the beginning of the seventeenth century.
W. HoMMEL 7 pleaded for the origin of zinc-production in India,
whence it was obtained by the Chinese. He does not know, of course,
that there is no evidence for such a theory in Chinese sources. The
1 GEERTS, Produits, p. 641; F. DE MLY, Lapidaire chinois, p. 42.
2 Dictionnaire coren-frangais, p. 291.
3 Production and Properties of Zinc, pp. 2-3 (New York and London, 1902).
4 Op. cit., Vol. Ill, p. 408.
6 Materia Indica, Vol. I, p. 573.
6 Industries de 1'empire chinois, p. 46.
7 Chemiker-Zeitung, 1912, p. 905.
IRANIAN MINERALS ZINC, STEEL 515
Indian hypothesis, I believe, has been accepted by others. In my opin-
ion, the art of zinc-smelting originated neither in India nor in China, but
in Persia. We noted from Ibn al-Faqih that the zinc-mines of Kirman
were wrought in the tenth century; and the early Chinese references to
t*ou-& would warrant the conclusion that this industry was prominent
under the Sasanians, and goes back at least to the sixth century.
Li Si-cen 1 states that the green copper of Persia can be wrought into
mirrors. I have no other information on this metal.
85. $& or ! Sc pin t*ie, pin iron, is mentioned as a product of Sa-
sanian Persia, 2 also ascribed to Ki-pin (Kashmir). 3 Mediaeval authors
like C'afi Te mention it also for India and Kami. 4 The Ko ku yao lun 5
says that pin Vie is produced by the Western Barbarians (Si Fan), and
that its surface exhibits patterns like the winding lines of a conch or
like sesame-seeds and snow. Swords and other implements made from
this metal are polished by means of gold threads, and then these pat-
terns become visible; the price of this metal exceeds that of silver. This
clearly refers to a steel like that of Damascus, on which fine dark lines
are produced by means of etching acids. 6
Li Si-cen 7 states that pin t'ie is produced by the Western Barbarians
(Si Fan), and cites the Pao ts'an lun H JU H, by Hien Yuan-u
ff St 3& of the tenth century, to the effect that there are five kinds of
iron, one of these being pin t'ie, which is so hard and sharp that it can
cut metal and hard stone. K'an-hi's Dictionary states that pin is
wrought into sharp swords. Previous investigators have overlooked the
fact that this metal is first mentioned for Sasanian Persia, and have
merely pointed to the late mediaeval mention in the Sung Annals. 8
The word pin has not yet been explained. Even the Pan-Turks have
not yet discovered it in Turkish. It is connected with Iranian *spaina,
Pamir languages spin, Afghan ospina or ospana, Ossetic afsan. g The
1 Pen ts*ao kan mu, Ch. 8, p. 3 b.
2 Cou w, Ch. 50, p. 6; Sui $u, Ch. 83, p. 7 b.
3 T'ai p'in hwan yil ki, Ch. 182, p. 12 b.
4 BRETSCHNEIDER, Mediaeval Researches, Vol. I, p. 146; Kwan yil ki, Ch. 24,
p. sb.
5 Ch. 6, p. 14 b (ed. of Si yin Man ts'un su).
8 A reference to pin t'ie occurs also in the San ku sin hwa \lj f Jpf gj, written
by Yan Yu ^ 1$ in 1360 (p. 19, ed. of Ci pu tsu ai ts'un $u).
7 Pen ts'ao kan mu, Ch. 8, p. n b.
8 BRETSCHNEIDER, On the Knowledge possessed by the Chinese of the Arabs,
p. 12, and China Review, Vol. V, p. 21; W. F. MAYERS, China Review, Vol. IV
P- 175.
9 HUBSCHMANN, Persische Studien, p. 10.
516 SlNO-lRANICA
character pin has been formed ad hoc, and, as already remarked by
Mayers, is written also without the classifier; that is, in a purely pho-
netic way.
