262 Sino-Iranica 



much. The tree is found everywhere in eastern Tibet where horti- 

 culture is possible, and among the Tibetan tribes settled on the soil 

 of Se-c'wan Province. W. W. Rockhill 1 even mentions that in the 

 Ba-t'an region barley and walnuts are used in lieu of subsidiary coinage. 

 Lieut.-Col. Waddell 1 makes two references to cultivated walnut-trees 

 in Central Tibet. The Chinese authors mention "Tibetan walnuts" 

 as products of the Lhasa district. 3 



While the Can-K'ien tradition is devoid of historical value, and 

 must be discarded as an historical fact, yet it is interesting from a 

 psychological point of view; for it shows at least that, at the time when 

 this fiction sprang into existence, the Chinese were under the impression 

 that the walnut was not an indigenous tree, but imported from abroad. 

 An autochthonous plant could not have been made the object of such a 

 legend. A direct reference to the introduction of the cultivated walnut 

 with an exact date is not extant in Chinese records, but the fact of such 

 an introduction cannot reasonably be called into doubt. It is supported 

 not only by the terms hu Vao and k'ian Vao ("peach of the Hu," "peach 

 of the K'ian"), but also by the circumstantial evidence that in times 

 of antiquity, and even under the Han, no mention is made of the 

 walnut. True it is, it is mentioned in the Kin kwei yao lio of the second 

 century; but, as stated, this may bean interpolation. 4 Of all the data 

 relating to this fruit, there is only one that may have a faint chance to 

 be referred to the Han period, but even this possibility is very slight. 

 In the Si kin tsa ki Hf M $H ftl 5 it is said that in the gardens of the 

 San-lin Park Jt $fc #B of the Han emperors there were walnuts which 

 had come from the Western Regions or Central Asia. The Si kin tsa ki, 

 however, is the work of Wu Kun £k %, who lived in the sixth century 

 a.d., 8 and cannot be regarded as a pure source for tracing the culture 

 of the Han. It is not difficult to see how this tradition arose. When the 

 San-lin Park was established, the high dignitaries of the empire were 

 called upon to contribute famed fruits and extraordinary trees of distant 

 lands. We know that after the conquest of Nan-yiie in in B.C. the 

 Emperor Wu ordered southern products, like oranges, areca-nuts, 



1 Diary of a Journey through Mongolia and Tibet, p. 347. 



* Lhasa and its Mysteries, pp. 307, 315. See also N. V. KtfNER, Description of 

 Tibet (in Russian), Vol. I, pt. 2, p. 137. 



* Rockhill, Journal Royal As. Soc, 1891, p. 273. 



4 Above, p. 205. Can Ki says or is made to say, "Walnuts must not be eaten in 

 large quantity, for they rouse mucus and cause man to drink" (Ch. c, p. 27). 



6 Ch. 1, p. 6 (ed. of Han Wei ts'un lu). 



8 Wylie, Notes on Chinese Literature, p. 189; and Chavannes, Voung Pot, 

 1906, p. 102. 



