428 Sino-Iranica 



loan-word), denoting Narcissus tazetta, which is still cultivated in 

 Persia and employed in the pharmacopoeia. 1 Oil was obtained from the 

 narcissus, which is called vapnioouov in the Greek Papyri. 2 



Hirth 3 has erroneously identified the Chinese name with the nard. 

 Aside from the fact that the description of the Yu yan tsa tsu does not 

 at all fit this plant, his restoration, from a phonetic viewpoint, remains 

 faulty. K'ah-hi does not indicate the reading not for the first character, 

 as asserted by Hirth, but gives the readings nai, ni, and yin. The second 

 character reads k'i, which is evolved from *gi, but does not repre- 

 sent ti, as Hirth is inclined to make out. 4 



For other reasons it is out of the question to see the nard in the 

 term nai-k'i; for the nard, a product of India, is well known to the 

 Chinese under the term kan sun hian ~W t& -ft . 5 The Chinese did not 

 have to go to Fu-lin to become acquainted with a product which reached 

 them from India, and which the Syrians themselves received from 

 India by way of Persia. 6 Hebrew nerd (Canticle), Greek vdpSos, 7 

 Persian nard and nard, are all derived from Sanskrit nalada, which 

 already appears in the Atharvaveda. 8 Hirth 's case would also run 

 counter to his theory that the language of Fu-lin was Aramaic, for 

 the word nard does not occur there. 



1 Schlimmer, Terminologie, p. 390. Narcissus is mentioned among the aromatic 

 flowers growing in great abundance in Bi§avur, province of Fars, Persia (G. Le 

 Strange, Description of the Province of Fars, p. 51). It is a flower much praised 

 by the poets Hafiz and Jaml. 



2 T. Reil, Beitrage zur Kenntnis des Gewerbes im hellenistischen Aegypten, 

 p. 146. Regarding narcissus-oil, see Dioscorides, 1, 50; and Leclerc, Traits des 

 simples, Vol. II, p. 103. 



* Journal Am. Or. Soc, Vol. XXX, 1910, p. 22. 



* See particularly Pelliot, Bull, de I'Ecole frangaise, Vol. IV, p. 291. 

 5 Stuart, Chinese Materia Medica, p. 278. 



8 1. Loew, Aram. Pflanzennamen, pp. 368-369. 



7 First in Theophrastus, Hist, plant., IX. vn, 2. 



8 See p. 455. 



