The Grape-Vine 225 



were also the Sacae, who, maddened with wine, were defeated by 

 Cyrus. 1 In the same passage, Strabo speaks of a Bacchanalian festival 

 of the Persians, in which men and women, dressed in Scythian style, 

 passed day and night in drinking and wanton play. On the other 

 hand, it must not be forgotten that such judgments passed by one 

 nation on another are usually colored or exaggerated, and must be 

 accepted only at a liberal discount; also temperance was preached in 

 ancient Persia, and intemperance was severely punished. 2 With all 

 the evils of over-indulgence in wine and the social dangers of alcohol, 

 the historian, whose duty it is to represent and to interpret phe- 

 nomena as they are, must not lose sight of the fact that wine con- 

 stitutes a factor of economic, social, and cultural value. It has largely 

 contributed to refine and to intensify social customs and to heighten 

 sociability, as well as to promote poetry, music, and dancing. It has 

 developed into an element of human civilization, which must not 

 be underrated. Temperance literature is a fine thing, but who would 

 miss the odes of Anakreon, Horace, or Hafiz? 



The word for the grape, brought back by Can K'ien and still current 

 in China and Japan (budo) , is W $ii (ancient phonetic spelling of the 

 Han Annals, subsequently 36 3tJ) 3 p'u-t'ao, *bu-daw, "grape, vine". Since 

 Can K'ien made the acquaintance of the grape in Ta-yuan (Fergana) 

 and took its seeds along from there to China, it is certain that he also 

 learned the word in Fergana; hence we are compelled to assume that,) 

 *bu-daw is Ferganian, and corresponds to an Iranian *budawa or 

 *bu5awa, formed with a suffix wa or awa, from a stem buda, which in 

 my opinion may be connected with New Persian bdda ("wine") and 

 Old Persian fiaTiiicr) ("wine- vessel ") = Middle Persian batak, New 

 Persian bddye.* The Sino-Iranian word might also be conceived as a 

 dialectic form of Avestan madav ("wine from berries"). 



It is well known that attempts have been made to derive the Chinese 

 word from Greek (56rpvs ("a bunch of grapes"). Tomaschek 5 was 

 the first to offer this suggestion; T. Kingsmill 8 followed in 1879, and 



1 Strabo, XI. vm, 5. 



2 Cf. Jackson, in Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, Vol. II, p. 679. 



3 The graphic development is the same as in the case'of mu-su (see above, p. 212). 



4 Cf. Horn, Neupersische Etymologie, No. 155. The Chinese are fond of etymol- 

 ogizing, and Li Si-cen explains the word p'u-t'ao thus: "When people drink (p'u 

 §j§) it, they become intoxicated {Vao §&0)." The joke is not so bad, but it is 

 no more than a joke. 



6 Sogdiana, Sitzungsber. Wiener Akad., 1877, p. 133. 



8 Journal China Branch Roy. As. Soc, Vol. XIV, pp. 5, 19. 



