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Early Global Interconnectivity across the Indian Ocean World, Volume II pp 261–293Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Eurasia, Medicine and Trade: Arabic Medicine in East Asia—How It Came to Be There and How It Was Supported, Including Possible Indian Ocean Connections for the Supply of Medicinals

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Part of the book series: Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies ((IOWS))

Abstract

The paper will explore the important Indian Ocean trade in medicinals primarily during the Mongol Era when the Mongols of Iran and China, isolated in the Mongolian world as a whole, sought to establish close connections by sea to cement their alliance. Thanks to these connections, witnessed among other things by the return voyage of Marco Polo, not only did goods and ideas, many of them medical, move between Iran and China, China and Iran but closer long-distance contacts promoted the movement of goods and ideas from a variety of intermediate points as well, particularly those connected with India. Explored in this connection will be a special source for the period, the Huihui yaofang (Muslim Medicinal Recipes) the 450 surviving pages of an encyclopedia of Arabic medicine once 3500 pages in size. Its many recipes are a living witness to just how substantial the movements of medicinals were and how broad the contacts supporting the movements.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Vivian Nutton (2004) Ancient Medicine [Series of Antiquity], 1st ed. (London and New York: Routledge).

  2. 2.

    Dimitri Gutas (1998) Greek Thought, Arabic Culture, the Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ‘Abbāsid Society, Second–Fourth/Eighth–Tenth centuries (New York: Routledge).

  3. 3.

    Paul D. Buell (2010) “Tibetans, Mongols and Cultural Fusion”, in Anna Akasoy, Charles Burnett, and Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim (eds.), Islam and Tibet. Interactions Along the Musk Route (Aldershot: Ashgate), 189–208.

  4. 4.

    Manfred Ullmann (1978) Islamic Medicine (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press); Peter E. Pormann and Emelie Savage-Smith (2007) Medieval Islamic Medicine (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press).

  5. 5.

    For a brief overview of the Clove in China see Edward H. Schafter (1963) The Golden Peaches of Samarkand. A Study of T’ang Exotics (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press), 171–172.

  6. 6.

    Cesar E. Dubler (2011) “Dioscorides”, in David Waines (ed.), Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies [Ei Reference Guides, 3] (Leiden and Boston: E. J. Brill), 228–229.

  7. 7.

    Justin K. Stearns (2011) Infectious Ideas. Contagion in Premodern Islamic and Christian Thought in the Western Mediterranean (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press).

  8. 8.

    Al-Majūsī [fl. Late tenth century] summarized in Manfred Ullmann (1978) Islamic Medicine.

  9. 9.

    All citations of HHYF are from the edition of S. Y. Kong 江潤祥, et al. (1996) Huihui yaofang 回回藥方 (Hong Kong: Zhongguo bianyi yinwu youxian gongsi), all translations are by the author and are strictly copyright.

  10. 10.

    HHYF, 12.142–12.143.

  11. 11.

    HHYF, 12.147.

  12. 12.

    HYYF, 34.435–34.436.

  13. 13.

    The following fruits and vegetables are called for in the HHYF for the dietary treatment of disease (Table of Contents; 264–265): Category: Various Fruits: “Foreign 10,000-Year Jujubes” [Palm Fruits]; Sweet Grapes; Figs; Sweet Pomegranate; Sour Chinese Quince [Chaenomeles speciosa]; Southern Pears; Mulberry; Sour Apple; Plum; Badam [Almonds]; Seedless White Dried Grapes; Hazel Nuts; Nutmeg; Wild Indian Eggplant [Deadly Nightshade Fruits]; Pine Nuts; Hemp Seeds; Sesame; Opium Poppy Seeds. Category: Various Vegetables: [265] Garlic Chives; Coriander; Sadāb [Rue]; Basil [or Mint]; Mavīzak [Pedicularis resupinata]; [Ar.] Bādrūj [Melissa officinalis, Mountain Balm]; Tarkhūn [Tarragon]; Lettuce; Seashore Vitex; Radish; Carrot; Lāfah [Garlic Mustard?]; Chugundur [Sugar Beet]; Garlic; Ampelopsis cantoniensis; Green Onions; Kelan 可藍 [Unidentified]; Spinach; Eggplant; Cimi 刺滷 [or Cimie; Unidentified]; Lizijiao 李子膠 [Unidentified]; Chokrī [dock, Rumex acetosa]; Zumārōg [a Mushroom].

  14. 14.

    See as an introduction Chen Ming 陳明 (2007) “The Transmission of Foreign Medicine via the Silk Roads in Medieval China: A Case Study of the Haiyao Bencao 海藥本草”, Asian Medicine, Tradition and Modernity 3, 241–264.

  15. 15.

    I am endebted to Igor de Rachewiltz for pointing this out to me. The reference is contained in the poetry of the famous Mongol minister Yelu Chucai 耶律楚材 [1189–1243], who exchanged a poem with the doctor in question.

  16. 16.

