Iranian Minerals — Coral, Bezoar 525 



Sasanian Persia; 1 and it is stated in the T'ang Annals that Persia pro- 

 duces coral not higher than three feet. 2 There is no doubt that Persian 

 corals have found their way all over Asia; and many of them may still 

 be preserved by Tibetans, who prize above all coral, amber, and tur- 

 quois. The coral encountered by the Chinese in Ki-pin (Kashmir) 3 

 may also have been of Persian origin. Unfortunately we have no 

 information on the subject from ancient Iranian sources, nor do we 

 know an ancient Iranian name for coral. Solinus informs us that 

 Zoroaster attributed to coral a certain power and salubrious effects; 4 

 and what Pliny says about coral endowed with sacred properties and 

 being a preservative against all dangers, sounds very much like an 

 idea emanating from Persia. Persian infants still wear a piece of coral 

 on the abdomen as a talisman to ward off harm; 5 and, according to 

 Pliny, this was the practice at his time, only that the branches of coral 

 were hung at the infant's neck. 



The Chinese word for coral, ffl 3$ San-hit, *san-gu (Japanese 

 san-go), possibly is of foreign origin, but possibly it is not/' For the 

 present there is no word in any West-Asiatic or Iranian language with 

 which it could be correlated. In Hebrew it is ra 'mot, which the Seventy 

 transcribes fanod or translates nerkupa. The common word in New 

 Persian is marjan (hence Russian marZan)', other designations are 

 birbal, xuruhak or xurohak, bussad or bissad (Arabic bessed or bussad). 

 In Armenian it is bust. 7 



91. The identification of Chinese ^ ^ p'o-so (*bwa-sa) with Persian 

 pazahr or padzahr* ("bezoar," literally, "antidote"), first proposed by 

 Hirth, 9 in my opinion, is not tenable, although it has been indorsed 



1 Cou Su, Ch. 50, p. 6; Sui Su, Ch. 83, p. 7 b; regarding coral in Fu-lu-ni, see 

 above, p. 521 , note 9. 



2 T'an Su, Ch. 221 B, p. 6 b. The Lian Su (Ch. 54, p. 14 b) attributes to Persia 

 coral-trees one or two feet high. 



* Ts'ien Han Su, Ch. 96 A, p. 5. This passage (not Hou Han Su, Ch. 118, as stated 

 by Hirth, Chau Ju-kua, p. 226, after Bretschneider) contains the earliest mention 

 of the word San-hu. 



* Habet enim, ut Zoroastres ait, materia haec quandam potestatem, ac propterea 

 quidquid inde sit, ducitur inter salutaria (n, 39, § 42). 



5 Schlimmer, Terminologie, p. 166. 



8 According to Bretschneider (Chinese Recorder, Vol. VI, p. 16), "it seems not 

 to be a Chinese name." 



7 Cf. Patkanov, The Precious Stones according to the Notions of the Armenians 

 (in Russian), p. 52. 



8 Pazand pddazahar (see HUbschmann, Persische Studien, p. 193). Steingass 

 gives also pdnzahr. The derivation from bad "wind" (H. FUhner, Janus, Vol. VI, 

 1 90 1, p. 317) is not correct. 



9 Lander des Islam, p. 45. 



