Persian textiles — Brocades 491 



is specially named. Po-tie, further, appears in India; 1 and as early as 

 a.d. 430 Indian po-tie was sent to China from Ho-lo-tan MI ft "# on Java. 2 

 According to a passage of the Kiu T'an iw, 3 the difference between ku- 

 pei (Sanskrit karpasa)* and po-tie was this, that the former was a coarse, 



1 Nan ft, Ch. 78, p. 7 a. 



2 Sun $u, Ch. 97, p. 2 b. 



* Ch. 197, p. 1 b, indicated by Pelliot (Bull, de I'Ecole frangaise, Vol. Ill, 

 p. 269). 



4 It is evident that the transcription ku-pei is not based directly on Sanskrit 

 karpasa; but I do not believe with Watters (Essays on the Chinese Language, 

 p. 440) and Hirth (Chau Ju-kua, p. 218) that Malayan kdpas is at the root of the 

 Chinese form, which, aside from the lack of the final s, shows a peculiar vocalism that 

 cannot be explained from Malayan. Of living languages, it is Bahnar kopaih ("cot- 

 ton") which presents the nearest approach to Chinese ku-pei or ku-pai. It is there- 

 fore my opinion that the Chinese received the word from a language of Indo-China. 

 The history of cotton in China is much in need of a revision. The following case 

 is apt to show what misunderstandings have occurred in treating this subject. 

 Ku-lun (*ku-dzun, *ku-dun) "^ ^ is the designation of a cotton-like plant grown 

 in the province of Kwei-cou ^£ M ; the yarn is dyed and made into pan pu i§£ ^ftj . 

 This is contained in the Nan Yue li }$j ^ Jj»£ by Sen Hwai-yuan iffu f§[ j|£ of the 

 fifth century (Pen ts'ao kan mu, Ch. 36, p. 24). Schott (Altaische Studien, III, 

 Abh. Berl. Akad., 1867, pp. 137, 138; he merely refers to the source as "a descrip- 

 tion of southern China," without citing its title and date), although recognizing that 

 the question is of a local term, proposed, if it were permitted to read kutun instead 

 of kutun, to regard the word as an indubitable reproduction of Arabic qu\un, which 

 resulted in the coton, cotton, kattun, etc., of Europe. Mayers then gave a similar 

 opinion; and Hirth (Chau Ju-kua, p. 219), clinging to a Fu-cbu pronunciation 

 ku-tiin (also Waiters, Essays, p. 440, transcribes ku-tun), accepted the alleged 

 derivation from the Arabic. This, of course, is erroneous, as in the fifth century 

 there was no Arabic influence on China, nor did the Arabs themselves then know 

 cotton. It would also be difficult to realize how a plant of Kwei-cou could have 

 been baptized with an Arabic name at that or any later time. Moreover, ku-lun 

 is not a general term for "cotton" in Chinese; the above work remains the only 

 one in which it has thus far been indicated. Ku-lun, as Li 5i-£en points out, is a 

 tree-cotton /fC £& (Bombax malabaricum) , which originated among the Southern 

 Barbarians (Nan Fan fff ^), and which at the end of the Sung period was trans- 

 planted into Kian-nan. It is very likely that, as stated by Stuart (Chinese Materia 

 Medica, p. 197), the cotton-tree was known in China from very ancient times, and 

 that its product was used in the manufacture of cloth before the introduction of the 

 cotton-plant (Gossypium herbaceum). In fact, the same work Nan yiie li reports, 

 "None of the Man tribes in the kingdom Nan-£ao rear silkworms, but they merely 

 obtain the seeds of the so-lo (*sa-la) |£ ff| tree, the interior of which is white and 

 contains a floss that can be wrought like silk and spun into cloth; it bears the name 

 so-lo lun twan |£ H $1 Jg." The Fan yuli # g| J& of Cu Mu jffc f§ of the Sung 

 period alludes to the same tree, which is said to be from thirty to fifty feet in height. 

 The Ko ku yao lun (Ch. 8, p. 4 b; ed. of Si yin hiian ts'un Su) speaks of cotton stuffs 

 !lE ft £& ( = ^S : tou-lo= Sanskrit tula) which come from the Southern Barbarians, 

 Tibet (Si-fan), and Yun-nan, being woven from the cotton in the seeds of the so-lo 

 tree, resembling velvet, five to six feet wide, good for making bedding and also clothes. 

 The Tien hi writes the word ^ H (G. Souufe, Bull, de I'Ecole francaise, Vol. VIII, 

 p. 343). Sa-la is the indigenous name of the tree; sa-la is still the Lo-lo designation 



