524 Sino-Iranica 



Chinese learned of the genuine coral through their intercourse with 

 the Hellenistic Orient: as we are informed by the Wei lio and the Han 

 Annals, 1 Ta Ts'in produced coral; and the substance was so common, 

 that the inhabitants used it for making the king-posts of their habita- 

 tions. The T'ang Annals 2 then describe how the marine product is fished 

 in the coral islands by men seated in large craft and using nets of iron 

 wire. When the corals begin to grow on the rocks, they are white like 

 mushrooms; after a year they turn yellow, and when three years have 

 elapsed, they change into red. Their branches then begin to intertwine, 

 and grow to a height of three or four feet. 3 Hirth may be right in 

 supposing that this fishing took place in the Red Sea, and that the 

 "Coral Sea" of the Nestorian inscription and the "sea producing 

 corals and genuine pearls'* of the Wei lio are apparently identical with 

 the latter. 4 But it may have been the Persian Gulf as well, or even the 

 Mediterranean. Pliny 5 is not very enthusiastic about the Red-Sea 

 coral; and the Periplus speaks of the importation of coral into India, 

 which W. H. Schoef 6 seems to me to identify correctly with the Medi- 

 terranean coral. Moreover, the Chinese themselves correlate the above 

 account of coral-fishing with Persia, for the Yi wu Zi §k tffl !& is cited 

 in the Cen lei pen ts'ao 7 as saying that coral is produced in Persia, being 

 considered by the people there as their most precious jewel; and the 

 Pen ts'ao yen i speaks of a coral-island in the sea of Persia, 8 going on to 

 tell the same story regarding coral-fishing as the T'ang Annals with 

 reference to Fu-lin (Syria). Su Kuh of the T'ang states that coral grows 

 in the Southern Sea, but likewise comes from Persia and Ceylon, the 

 latter statement being repeated by the T'u kin pen ts'ao of the Sung. 

 It is interesting that the Pen ts'ao of the T'ang insists on the holes in 

 coral, a characteristic which in the Orient is still regarded (and justly 

 so) as a mark of authenticity. Under the T'ang, coral was first intro- 

 duced into the materia medica. In the Annals, coral is ascribed to 



1 Hirth, China and the Roman Orient, pp. 41, 73. 

 * Ibid., p. 44. 

 8 Ibid., p. 59. 



4 Ibid., p. 246. 



5 XXXII, 11. 



6 The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, p. 128. 



■> Ch. 4, p. 37. 



8 Ch. 5, p. 7 (ed. of Lu Sin-yuan). The coral island where the coral-tree grows 

 is also mentioned by an Arabic author, who wrote about a.d. 1000 (G. Ferrand, 

 Textes relatifs a l'Extreme-Orient, Vol. I, p. 147). See, further, E. Wiedemann, 

 Zur Mineralogie im Islam, p. 244. 



