264 Sino-Iranica 



3$i # 13. * Another allusion to the walnut relative to the period Hien-ho 

 (a.d. 326-335) has been noted above (p. 259). There is, further, a refer- 

 ence to the fruit in the history of Su ID , when, after the death of Li Hiun 

 3p M in a.d. 334, Han Pao & J& from Fu-fuh #v $& in Sen-si 

 was appointed Grand Tutor (t'ai fu zk $§•) of his son Li K'i ^ $J, and 

 asked the latter to grant him seeds for the planting of walnut-trees, 

 which, on account of his advanced age, he was anxious to have in his 

 garden. 2 



During the third or fourth century, the Chinese knew also that 

 walnuts grew in the Hellenistic Orient. "In Ta Ts'in there are jujubes, 

 jasmine, and walnuts," it is stated in the Wu H wai kwo li ^ Bvf ^ 

 @8 jS ("Memoirs of Foreign Countries at the time of the Wu"). 3 



The Kwan li )0( jS by Kwo Yi-kuh IP H # 4 contains the following 

 account: "The walnuts of C'en-ts'ah W. M 5 have a thin shell and a 

 large kernel; those of Yin-p'ih ^ Z P 6 are large, but their shells are brittle, 

 and, when quickly pinched, will break." 7 



Coming to the T'ang period, we encounter a description of the 

 walnut in the Yu yah tsa tsu @ $1 H 21, written about a.d. 860, 8 from 

 which the fact may be gleaned that the fruit was then much cultivated 



1 T'ai p'in yti Ian, I.e. 



2 This story is contained in the Kwan wu hin ki ]§( 3t ff IE (according to 

 Bretschneider, a work of the Sung literature). As the text is embodied in the 

 T'ai p'in yti Ian, it must have been extant prior to a.d. 983, the date of Li Fan's 

 cyclopaedia. 



3 Presumably identical with the Wu Si wai kwo Swan noted by Pelliot (Bull, de 

 I'Ecole jrancaise, Vol. IV, p. 270) as containing information secured by the mission 

 of K'an T'ai in the first part of the third century a.d. Cf. also Journal asiatique, 

 191 8, II, p. 24. The Min H ascribes walnuts to Ormuz (Bretschneider, Notices 

 of the Mediaeval Geography, p. 294). 



4 This work is anterior to the year a.d. 527, as it is cited in the Swi kin lu of 

 Li Tao-yuan, who died in that year. Kwo Yi-kuh is supposed to have lived under 

 the Tsin (a.d. 265-419). Cf. Pelliot, Bull, de I'Ecole jrancaise, Vol. IV, p. 412. 



6 Now the district of Pao-ki in the prefecture of Fuh-sian, Sen-si Province. 



6 At the time of the Han period, Yin-p'ih was the name for the present prefec- 

 ture of Lun-han ft ^ in the province of Se-2'wan. There was also a locality of the 

 same name in the prefecture of Kiai in the province of Kan-su, inhabited by the Ti, 

 a Tibetan tribe (Chavannes, T'oung Pao, 1905, p. 525). 



7 T'ai p'in yti Ian, I. c; Ko li kin yuan, Ch. 76, p. 5; Ci wu min H t'u k'ao, I. c. 

 This text is cited also by Su Sun in his T'u kin pen ts'ao. The earliest quotation 

 that I can trace of it occurs in the Pei hu lu, written by Twan Kuh-lu about a.d. 

 875 (Ch. 3, p. 4 b, ed. of Lu Sin-yuan), where, however, only the last clause in regard 

 to the walnuts of Yin-p'in is given (see below, p. 268). 



8 Pelliot, T'oung Pao, 1912, p. 375. The text is in the T'u Su tsi I'en and 

 Ci wu min si t'u k'ao (I. c). I cannot trace it in the edition of the Yu yan tsa tsu in 

 the Tsin tai pi su or Pai hai. 



