Sino-Iranica - The Search For Mecca

ioo Sino-Iranica
number of additional species as compared with its predecessor. The
introduction of foreign plants begins from the latter part of the second
century B.C., and it was two plants of Iranian origin, the alfalfa and
the grape-vine, which were the first exotic guests in the land of Han.
These were followed by a long line of other Iranian and Central-Asiatic
plants, and this great movement continued down to the fourteenth
century in the Yuan period. The introduction of American species in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries denotes the last phase in
this economic development, which I hope to set forth in a special
monograph. Aside from Iran, it was Indo-China, the Malayan region,
and India which contributed a large quota to Chinese cultivations.
It is essential to realize that the great Iranian plant-movement extends
over a period of a millennium and a half; for a learned legend has been
spread broadcast that most of these plants were acclimatized during
the Han period, and even simultaneously by a single man, the wellknown
general, Can K'ien. It is one of my objects to destroy this
myth. Can K'ien, as a matter of fact, brought to China solely two
plants, — alfalfa and the grape-vine. No other plant is attributed to him
in the contemporaneous annals. Only late and untrustworthy (chiefly
Taoist) authors credit him also with the introduction of other Iranian
plants. As time advanced, he was made the centre of legendary fabrica-
tion, and almost any plant hailing from Central Asia and of doubtful
or obscure history was passed off under his name: thus he was ulti-
mately canonized as the great plant-introducer. Such types will
spring up everywhere under similar conditions. A detailed discussion
of this point will be found under the heading of each plant which by
dint of mere fantasy or misunderstanding has been connected with
Can K'ien by Chinese or European writers. In the case of the spinach
I have furnished proof that this vegetable cannot have been culti-
vated in Persia before the sixth century a.d., so that Can K'ien could
not have had any knowledge of it. All the alleged Cah-K'ien plants
were introduced into China from the third or fourth century a.d. down
to the T'ang period inclusively (618-906). The erroneous reconstruction
alluded to above was chiefly championed by Bretschneider and Hirth;
and A. de Candolle, the father of the science of historical botany, who,
as far as China is concerned, depended exclusively on Bretschneider,
fell victim to the same error.
F. v. Richthofen, 1
reproducing the long
Cah-K'ien plants, observes, "It cannot be assumed that Can K'ien
list of Bretschneider's
himself brought along all these plants and seeds, for he had to travel
1 China, Vol. I, p. 459.