478 • Sino-Iranica 



The question here is of gum-lac or stick-lac (Gummi lacca; French 

 laque en bdtons), also known as kino, produced by an insect, Coccus 

 or Tachardia lacca, whichlives on a large number of widely different trees, 1 

 called :$$ &V or @ tse-kun or tse-keh. Under the latter name it is men- 

 tioned in the "Customs of Camboja" by Cou Ta-kwan; 2 under the 

 former, in the Pen ts'ao yen i? At an earlier date it occurs as ^ £$i in 

 the T'an hui yao* where it is said in the notice of P'iao (Burma), that 

 there the temple-halls are coated with it. In all probability, this word 

 represents a transcription: Li Si-cen assigns it to the Southern Bar- 

 barians. 



The Po-se in the text of the Yu yan tsa tsu cannot be Persia, as is 

 sufficiently evidenced by the joint arrival of the Po-se and Camboja 

 envoys, and the opposition of Po-se to the Malayan K'un-lun. Without 

 any doubt we have reference here to the Malayan Po-se. The product 

 itself is not one of Persia, where the lac-insect is unknown. 5 It should be 

 added that the Yu yan tsa tsu treats of this Po-se product along with the 

 plants of the Iranian Po-se discussed on the preceding pages; and there 

 is nothing to indicate that Twan C'eh-si, its author, made a distinction 

 between the two homophonous names. 6 



62. The Malayan Po-se, further, produced camphor (Dryobalanops 

 aromatica), as we likewise see from the Yu yan tsa tsu, 7 where the tree 



sealing wax. The other seemes to be an artificiall thing, and is of an exquisite crim- 

 son colour, but of what it is, or how made, I have not as yet found any thing that 

 carries any probabilitie of truth." Gerarde's information goes back to Garcia, 

 whose fundamental work then was the only source for the plants and drugs 

 of India. 



1 Watt, Commercial Products of India, p. 1053; not necessarily Erythrina, as 

 stated by Stuart (Chinese Materia Medica, p. 489). Sir C. Markham (Colloquies, 

 p. 241) says picturesquely that the resinous exudation is produced by the puncture 

 of the females of the lac-insect as their common nuptial and accouchement bed, the 

 seraglio of their multi-polygamous bacchabunding lord, the male Coccus lacca; 

 both the males and their colonies of females live only for the time they are cease- 

 lessly reproducing themselves, and as if only to dower the world with one of its 

 most useful resins, and most glorious dyes, the color "lake." 



2 Pelliot, Bull, de I'Ecole francaise, Vol. II, p. 166. 



3 Ch. 14, p. 4 b (ed. of Lu Sin-yuan). 



4 Ch. 100, p. 18 b. Also Su Kuh and Li Sun of the T'ang describe the product. 



5 The word lak (Arabic) or ranglak (Persian) is derived from Indian, and 

 denotes either the Indian product or the gum of Zizyphus lotus and other plants 

 (Achundow, Abu Mansur, p. 265). In the seventeenth century the Dutch bought 

 gum-lac in India for exportation to Persia (Tavernier, /. c). Cf. also Leclerc, 

 Traite" des simples, Vol. Ill, p. 241 ; and G. Ferrand, Textes relatifs a l'ExtrSme- 

 Orient, p. 340. 



6 In regard to stick-lac in Tibet, see H. Laufer, Beitrage zur Kenntnis der 

 tibetischen Medicin, pp. 63-64. 



7 Ch. 18, p. 8 b. 



