HENNA 335 



Liang (A.D. 536) it came to China. At the time of the Liang dynasty, 

 people of Kin ou M ffl used to gamble in their houses at backgammon 

 with gold coins. When the supply of coins was exhausted, they resorted 

 to gold-coin flowers. Hence Yu Hun ft A said, 'He who obtains flowers 

 makes money.' " The same work likewise contains the following note: 1 

 "PV-&-.foPttt P ^ is a synonyme for the gold-coin flower, 2 which was 

 originally produced abroad, and came to China in the first year of 

 the period Ta-t'un of the Liang (A.D. 535)." The gold-coin flower vis- 

 ualized by Twan Kun-lu and Twan C'en-si assuredly cannot be Inula 

 chinensis, which is a common, wild plant in northern China, and which 

 is already mentioned in the Pie lu and by T'ao Hun-kin. 3 It is patent 

 that this flower introduced under the Liang must have been a different 

 species. The only method of solving the problem would be to determine 

 the prototype of p*i-si-$a, which is apparently the transcription of a 

 foreign word. It is not stated to which language it belongs; but, judging 

 from appearances, it is Sanskrit, and should be traceable to a form 

 like *vislsa (or *vicesa). Such a Sanskrit plant-name is not to be 

 found, however. Possibly the word is not Sanskrit. 4 



The Pei hu lu, accordingly, conceives the finger-nail flower as an 

 introduction due to the Persians, but does not allude to its product, 

 the henna. I fail to find any allusion to henna in other books of the 

 T'ang period. I am under the impression that the use of this cosmetic 

 did not come into existence in China before the Sung epoch, and that 

 the practice was then introduced (or possibly only re-introduced) by 

 Mohammedans, and was at first restricted to these. It is known that 

 also the leaves of Impatiens balsamina (fun sien IH fill) mixed with alum 

 are now used as a finger-nail dye, being therefore styled Zan ci kia ts'ao 

 K* |g ^ ^ ("plant dyeing finger-nails"), 5 a term first appearing 

 in the Kiu hwan pen ts*ao, published early in the Ming period. The 

 earliest source that mentions the practice is the Kwei sin tsa si 1 ^ 



1 Ch. 19, p. 10 a. 



2 The addition of Ff* before kin in the edition of Pai hai surely rests on an error. 



3 Cf. also BRETSCHNEIDER, Bot. Sin., pt. Ill, p. 158. 



4 The new Chinese Botanical Dictionary (p. 913) identifies the gold-coin 

 flower with Inula britannica. In Buddhist lexicography it is identified with 

 Sanskrit jdti (Jasminum grandiflorum; cf. EITEL, Handbook, p. 52). The same 

 word means also "kind, class"; so does likewise vi$esa, and the compound jati- 

 vi$e$a denotes the specific characters of a plant (HOERNLE, Bower Manuscript, 

 p. 273). It is therefore possible that this term was taken by the Buddhists in 

 the sense of "species of Jasminum," and that finally vi$e$a was retained as the 

 name of the flower. 



5 STUART, Chinese Materia Medica, p. 215; Pen ts'ao kan mu, Ch. 17 B, p. 12 b. 



