320 Sino-Iranica 



maunds, or 3200 Khurasanl maunds, are produced. Half belongs to 

 the Government, half to the cultivators, and a sir sells for ten rupees; 

 but the price sometimes varies a little. It is the established custom to 

 weigh the flowers, and give them to the manufacturers, who take them 

 home and extract the saffron from them, and upon giving the extract, 

 which amounts to about one-fourth weight of the flower, to the public 

 officers, they receive in return an equal weight of salt, in lieu of money 

 wages." 



The ancient Chinese attribute saffron not only to Kashmir, but also 

 to Sasanian Persia. The Lou Su 1 enumerates yti-kin among the products 

 of Po-se (Persia) ; so does the Sui $u? In fact, Crocus occurs in Persia 

 spontaneously, and its cultivation must date from an early period. 

 Aeschylus alludes to the saffron-yellow footgear of King Darius. 3 

 Saffron is mentioned in Pahlavi literature (above, p. 193). The plant is 

 well attested for Derbend, Ispahan, and Transoxania in the tenth 

 century by Istaxri and Edrisi. 4 Yaqut mentions saffron as the principal 

 production of Rud-Derawer in the province Jebal, the ancient Media, 

 whence it was largely exported. 6 Abu Mansur describes it under the 

 Arabic name zafardn. 6 The Armenian consumers esteem most highly 

 the saffron of Khorasan, which, however, is marketed in such small 

 quantities that the Persians themselves must fill the demand with 

 exportations from the Caucasus. 7 According to Schlimmer, 8 part of 

 the Persian saffron comes from Baku in Russia, another part is culti- 

 vated in Persia in the district of Kain, but in quantity insufficient to 

 fill the demand. In two places, — Rudzabar (identical with the above 

 Rud-Derawer), a mountainous tract near Hamadan, and Mount 

 Derbend, where saffron cultivation had been indicated by previous 

 writers, — he was unable to find a trace of it. 



It is most probable that it was from Persia that the saffron-plant 

 was propagated to Kashmir. A reminiscence of this event is preserved 

 in the Sanskrit term vdhlika, a synonyme of "saffron," which means 

 "originating from the Pahlava." 9 The Buddhists have a legend to the 



1 Ch. 50, p. 6. 



2 Ch. 83, p. 7 b; also Wei $u, Ch. 102, p. 5 b. 

 8 Hehn, Kulturpflanzen, p. 264. 



4 A. Jaubert, Geographie, pp. 168, 192. 



6 B. de Meynard, Dictionnaire geogr. de la Perse, p. 267. See also G. Fer- 

 rand, Textes relatifs a 1'ExtrSme-Orient, Vol. II, pp. 61 8, 622. 



6 Achundow, Abu Mansur, p. 76. 



7 E. Seidel, Mechithar, p. 151. Chardin (Voyages en Perse, Vol. II, p. 14) 

 even says that the saffron of Persia is the best of the world. 



8 Terminologie, p. 165. 



9 Cf. T'oung Pao, 1916, p. 459. 



