Aromatics — Myrrh 461 



as), while this section opens with the remark, "The habitat of the 

 myrrh tree $1 is in Po-se." 1 It may be, however, that, as argued by 

 Hirth, mu may be intended in this case to transcribe Middle and 

 New Persian milrd, which means "myrtle" (not only in the Bundahisn, 

 but generally). 2 Myrrh and myrtle have nothing to do with each 

 other, belonging not only to different families, but even to different 

 orders; nor does the myrtle yield a resin like myrrh. It therefore re- 

 mains doubtful whether myrrh was known to the Chinese during the 

 T'ang period; in this case, the passage cited above from the Nan lou 

 ki (like many another text from this work) must be regarded as an 

 anachronism. Cao Zu-kwa gives the correct information that myrrh 

 is produced on the Berbera coast of East Africa and on the Hadramaut 

 littoral of Arabia; he has also left a fairly correct description of how the 

 resin is obtained. 3 



Li Si-cen 4 thinks that the transcription « or ^c represents a Sanskrit 

 word. This, of course, is erroneous: myrrh is not an Indian product, 

 and is only imported into India from the Somali coast of Africa and from 

 Arabia. The former Chinese character answers to ancient *mut or 

 *mur; the latter, to *mwat, mwar, or mar. The former no doubt repre- 

 sents attempts at reproducing the Semito-Persian name, — Hebrew 

 mor, Aramaic mura, Arabic murr, Persian mor (Greek afxvpa, vp,vpov, 

 nOpov, Latin myrrha). 5 



Whether the Chinese transcribed the Arabic or Persian form, re- 

 mains uncertain: if the transcription should really appear as late as 

 the age of the Sung, it is more probable that the Arabic yielded the 

 prototype; but if it can be carried back to the T'ang or earlier, the 

 assumption is in favor of Iranian speech. 



1 Cf. Hirth, Journal Am. Or. Soc, Vol. XXX, p. 20. Owing to a curious mis- 

 conception, the article of the Yu yah tsa tsu has been placed under mi hian 3§J ^ 

 ("gharu-wood") in the Pen ts'ao kan mu (Ch. 34, p. 10 b), for mu $j£ hian is wrongly- 

 supposed to be a synonyme of mi hian. 



8 Another New-Persian word for this plant is ariiba or anltd. In late Avestan 

 it is multemela (Bartholomae, Altiran. W&rt., col. 1189). I do not believe that the 

 Persian word and Armenian murt are derived from Greek nvpolvi) (Schrader in 

 Hehn, Kulturpflanzen, p. 238) or from Greek ubpros (Noldeke, Persische Studien, 

 II, P- 43). 



3 Hirth, Chau Ju-kua, p. 197. 



4 Pen ts'ao kah mu, Ch. 34, p. 17. 



6 Pliny, xii, 34-35; Leclerc, Traits des simples, Vol. Ill, p. 300; V. Loret, 

 Flore pharaonique, p. 95. The transcription *mwat appears to transcribe Javanese 

 and Bali madu ("myrrh"; Malayan manisan lebah). In an Uigur text translated 

 from Sogdian or Syriac appears the word zmurna or zmuran ("myrrh"), connected 

 with the Greek word (F. W. K. Miller, Uigurica, pp. 5-7). 



