406 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1891. 



tlie name appears to have been applied to it incorrectly through a 

 confusion of this substance with the honey or manna collected from 

 toees, the Bpa-a-o/ieXi of the Greeks, and the Bos melleus of the mid- 

 dle ages. The author of the Makhzan-el-Adwiya says : — " Rasimi- 

 litis is a Greek name for a kind of incense called in Arabic Dukhan- 

 el-daru and in Hindi Ast loban. In another place, speaking of 

 Daru, he says that its Greek name is Fazugus. Zugos (fryos) is 

 the modern Greek for the storax tree (Liquidamber orientalis). 



Ammoniacum root, the Boi of the Parsees, is regularly imported 

 into Bombay for use in Parsee ritual as an incense. It is popularly 

 spoken of as a wood, and is traditionally understood to be one of the 

 fragrant woods mentioned in the Avesta. It is remarkable that 

 before Persian ammoniacum was known in the west, the gum-resin 

 of an Ammoniacum plant growing about Oyrene in Libya and in the 

 neighbourhood of the temple of Ammon was used as an incense 

 under the name of Thus Libycum, or "Libyan frankincense." The 

 use of this substance appears to be now entirely confined to the 

 Parsees. 



Costus was one of the fragrant substances which the Arabs 

 obtained from the Hindus and introduced into Europe to satisfy the 

 ancient demand for perfumes to be burnt upon the altars of the gods 

 and at funerals. They themselves considered it to be the best of 

 j) erf times for fumigation. The Hindus and Chinese used this root 

 for smoking as a narcotic before opium was known in the East, and 

 it is still exported to China in enormous quantities, to be used as an 

 incense. Baden- Powell says : — "In every Hong it is found; no 

 mandarin will give an audience until the patchak incense smokes 

 before him ; in every Joss-house it smoulders before the Tri-budh 

 deity ; in every floating junk in the Chinese rivers, the only home of 

 countless hordes, Budh's image is found, and the smoke of the 

 patchak religiously wends its way heavenward." It is now hardly 

 known in Europe, but the Arabs and Chinese esteem it as highly 

 as ever as an incense, and the Hindus use it as a perfume and 

 medicine. 



Sandal wood must have been used in India from prehistoric times, 

 as it is mentioned in the Mrukta, or writings of Yaska, the oldest 

 Vedic commentary extant. It is principally consumed at the funeral 



