Page:Essays on the Chinese Language (1889).djvu/454

440 Kap-pa or something similar. Another old way of writing this name is Ku (古)-pei, supposed by some to be a misprint originally for the above. We find also other forms such as Chieh (i.e. Ka 劫)-pei, and Ka-po-yü (劫波育). According to one author the correct way of writing the name is Ka-po-lo (迦波羅), but this is apparently a mistake. The other forms all seem to point to an original like the Sanskrit Karpasa (" Kurpas ") or a dialectical variety of it such as kapas. By the term ka-pei only the raw cotton is denoted properly, and cotton-cloth is Ka-pei-pu (布). But we very often find Ka-pei also with this latter meaning, and it is always in this sense that it is used in the accounts of tribute sent in the 5th and 6th centuries from-Java and other places to the South and South-west of China. It is worthy of note that the Malay name for cotton, kapas, is taken directly from India, while the Cochin-Chinese name, Kiet-bui, or Ku-bui, is from India through China.

The Sanskrit word Hingu has long supplied a literary and professional name for Asafcetida among the Chinese. This word is written Hsing (Hing)-chü (興渠) and Hing-yü' (ngu) (形虞) and Hun-chü (薰渠), the most common form perhaps being the first Hing-chü. This is used to denote the plants (Ferula Alliacea and F. narthex) and the substance which they yield. We find this word sometimes treated as a native term, and A-wei (阿魏) wrongly given as the Brāhman or Sanskrit name.

The Chinese apply to several plants bearing fruit like those of fennel and coriander the name Shih-lo (蒔蘿). This is evidently the Sanskrit word Jira which denotes Cumin-seed, but it apparently passed into Chinese through the Hindustani and Persian corruption Zila or Zira.

One of the common names for Black Pepper in Sanskrit is Marichi which, in Hindustani is Mirch. This Pepper was introduced into China from India, and its "Magadha" name came