326 Sino-Iranica 



f? J£ $t, in his Yii sie H lun hi % $t f# *f* it, says, 1 'These are hun- 

 lan (Carthamus) : 2 did you know these previously, Sir, or not? The 

 people of the north gather these flowers, and dye materials a red-yellow 

 by rubbing their surface with it. The fresh blossoms are made into a 

 cosmetic. 3 Women, when dressing, use this pigment, it being the fashion 

 to apply only a piece the size of a small bean. When distributed evenly, 

 the paint is pleasing, as long as it is fresh. In my youth I observed this 

 cosmetic again and again; and to-day I have for the first time beheld 

 the hun-lan flower. Afterwards I shall raise its seeds for your benefit, 

 Sir. The Hiun-nu styled a wife yen-li f8 J£, 4 a word just as pleasing as 

 yen-U ffl ;£ ('cosmetic ') . The characters P! and #9 have the same sound 

 yen; the character J£ has the sound ;£ li. I expect you knew this 

 before, Sir, or you may read it up in the Han Annals.' Ceh K'ien H5 ^ 5 

 says that a cosmetic may be prepared from pomegranate flowers." 6 



The curious word yen-li has stirred the imagination of Chinese 

 scholars. It is not only correlated with the Hiuh-nu word yen-U, as 

 was first proposed by Si Ts'o-S'i, but is also connected with a Yen-ci 

 mountain. Lo Yuan, in his Er ya i, remarks that the Hiun-nu had a 

 Yen-ci mountain, and goes on to cite a song from the Si ho kiu Si M $f 

 H ^, 7 which says, "If we lose our K'i-lien mountain tf(5 51 ill, 8 we cause 

 our herds to diminish in number; if we lose our Yen-ci mountain, we 

 cause our women to go without paint." 9 The Pet pien pei tui At jft 

 4if Ws, a work of the Sung period, states, "The yen-li M 3£ of the Yen-ci 

 mountain M ;£ \U is the yen-li ^ flit of the present time. This moun- 



1 This author is stated to have lived under the Tsin dynasty (a.d. 265-419) 

 in the T'u I« tsi Ven, XX, Ch. 158, where this passage is quoted; but his book is 

 there entitled Yii yen wan $u |^ ^ 3E lif- The same passage is inserted in the 

 Er ya i of Lo Yuan ft I$f of the twelfth century, where the title is identical with 

 that given above. V 



* In the text of the T'u Su: "At the foot of the mountain there are hurt Ian." 

 8 Carthamus was already employed for the same purposes in ancient Egypt. 



* This is the Hiun-nu word for a royal consort, handed down in the Han Annals 

 {TsHen Han Isu, Ch. 94 A, p. 5). See my Language of the Yue-chi, p. 10. 



6 Author of the lost Hu pen ts'ao (above, p. 268). 



6 Then follow a valueless anecdote anent a princess of the T'ang dynasty pre- 

 paring a cosmetic, and the passage of the Ku kin iu given above. 



7 Mentioned in the T'ang literature, but seems to date from an earlier period 

 (Bretschneider, Bot. Sin., pt. 1, p. 190). 



8 A mountain-range south-west of Kan Sou in Kan-su (Si ki, Ch. 123, p. 4). 

 The word k'i-lien belongs to the language of the Hiun-nu and means "heaven." 

 In my opinion, it is related to Manchu kulun, which has the same meaning. The 

 interpretations given by Watters (Essays, p. 362) and Shiratori (Sprache der 

 Hiung-nu, p. 8) are not correct. 



* The same text is quoted in the commentary to the Pei hu lu (Ch. 3, p. 11 b). 