86. H>11> se-se, *sit-sit (Japanese sitsu-sitsu) , hypothetical restora-
tion *sirsir, a precious stone of Sasanian Persia, which I have discussed
at some length in my " Notes on Turquois in the East" (pp. 25-35,
45-55, 67-68). For this reason only a brief summary is here given, with
some additional information and corrections. I no longer believe that
se-se might be connected with Shignan (p. 47) or Arabic jaza (p. 52), but
am now convinced that se-se represents the transcription of an Iranian
(most probably Sogdian) word, the original of which, however, has not
yet been traced. Chinese records leave us in the dark as to the character
of the Iranian se-se. It is simply enumerated in a list of precious stones
of Persia and Sogdiana (K'afi) , l The T'ang Annals locate the se-se mines
to the south-east of the Yaxartes in Sogdiana; 2 and the stones were
traded to China by way of Khotan. 3 Possibly the Nestorians were
active in bringing to China these stones which were utilized for the
decoration of their churches. The same history ascribes columns of
se-se to the palaces of Fu-lin (Syria); 4 in this case the question is of a
building-stone. In ancient Tibet, se-se formed part of the official costume,
being worn by officials of the highest rank in strings suspended from
the shoulder. The materials ranking next to this stone were gold,
plated silver, silver, and copper, 5 a clear index of the fact that se-se
was regarded in Tibet as a precious stone of great value, and surpassing
gold. The Tibetan women used to wear beads of this stone in their
tresses, and a single bead is said to have represented the equivalent of
a noble horse. 6 Hence arose the term ma kia c u $f i *5fc ("pearl or bead
equalling a horse in price"). These beads are treated in the Ko ku yao
luri 1 as a separate item, and distinct from turquois. 8
In the T'ang period, se-se stones were also used as ornaments by the
1 Pei Si, Ch. 97, pp. 7 b, 12; Cou Su, Ch. 50, p. 6; Sui I, Ch. 83, p. 7 b; Wei Su,
Ch. 102, pp. 5 a, 9 b.
2 Tan Su, Ch. 221 B, p. 2 b.
3 Tan Su, Ch. 221 A, p. lob.
4 Kiu Tan Su, Ch. 198, p. II b; Tan Su, Ch. 221 B, p. 7 b.
6 Tan $u, Ch. 216 A, p. I b (not in Kiu Tan Su).
6 Sin Wu Tai Si, Ch. 74, p. 4 b.
7 Ch. 6, p. 5 b.
8 As justly said by GEERTS (Produits de la nature japonaise et chinoise, p. 481),
it is possible that ma kia cu (Japanese bakasu) is merely a synonyme of the emerald.
Also in the Pen ts'ao kan mu (Ch. 8, p. 17 b) a distinction is made between the two
articles, tien-tse jU -J- being characterized as pij^, ma kia cu as ts'ui z$L.
IRANIAN PRECIOUS STONES SE-SE 517
women of the Nan Man (the aboriginal tribes of southern China), being
fastened in their hair; 1 and were known in the kingdom of Nan-cao. 2
Likewise the women of Wei-cou H ^H in Se-'wan wore strung se-se
in their hair. 3 Further, we hear at the same time of se-se utilized by the
Chinese and even mined in Chinese soil. In so^e cases it seems that
a building-stone is involved; in others it appears as a transparent
precious stone, strung and used for curtains and screens, highly valued,
and on a par with genuine pearls and precious metals. 4 Under the year
786, the Tang Annals state, "The Kwan-'a-si 8t^$l 5 of San-cou
K. ffl (in Ho-nan), Li Pi $ $& by name, reported to the throne that the
foundries of Mount Lu-si A Ki produce se-se, and requested that it
should be prohibited to accept these stones in the place of taxes; where-
upon the Emperor (Te Tsufi) replied, that, if there are se-se not pro-
duced by the soil, they should be turned over to the people, who are
permitted to gather them for themselves." The question seems to be
in this text of a by-product of metallic origin; and this agrees with what
Kao Se-sun remarks in his Wei lio } that the se-se of his time (Sung period)
were made of molten stone.
