﻿4g6 on the spikenard 



to Lhtrueus't but the nardus is a grass which, though 

 it bear a spike, no man ever supposed to be the true 

 Spikenard, which the great botanical philosopher him- 

 self was irxlined to think a species of Andropogon, and 

 places in his Materia Medira, but with an expression 

 of doubt, among his polygamous plants. Since the 

 death of Koenig 1 have consulted every botanist and 

 physician with whom 1 was acquainted, on the sub- 

 ject before us ; but all have confessed without reserve, 

 though not without seme regret, that they were igno- 

 rant what was meant by the Indian Spikenard. 



In order to procure information from the learned 

 natives, it was necessary to knew the name of the plant 

 in some Asiatic language. The Very word nard oc- 

 curs in the Song &f Solomon; but 'the name and the 

 thing were both exotic : the Hebre-iv lexicographers 

 imagine both to be Indian ; but the word is in truth 

 Persian, and occurs in the following distich of an old 

 poet : 



An chu bikbest, in chu nardest, an chu shafcest, in cbu bar, 

 An chu bikhi payidaresf, in chu nardi payidar. 



It is not easy to determine in this couplet, whether 

 Mara 1 r&tans the stem, or, as Anju explains it, the pith; 

 but it is manifestly a part of a vegetable, and neither 

 the root, the fruit, nor the branch, which are all se- 

 parately named. The Arabs have borrowed the word 

 nard but in the sense, as we learn from the Kantis, of 

 a compdw urgucnt. Whatever it signified 



in old Persian, the Arabic wordy//;///'///, which, like 

 sumh -v.:: an ear or spike, has long been sub- 



stituted for it ; and there can be no doubt that, by 

 ntmbul of India the MusehnanS understand the 

 t with the nard of Ptolemy and the Nar- 

 or Spikenard ', of Galen; who, by the way, 



