ALFALFA 211 



with this novel plant, and enjoyed the possession of large numbers of 

 celestial horses. 1 From the palaces this fodder-plant soon spread to 

 the people, and was rapidly diffused throughout northern China. 

 According to Yen Si-ku (A.D. 579-645), this was already an accom- 

 plished fact during the Han period. As an officinal plant, alfalfa appears 

 in the early work Pie lu.* The Ts*i min yao $u of the sixth century 

 A.D. gives rules for its cultivation; and T'ao Hun-kin (A.D. 451-536) 

 remarks that "it is grown in gardens at C'an-nan (the ancient capital 

 in Sen-si), and is much valued by the northerners, while the people 

 of Kian-nan do not indulge in it much, as it is devoid of flavor. Abroad 

 there is another mu-su plant for healing eye-diseases, but different 

 from this species." 8 



Can K'ien was sent out by the Emperor Wu to search for the 

 Yue-2i and to close an alliance with them against the Turkish Hiun-nu. 

 The Yue-i, in my opinion, were an Indo-European people, speaking a 

 North-Iranian language related to Scythian, Sogdian, YagnObi, and 

 Ossetic. In the course of his mission, Can K'ien visited Fergana, Sog- 

 diana, and Bactria, all strongholds of an Iranian population. The 

 "West" for the first time revealed by him to his astounded country- 

 men was Iranian civilization, and the products which he brought back 

 were thoroughly and typically Iranian. The two cultivated plants 

 (and only these two) introduced by him into his fatherland hailed 

 from Fergana: Ferganian was an Iranian language; and the words for 

 the alfalfa and grape, mu-su and p*u-t'ao, were noted by Can K'ien 

 in Fergana and transmitted to China along with the new cultivations. 

 These words were Ferganian; that is, Iranian. 4 Can K'ien himself was 



an altitude up to nine thousand feet. Cf. S. KORZINSKI, Vegetation of Turkistan 

 (in Russian), p. 51. Russian Turkistan produces the largest supply of alfalfa-seed 

 for export (E. BROWN, Bull. Dep. of Agriculture, No. 138, 1914). 



1 Si ki, Ch. 123. 



* Cf. Chinese Clay Figures, p. 135. 



8 Cen lei pen ts'ao, Ch. 27, p. 23. It is not known what this foreign species is. 



4 HIRTH'S theory (Journal Am. Or. Soc., Vol. XXXVII, 1917, p. 149), that the 

 element yuan of Ta-yuan (Fergana) might represent a "fair linguistic equivalent" of 

 Yavan (Yavana, the Indian name of the Greeks), had already been advanced by J. 

 EDKINS (Journal China Branch Roy. As. Soc., Vol. XVIII, 1884, p. 5). To me it 

 seems eccentric, and I regret being unable to accept it. In the T'ang period we have 

 from Huan Tsan a reproduction of the name Yavana in the form JUJ Jfl ^JS 

 Yen-mo-na, *Yam-mwa-na (PELLIOT, Bull, de VEcole frangaise, Vol. IV, p. 278). 

 For the Han period we should expect, after the analogy of Jj| f$ Ye-tiao, *Yap 

 (Dzap)-div (Yavadvlpa, Java), a transcription J Jf Ye-na, *Yap-na, for Yavana, 

 The term $ @ Yu-yue, * Yu-vat (var) , does not represent a transcription of Yavana, 

 as supposed by CHAVANNES (M&noires historiques de Se-ma Ts'ien, Vol. IV, 1901, 

 PP- 558-559), but is intended to transcribe the name Yuan (*Yuvar, Yjjar), 

 still employed by the Cam and other peoples of Indo-China as a designation of 



