566 Sino-Iranica 



cussed by me in two articles. 1 Vullers 2 gives no less than seven 

 definitions of the Persian word: (i) cornu bovis cuiusdam Sinensis; 

 (2) secundum alios cornu rhinocerotis; (3) secundum alios cornu avis 

 cuiusdam permagnae in regno vastato, quod inter Chinam et Aethiopiam 

 situm est, degentis, e quo conficiunt anulos osseos et manubria cultri 

 et quo res venenatae dignosci possunt; (4) secundum alios cornu ser- 

 pentis, quod mille annos natus profert; (5) secundum alios cornu 

 viperae; (6) secundum alios cornu piscis annosi; (7) secundum alios 

 dentes animalis cuiusdam. Of these explanations, No. 3 is that of 

 al-Akfani, and the bird in question is the buceros. No. 4 is a reproduc- 

 tion of the definition of ku-tu-si in the Liao Annals ("the horn of a 

 thousand-years-old snake"). How the Persians and Arabs arrived at 

 the other definitions will be easily understood from my former dis- 

 cussion of the subject. In the Ethiopic version of the Alexander Ro- 

 mance are mentioned, among the gifts sent to Alexander by the king of 

 China, twenty (in the Syriac version, ten) snakes' horns, each a cubit 

 long. 3 



Meanwhile I have succeeded in tracing a new Chinese definition 

 of ku-tu. Cou Mi Ml $? (1 230-1320), in his Ci ya Van tsa Pao* states, 

 "According to Po-ki fS ^, 5 what is now styled ku-tu si # $§ JP is 

 a horn of the earth (ti kio i& m, 'a horn found underground'?)." He 

 refers again to its property of neutralizing poison and to knife-hilts 

 made of the substance. 



In the edition of the Ko ku yao lun* the text regarding ku-tu-si is 

 somewhat different from that quoted by me in T'oung Pao (19 13, p. 325). 

 Ku-tu-si is not identified there with pi-si, as appears from the text of 

 the P x ei wen yiinfu and Pen ts'ao kan mu, but pi-si is a variety of ku-tu-si 

 of particularly high value. , 



1 Arabic and Chinese Trade in Walrus and Narwhal Ivory (T'oung Pao, 1913, 

 PP- 3 I 5~364, with Addenda by P. Pelliot, pp. 365-370); and Supplementary 

 Notes on Walrus and Narwhal Ivory (ibid., 1916, pp. 348-389). Regarding objects 

 of walrus ivory in Persia, see pp. 365-366. 



2 Lexicon Persico-Latinum, Vol. I, p. 659. 



8 E. A. W. Budge, Life and Exploits of Alexander the Great, p. 180; likewise 

 his translation of the Syriac version, p. 112 (Syriac edition, p. 200). In the Syriac 

 occurs another gift from China, "a thousand talents of mai-kdsl" (literally, "waters 

 of cups"). Budge leaves this problem unsolved. Apparently we face the tran- 

 scription of a Chinese word, which I presume is *mak, mag 3H (at present mo), 

 "China ink." In Mongol and Manchu we find this word as bexe, in Kalmuk as beke. 



4 Ch. A, p. 29 b (ed. of Yiie ya fan ts'un Su). 



5 Surname of Sien-yu £'u j$ -^ fl^ calligraphist and poet at the end of the 

 thirteenth century (see Pelliot, T'oung Pao, 1913, p. 368). 



8 Ch. 6, p. 9 b (ed. of Si yin hiian ts'un $u). 