    Paul Buell, Gene Anderson, and Charles Perry (2010) A Soup for the Qan. Chinese Dietary Medicine of the Mongol Era as Seen in Hu Sihui’s Yinshan Zhengyao [Sir Henry Wellcome Asian Series, 9], 2nd rev. and expanded ed. (Leiden and Boston: E. J. Brill), 24–25.

  17. 17.

    On ‘Isā or Ai-hsieh, see Weng Tu-chien (1938) Ai-hsieh: A Study of His Life (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard University). See now, in passing, the discussion in Thomas T. Allsen (2001) Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia [Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); Paul D. Buell (2007) “How Did Persian and Other Western Medical Knowledge Move East, and Chinese West? A Look at the Role of Rashīd al-Dīn and Others”, Asian Medicine, Tradition and Modernity 3, 278–294.

  18. 18.

    See the discussion of parallel texts in Efraim Lev (2013) “Mediators Between Theoretical and Practical Medieval Knowledge: Medical Notebooks from the Cairo Genizah and Their Significance”, Medical History 57.4, 487–515.

  19. 19.

    S. Y. Kong et al. (1996) Huihui yaofang.

  20. 20.

    Song Xian (2000) Huihui yaofang kaoshi 回回藥方考釋 [Zhongwai jiaotong shiji congkan 中外交通史籍叢刊], 2 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju).

  21. 21.

    HHYF, juan 12, 30, 34.

  22. 22.

    HHYF, 20 juan.

  23. 23.

    Sara Nur Yildiz, Personal Communication, 2011.

  24. 24.

    This point has been developed in Matsui Dai 松井太 (2013) “Mongol Globalism Attested by the Uighur and Mongol Documents”, http://repository.ul.hirosaki-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/10129/2131/1/JinbunShakaiRonso_J22_33.pdf (accessed 6 January 2013).

    See also Endo Mitsuaki 遠藤光曉 (1997) “Wang Shuhe ‘Mai jue’ perushiya goyaku ni hanei shita jūshi seiki sho Chūgokuon” 王叔和《脈訣》ペルツャ語譯ニ反映した 14 世紀初中國音, in Yu Aiqin 余靄芹 and Endo Mitsuaki (eds.), Hashimoto mantarō kinen Chūgoku gogaku ronshū 橋本萬太記念中國語學論集, 61–77. For an introduction to the multilingual character of the Mongol World see also Thomas Allsen (2001) Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia.

  25. 25.

    Paul D. Buell (2010) “Tibetans, Mongols and Cultural Fusion”.

  26. 26.

    Paul D. Buell, Eungene N. Anderson, and Charles Perry (2010) A Soup for the Qan.

  27. 27.

    Paul D. Buell (2010) “Tibetans, Mongols and Cultural Fusion”.

  28. 28.

    On the various foreign traditions present in the Tibetan medicine in China see, as an introduction, Dan Martin (2010) “Greek and Islamic Medicines’ Historical Contact with Tibet: A Reassessment in View of Recently Available But Relatively Early Sources on Tibetan Medical Eclecticism”, in Anna Akasoy, Charles Burnett, and Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim (eds.), Islam and Tibet, Interactions Along the Musk Route (Aldershot: Ashgate), 117–143. I offer particular thanks of Olaf Czaja for sharing the results of his unpublished research in this area with me.

  29. 29.

    Paul D. Buell (2010) “Tibetans, Mongols and Cultural Fusion”.

  30. 30.

    al-Bīrūnī [973–1048] (1973) Al-Bīrūnī’s Book on Pharmacy and Materia Medica, ed. and trans. Hakim Mohammed Said [1920–1998] (Karachi: Hamdard National Foundation).

  31. 31.

    See Martin Levey and Noury Al-Khaledy (1967) The Medical Formulary of Al-Samarqandi (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press).

  32. 32.

    Cyril Elgood (1951) A Medical History of Persia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 216–218.

  33. 33.

    Leigh Chipman (2010) The World of Pharmacy and Pharmacists in Mamlūk Cairo (Leiden and Boston: E. J. Brill).

  34. 34.

    Paul D. Buell (2012) “Qubilai and the Indian Ocean: A New Era?”, in Salvatore Babones and Christopher Chase-Dunn (eds.), Handbook of World-Systems Analysis, 42–43. See also Paul D. Buell (2009) “Indochina, Vietnamese Nationalism, and the Mongols”, in Volker Rybatzki, Alessandra Pozzi, Peter W. Geier, and John R. Krueger (eds.), The Early Mongols: Language, Culture and History Studies in Honour of Igor de Rachewiltz On the Occasion of His 80th Birthday [Indiana University Uralic and Altaic Series, 173] (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), 21–29.

  35. 35.

    Weng Tu-chien (1938) “Ai-hsieh: A Study of His Life”; see also, in passing, the discussion in Thomas Allsen (2001) Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia; Paul D. Buell (2007) “How Did Persian and Other Western Medical Knowledge Move East”, 278–294.

  36. 36.

