x ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORDS CROCUS AND SAFFRON. 



if they really are supported by the MS. original, they prove conclusively that kurkum 

 meant Saffron before it meant Turmeric, and that when Turmeric travelled from India 

 to the Arabians, it did not come under one of its Indian names, but picked up on 

 its way one -of the names of Saffron owing to the likeness of the two dyes. That 

 then among the Arabians the meaning Turmeric should have superseded (although 

 not entirely)," the meaning Saffron is not to be wondered at, seeing that they had 

 the word za'feran set apart to signify Saffron. 



Secondly, the Saffron itself, as we have seen, is not indigenous to India, and, 

 although largely used there as a condiment, is not cultivated except in one small 

 district of Kashmir, the plain of Pampur, whence it is exported, both north to 

 Yarkand and south to Hindustani It is also largely imported through Afghanistan, 

 and said to come from Persia. This is no new course of trade ; the Sanskrit 

 medical glossary, Bhavaprakasa\ tells us how Saffron (kunkuma) was imported ; 

 the best quality from Kashmir, the next from Balkh, and the third best from Persia. 



The words grTWlT^- kaJmirajam, and 3frf%^, vahlikam, meaning literally 'the 

 Kashmir thing,' and ' the Balkh thing,' are Sanskrit names for Saffron. § 



Thirdly, we come to the word karkom. Let us consider the comparative age 

 of the writings in which the words have been preserved. First comes karkom, 

 Din3 itself in the Song of Solomon, iv, 14, 1000 years before the Christian era.|| 

 There it occurs in a context which shows it to have been the name of a scent 

 or spice, but sheds no further light upon its meaning. As it occurs but this once 

 in Hebrew literature, there is really no clue whatever to its meaning, except its 

 resemblance to the other names of the KRKM group, and the words by which 

 it has been rendered in the early translations of the Hebrew Scriptures, and in the 

 Chalclee paraphrases. Next in time comes the Greek k/jokos, which occurs in 

 Homer, and frequently in subsequent Greek literature. Now the latest possible 

 date to assign to the Iliad, where the flower /cpckos, as well as the ' Saffron- veiled 

 morn,' are spoken of, II is 550 B.C., the time of the Peisistratid recension. More 



* Kurkum is given as one of the synonyms for za'feran by Ibn Baitar, i, 530, citing the Hawi of Rhazes. 

 The Persian Muhammcd Ben Zakarya Abu Bekr Alrazi died a.d. 923-942 at a great age. Wustenfeld enumerates 

 the titles of 201 of his medical treatises. 



t Royle, Illustr. Himal., p. 371, and Observations on the Vegetation of Afghanistan, Kashmir and Thibet, 

 p. 20; Stewart, Punjab Plants, p. 239; Elmslie, Kashmiri Vocabulary, p. 159. 



| See the passage printed in extenso in the St. Petersburg Lexicon, ii, 307, sub voce ^J^T- Th e date 

 of the Bhavafrakasa must be later than 1000 A.D. ; see below as to the late date of the authorities for the 

 Sanskrit word. 



§ See Williams' and St. Petersburg Lexicon, sub voce. 



|| If we adopt Ewald's theory about the Song of Solomon, we shall still place it more than 900 years B.C. 



If See below. 