I have given two examples of the employment of se-se in objects of
art from the K'ao ku t'u and Ku yu t'u p*u (p. 31). Meanwhile I have
found two instances of the use of the word se-se in the Po ku t'u lu t
published by Wan Fu in 1107-11. In one passage of this work, 6 the
patina of a tin ffi, attributed to the Cou period, is compared with the
color of se-se: since patinas occur in green, blue, and many other hues,
this does not afford conclusive evidence as to the color of se-se. In
another case 7 a small tin dated in the Han period is described as being
decorated with inlaid gold and silver, and decorated with the seven
jewels (saptaratna) and se-se of very brilliant appearance. This is
striking, as se-se are not known to be on record under the Han, but first
appear in the accounts of Sasanian Persia: either the bronze vessel in
question was not of the Han, but of the T'ang; or, if it was of the Han,
the stone thus diagnosed by the Sung author cannot have been identical
with what was known by this name under the T'ang. I already had
occasion to state (p. 33) that the Sung writers knew no longer what the
1 Tan $u, Ch. 222 A, p. 2.
2 Man su, p. 48.
3 T'ai p'in hwan yu ki, Ch. 78, p. 9 b.
4 Min hwan tsa lu, Ch. B, p. 4; Wei Ho, Ch. 5, p. 3; Tu yan tsa pien, Ch. A, pp. 3,
8; Ch. c, pp. 5, 9 b, 14 b.
5 Official designation of a Tao-t'ai.
6 Ch. 3, p. 15 b.
7 Ch. 5, p. 46 b.
$l8 SlNO-lRANICA
se-se of the T'ang really were, that the T'ang se-se were apparently
lost in the age of the Sung, and that substitutes merely designated by
that name were then in vogue.
Under the Yuan or Mongol dynasty the word se-se was revived.
C'ari Te, the envoy who visited Bagdad in 1259, reported se-se among
the precious stones of the Caliph, together with pearls, lapis lazuli, and
diamonds. A stone of small or no value, found in Kin-cou (in Sen-kin,
Manchuria), was styled se-se; 1 and under the reign of the Emperor
C'en-tsun (1295-1307) we hear that two thousand five hundred catties
of se-se were palmed off on officials in lieu of cash payments, a practice
which was soon stopped by imperial command. 2 Under the Ming, se-se
was merely a word vaguely conveying the notion of a precious stone of
the past, and transferred to artifacts like beads of colored glass or
clay. 3
The Chinese notices of se-se form a striking analogy to the accounts
of the ancients regarding the emerald (smaragdos) , which on the one
hand is described as a precious stone, chiefly used for rings, on the
other hand as a building-stone. Theophrastus 4 states, "The emerald
is good for the eyes, and is worn as a ring-stone to be looked at. It is
rare, however, and not large. Yet it is said in the histories of the
Egyptian kings that a Babylonian king once sent as a gift an emerald
of four cubits in length and three cubits in width; there is in the temple
of Jupiter an obelisk composed of four emeralds, forty cubits high, four
cubits wide, and two cubits thick. The false emerald occurs in well-
known places, particularly in the copper-mines of Cyprus, where it
fills lodes crossing one another in many ways, but only seldom is it
large enough for rings." H. O. LENz 5 is inclined to understand by the
latter kind malachite. Perhaps the se-se of Iran and Tibet was the
emerald; the se-se used for pillars in Fu-lin, malachite. No Chinese
definition of what se-se was has as yet come to light, and we have to
await further information before venturing exact and positive identifi-
cations.
In Buddhist literature the emerald appears in the transcription
mo-lo-k*ie-t*o ^ fi/H P2, 6 corresponding to Sanskrit marakata. In the
transcription $6 ;fc $!) cu-mu-la, in the seventeenth century written
jfi -& $fc tsu-mu-lu, the emerald appears to be first mentioned in the
1 Yuan si, Ch. 24, p. 2 b.
*Ibid., Ch. 21, p. 7b.
8 Cf . Notes on Turquois, p. 34.
4 De lapidibus, 42.
6 Mineralogie der Griechen und R&mer, p. 20.
6 Fan yi min yi tsi, Ch. 8, p. 14 b.
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