    See, as an introduction, Felix Klein-Franke and Ming Zhu (1996) “Rashīd Ad-Dīn as a Transmitter of Chinese Medicine to the West”, Le Muséon 109, 395–404; Felix Klein-Franke and Ming Zhu (1998) “Rashid ad-Din and the Tansuqnamah, The Earliest Translation of Chinese Medical Literature in the West”, Le Muséon 111, 427–445. Like the HHYF, the Tanksūq-nāma as it survives today is only a fragment of what once was a much larger text and some of the material seems even to have been lost shortly after the work was compiled since someone early supplemented lost sections with material from other sources. See Felix Klein-Franke and Ming Zhu (1996) “Rashīd Ad-Dīn as a Transmitter”, 399–400. Note that, as in the HHYF, much of the material in the Tanksūq-nāma has been adapted with Arabic humoral medicine in mind even to the extent of distorting the Chinese content of the text in some cases, e.g., the so-called Rashīd Ad-Dīn introduction, for example; cf. op. cit., 400–401.

  37. 37.

    Matsui Dai (2013) “Mongol Globalism Attested by the Uighur and Mongol Documents”.

  38. 38.

    One is even called that, made with red currants. Cf. Paul D. Buell, Eugene N. Anderson and Charles Perry (2010) A Soup for the Qan, 374–375. In fact the entire section from which this recipe comes shows overwhelming Arabic influence even if not openly labelled as Arabic.

  39. 39.

    Op. cit., 551.

  40. 40.

    See for example material in Nawal Nasrallah (2007) Annals of the Caliphs‘Kitchens, Ibn Sayyār al-Warrāq’s Tenth-Century Baghdadi Cookbook, English Translation with Introduction and Glossary (Leiden and Boston: E. J. Brill).

  41. 41.

    Paul D. Buell, Eugene N. Anderson, and Charles Perry (2010) A Soup for the Qan, 265–267.

  42. 42.

    Efraim Lev and Zohar Amar (2008) Practical Materia Medica of the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean According to the Cariro Genizah (Leiden and Boston: E. J. Brill).

  43. 43.

    Efraim Lev and Zohar Amar (2008) Practical Materia Medica, 516–558.

  44. 44.

    Op. cit., 550–552.

  45. 45.

    Ian Johnston and G. H. R. Horsley, trans. and eds. (2011) Galen: Methods of Medicine [Loeb Classical Library], 3 vols. (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press), I, cxxxv–cxxxvii.

  46. 46.

    The reasons for such an assumption are: (1) the known infrastructure for Arabic medicine during the Yuan period, (2) known large scale contacts, via Isā, the Translator and Iran, for example, (3) differences between what was apparently a given body of medicinals and what became a body of medicinals with many substitutions, in the Ming edition, (4) manuscript evidence for a long history of transmission as witnessed by corruptions in Arabic script entries and their apparent loss, in cases where the Arabic script entries simply write out a Chinese transcription in many cases, and last but not least, and (5) there is a pervasive Uighur influence in the HHYF. This influence makes great sense for a Yuan text but not for a Ming one. We (co-author Eugene N. Anderson and myself) intend to deal with these considerations in future publications. Future research will also deal with the question of the original sources of the HHYF, in so far as they can be known.

  47. 47.

    George F. Hourani (1995) Arabic Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times, rev. and expanded by John Carswell (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

  48. 48.

    For the earliest period of the trade see Wang Gungwu (1958) “The Nanhai Trade: A Study of the Early History of Chinese Trade in the South China Sea”, Journal of the Malaysian Branch, Royal Asiatic Society 31.2, 1–135.

  49. 49.

    Deng Gang (1999) Maritime Sector, Institutions, and Sea Power of Premodern China [Contributions in Economics and Economic History, 212] (Westport, CT and London: Greenwood Press).

  50. 50.

    See now the important study by Virgil Ciolcîltan (2012) The Mongols and the Black Sea Trade in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, trans. Samuel Willcoks [East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages] (Leiden and Boston: E. J. Brill).

  51. 51.

    Paul Wheatley (1959) “Geographical Notes on Some Commodities Involved in the Song Maritime Trade”, Journal of the Malaysian Branch, Royal Asiatic Society, 32.2, 1–139.

  52. 52.

    Juan 30.

  53. 53.

    Juan 12.

  54. 54.

    Garcia da Orta [c. 1501 or 1502–1568] (1891) Colóquios des Simples e Drogas da Índia, ed. and annotated by Conde de Ficalho, 2 vols. (Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional).

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  1. University of North Georgia, Dahlonega, USA

    Paul D. Buell

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  1. University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria

    Angela Schottenhammer

  2. Research Director of the Indian Ocean World Centre (IOWC), McGill University, Montreal, Canada

    Angela Schottenhammer

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Buell, P.D. (2019). Eurasia, Medicine and Trade: Arabic Medicine in East Asia—How It Came to Be There and How It Was Supported, Including Possible Indian Ocean Connections for the Supply of Medicinals. In: Schottenhammer, A. (eds) Early Global Interconnectivity across the Indian Ocean World, Volume II. Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97801-7_10

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