544 Sino-Iranica 



or the attribution of certain products to China, is not always to be 

 understood literally. Sometimes it merely refers to a far-eastern 

 product, sometimes even to an Indian product, 1 and sometimes to 

 products handled and traded by the Chinese, regardless of their pro- 

 venience. Such cases, however, are exceptions. As a rule, these Persian- 

 Arabic terms apply to actual products of China. 



Schlimmer 2 mentions under the name Killingea monocephala the 

 zedoary of China: according to Piddington's Index Plantarum, it should 

 be the plant furnishing the famous root known in Persia as jadware 

 xitai ("Chinese jadvar"); genuine specimens are regarded as a divine 

 panacea, and often paid at the fourfold price of fine gold. The identifica- 

 tion, however, is hardly correct, for K. monocephala is kin niu ts'ao 

 ^ 4 1 ^ in Chinese, 3 which hardly holds an important place in the 

 Chinese pharmacopoeia. The plant which Schlimmer had in mind 

 doubtless is Curcuma zedoaria, a native of Bengal and perhaps of China 

 and various other parts of Asia. 4 It is called in Sanskrit nirvisa ("poison- 

 less") or sida, in KuSa or Tokharian B viralom or wiralom, 5 Persian jad- 

 var, Arabic zadvar (hence our zedoary, French zedoaire). Abu Mansur 

 describes it as zarvar, calling it an Indian remedy similar to Costus and 

 a good antidote. 6 In the middle ages it was a much-desired article of 

 trade bought by European merchants in the Levant, where it was sold 

 as a product of the farthest east. 7 Persian zarumbdd, Arabic zeronbdd, 

 designating an aromatic root similar to zedoary, resulted in our zer- 

 umbet. s While it is not certain that Curcuma zedoaria occurs in China 

 (a Chinese name is not known to me), it is noteworthy that the Persians, 

 as indicated above, ascribe to the root a Chinese origin: thus also 

 ka%ur (from Sanskrit karcura) is explained in the Persian Dictionary of 



1 Such an example I have given in T'&ung Pao, 1915, p. 319: biS, an edible 

 aconite, does not occur in China, as stated by Damlrl, but in India. In regard to 

 cubebs, however, Garcia da Orta (C. Markham, Colloquies, p. 169) was mis- 

 taken in denying that they were grown in China, and in asserting that they are 

 called kabab-£inl only because they are brought by the Chinese. As I have 

 shown {ibid., pp. 282-288), cubebs were cultivated in China from the Sung period 

 onward. 



2 Terminologie, p. 335. 



3 Also this identification is doubtful (Stuart, Chinese Materia Medica, 

 p. 228). 



4 W. Roxburgh, Flora Indica, p. 8; Watt, Commercial Products of India, 

 p. 444, and Dictionary, Vol. II, p. 669. 



B S. Levi, Journal asiatique, 191 1, II, pp. 123, 138. 



6 Achundow, Abu Mansur, p. 79. See also Leclerc, Traits des simples, Vol. I, 

 P- 347- 



7 W. Heyd, Histoire du commerce du levant, Vol. II, p. 676. 



8 Yule, Hobson-Jobson, p. 979. 



