THE GRAPE-VINE 235 



In his interesting notice "Le Nom turc du vin dans Odoric de 

 Pordenone," 1 P. PELLIOT has called attention to the word bor as a 

 Turkish designation of grape-wine, adding also that this word occurs 

 in a Mongol letter found in Turfan and dated I398. 2 I can furnish 

 additional proof for the fact that bor is an old Mongol word in the 

 sense of wine, although, of course, it may have been borrowed from 

 Turkish. In the Mongol version of the epic romance of Geser or Gesar 

 Khan we find an enumeration of eight names of liquor, all supposed 

 to be magically distilled from araki ("arrack, brandy "). These are: 

 aradsa (araja), xoradsa or xuradsa, Siradsa, boradsa, takpa, tikpa, 

 marba, mirba.* These terms have never been studied, and, with the 

 exception of the first and third, are not even listed in Kovalevski's and 

 Golstuntki's Mongol Dictionaries. The four last words are characterized 

 as Tibetan by the Tibetan suffix pa or ba. Marwa (corresponding in 

 meaning to Tibetan Fan) is well known as a word generally used 

 throughout Sikkim and other Himalayan regions for an alcoholic 

 beverage. 4 As to tikpa, it seems to be formed after the model of Tibetan 

 tig-Pan, the liquor for settling (tig) the marriage-affair, presented by the 

 future bridegroom to the parents of his intended. 5 



The terms aradsa, xoradsa or xuradsa, Siradsa, and boradsa, are all 

 provided with the same ending. The first is given by KOVALEVSKI* 

 with the meaning "very strong koumiss, spirit of wine." A parallel is 

 offered by Manchu in arfan ("a liquor prepared from milk"), while 

 Manchu arjan denotes any alcoholic drink. The term xoradsa or xuradsa 

 may be derived from Mongol xuru-t (-t being suffix of the plural), 

 corresponding to Manchu kuru, which designates "a kind of cheese 

 made from fermented mare's milk, or cheese prepared from cow's or 

 mare's milk with the addition of sugar and sometimes pressed into 

 forms." The word siradsa has been adopted by Schmidt and Kovalevski 

 in their respective dictionaries as "wine distilled for the fourth time" 

 or "esprit de vin quadruple;" but these explanations are simply based 

 on the above passage of Geser, in which one drink is supposed to be 



1 T*oung Pao, 1914, pp. 448-453. 



* Ramstedt's tentative rendering of this word by "beaver" is a double error: 

 first, the beaver does not occur in Mongolia and is unknown to the Mongols, its 

 easternmost boundary is formed by the Yenisei; second, bor as an animal-name 

 means "an otter cub," and otter and beaver are entirely distinct creatures. 



8 Text, ed. I. J. SCHMIDT, p. 65; translation, p. 99. Schmidt transcribes arasa, 

 chorasa, etc., but the palatal sibilant is preferable. 



4 Cf. H. H. RISLEY, Gazetteer of Sikkim, p. 75, where also the preparation is 

 described. 



1 JXSCHKE, Tibetan Dictionary, p. 364. 

 e Dictionnaire mongol, p. 143. 



