456 Sino-Ira*tica 



According to Stuart, 1 this plant is found in the province of Yun- 

 nan and on the western borders of Se-c'wan, but whether indigenous or 

 transplanted is uncertain. If it should not occur in other parts of 

 China, it is more likely that it came from India, especially as Yun-nan 

 has of old been in contact with India and abounds in plants intro- 

 duced from there. 



54. MH^ 2 *a-sar(sat)-na (Sui Su), MMM a-sie-na (Wei iu, 

 Ch. 102, p. 9), is not explained. There is no doubt that this word 

 represents the transcription of an Iranian, more specifically Sogdian, 

 name; but the Sogdian terms for aromatics are still unknown to us. 

 Hypothetical restorations of the name are *asarna, axsarna, asna. 



55. Storax, an aromatic substance (now obtained from Liquid- 

 ambar orientalis; in ancient times, however, from Styrax officinalis), 

 is first mentioned by Herodotus 3 as imported into Hellas by the Phoe- 

 nicians. It is styled by the Chinese m- fe su-ho, *su-gap (giep), su-gab 

 (Japanese sugo), being mentioned both in the Wei lio and in the Han 

 Annals as a product of the Hellenistic Orient (Ta Ts'in). 4 It is said 

 there, "They mix a number of aromatic substances and extract from 

 them the sap by boiling, which is made into su-ho" (fe #^#I 

 3& W H J$ j££ / n") . 5 It is notable that this clause opens and ends with 

 the same word ho &; and it would thus not be impossible that the 

 explanation is merely the result of punning on the term su-ho, which 

 is doubtless the transcription of a foreign word. Aside from this sema- 

 siological interpretation, we have a geographical theory expressed in the 

 Kwah ci, written prior to a.d. 527, as follows: "Su-ho is produced in 

 the country Ta Ts'in; according to others, in the country Su-ho. The 

 natives of this country gather it and press the juice out of it to make 

 it into an aromatic, fatty substance. What is sold are the sediments 



1 Chinese Materia Medica, p. 278. 



2 This character is not in K'ah-hi. It appears again on the same page of the 

 Sui J« ( 4 b) in the name of the river *Na-mit $£ ^ (ZarafSan) in the kingdom 

 Nan t£c, and on p. 4 a in $$ ft $£ (U, the country Na-se-po (*Na-sek-pwa; accord- 

 ing to Chavannes, Documents sur les Tou-kiue, p. 146, Nakhsab or Nasaf). On 

 pp. 6 b and 7 a the river Na-mit is written $ft. Cf. also Chavannes and Pelliot, 

 Trait6 manich^en, pp. 58, 191. 



3 in, 107. 



4 Hou Han $u, Ch. 118, pp. 4 b — 5 a. E. H. Parker (China Review, Vol. XV, 

 p. 372) indicates in an anecdote relative to Cwah-tse that he preferred the dung- 

 beetle's dung-roll to a piece of storax, and infers that indirect intercourse with western 

 Asia must have begun as early as the fourth century B.C., when Cwah-tse flourished. 

 The source for this story is not stated, and it may very well be a product of later 

 times. 



6 The Sii Han Su gives the same text with the variant, "call it su-ho." 



