Irano-Sinica — Paper Money, Parchment 563 



of ancient papers, has included the fibre of Morus alba and M. nigra 

 among the materials to which his researches extended. 



Mulberry-bark paper is ascribed to Bengal in the Si yah Fao kuh 

 tien lu IS ft & M ■& 8k by Hwan Sih-ts'eh ft % #, published in 1520. 1 

 Such paper is still made in Corea also, and is thicker and more solid 

 than that of China. 2 The bark of a species of mulberry is utilized by 

 the Shan for the same purpose. 3 



As the mulberry-tree is eagerly cultivated in Persia in connection 

 with the silk-industry, it is possible also that the Persian paper in the 

 bank-notes of the Mongols was a product of the mulberry. 4 At any 

 rate, good Marco Polo is cleared, and his veracity and exactness have 

 been established again. 



Before the introduction of rag-paper the Persians availed them- 

 selves of parchment as writing-material. It is supposed by Herzfeld 

 that Darius Hystaspes introduced the use of leather into the royal 

 archives, but this interpretation has been contested. 5 A fragment of 

 Ctesias preserved by Diodorus 6 mentions the employment of parchment 

 (8i<t>depa) in the royal archives of Persia. The practice seems to be of 

 Semitic, probably Syrian, origin. In the business life of the Romans, 

 parchment (membrana) superseded wooden tablets in the first century 

 ' a.d. 7 The Avesta and Zend written on prepared cow-skins with gold ink 

 is mentioned in the Artai-vlraf-namak (1, 7). The Iranian word post 

 ("skin") resulted in Sanskrit pusta or pustaka ("volume, book"), 8 

 from which Tibetan po-ti is derived. 9 On the other hand, the Persians 

 have borrowed from the Greek 8L<j>dkpa ("skin, parchment") their 

 word daftar or defter ("book," Arabic daftar, diftar), which likewise 



belongs to the oldest cultivated plants of the Chinese (see above, p. 293), and that 

 hemp paper is already listed among the papers invented by Ts'ai Lun in a.d. 105 

 (cf. Chavannes, Les Livres chinois avant l'invention du papier, Journal asiatique, 

 1905, p. 6 of the reprint). 



1 Ch. b., p. 10 b (ed. of Pie hia lai ts'un Su). 



2 C. Dallet, Histoire de l'eglise de Coree, Vol. I, p. CLXXXin. 



s J. G. Scott and J. P. Hardiman, Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan 

 States, pt. I, Vol. II, p. 411. 



4 The Persian word for the mulberry, tilS, is supposed to be a loan-word from 

 Aramaic <Horn, Grundriss iran. Phil., Vol. I, pt. 2, p. 6); but this is erroneous 

 (see below, p. 582). 



5 Cf. V. Gardthausen, Buchwesen im Altertum, p. 91. 



6 n, 32. 



7 K. Dziatzko, Ausgewahlte Kapitel des antiken Buchwesens, p. 131. 



8 R. Gauthiot in MSmoires Soc. de Linguistique, Vol. XIX, 1915, p. 130. 



9 T'oung Pao, 1916, p. 452. 



