IRANO-SINICA 



After dealing with the cultural elements derived by the Chinese 

 from the Iranians, it will be only just to look also at the reverse of the 

 medal and consider what the Iranians owe to the Chinese. 



i. Some products of China had reached Iranian peoples long before 

 any Chinese set their foot on Iranian soil. When Can K'ien in 128 B.C. 

 reached Ta-hia (Bactria), he was amazed to see there staves or walking- 

 sticks made from bamboo of Kiufi flS 1t ^t 1 and cloth of Su (Se-S'wan) 

 18 3ft. What this textile exactly was is not known. 2 Both these articles 

 hailed from what is now Se-S'wan, Kiufi being situated in Zun cou IS $H 

 in the prefecture of Kia-tin, in the southern part of the province. When 

 the Chinese envoy inquired from the people of Ta-hia how they had 

 obtained these objects of his own country, they replied that they pur- 

 chased them in India. Hence Can K'ien concluded that India could 

 not be so far distant from Se-'wan. It is well known how this new 

 geographical notion subsequently led the Chinese to the discovery of 

 Yun-nan. There was accordingly an ancient trade-route running from 

 Se-5'wan through Yun-nan into north-eastern India; and, as India on 

 her north-west frontier was in connection with Iranian territory, Chinese 

 merchandise could thus reach Iran. The bamboo of Kiufi, also called 

 Sr, has been identified by the Chinese with the so-called square bamboo 

 (Bambusa or Phyllostachys quadrangularis) . 3 The cylindrical form is so 

 universal a feature in bamboo, that the report of the existence in China 

 and Japan of a bamboo with four-angled stems was first considered in 

 Europe a myth, or a pathological abnormity. It is now well assured 

 that it represents a regular and normal species, which grows wild in 

 the north-eastern portion of Yun-nan, and is cultivated chiefly as an 

 ornament in gardens and in temple-courts, the longer stems being used 



1 He certainly did not see "a stick of bamboo," as understood by HIRTH (Journal 

 Am. Or. Soc., Vol. XXXVII, 1917, p. 98), but it was a finished product imported 

 in a larger quantity. 



- Assuredly it was not silk, as arbitrarily inferred by P. v. RICHTHOFEN (China, 

 Vol. I, p. 465). The word pu never refers to silk materials. 



3 For an interesting article on this subject, see D. J. MACGOWAN, Chinese Record- 

 er, Vol. XVI, 1885, pp. 141-142; further, the same journal, 1886, pp. 140-141. E. 

 SATOW, Cultivation of Bamboos in Japan, p. 92 (Tokyo, 1899). The square bamboo 

 (Japanese sikaku-dake) is said to have been introduced into Japan from Liukiu. 

 FORBES and HEMSLEY, Journal Linnean Soc., Vol. XXXVI, p. 443. 



535 



